Before You Shop at Best Buy You Need to Know About Their New Return Policy

If you shop at Best Buy, be forewarned about their return policy:  To return something you need to present your receipt and a government-issued photo ID, such as a driver's license or passport. And not only that: Best Buy will scan your license and keep that data, reports the Consumerist.

You read that correctly: Best Buy keeps your driver's license information.

According to Best Buy as reported by the Consumerist: "All information is captured in accordance with state and federal laws regarding consumer privacy; while the information captured varies from state-to-state, it includes ID card identification number, name and date of birth."  Best Buy says that the information is stored in a "secure third party database" and that your information will never be sold or used for marketing.

This new policy, which you can read here, raises questions and concerns. There's no such thing as a secure database, despite what Best Buy says. As for the information never being sold or used for marketing, we've heard that song before.  Best Buy probably wants to be able to track repeat returners -- that's why they're collecting personal information from everyone who returns an item.

Best Buy uses the services of a company called The Retail Equation, TRE, to store the data. Why use another company? There's some speculation that Best Buy wants to coordinate with other merchants who use TRE so that they can spot people who return items from other stores as well.

Best Buy may not be able to insist that you show identification if you're returning something because it's defective: Stores are required to take back items that don't work. But good luck convincing Best Buy of that.