From entire lawn sets to used toilets, these are the most ridiculous returns employees from Costco, Walmart, and Target say they've ever gotten

Not all returns are made in good faith.

The National Retail Federation estimated that Americans returned $351 billion worth of goods in 2017 — or 10% of all sales. Of those returns, it estimated that $22.8 billion worth of goods qualified as fraudulent returns. That's equal to about 6.5% of total returns.

A Home Depot employee told Business Insider about one customer who attempted to return a power tool in its case.

"They re-taped the box, kept the tool, and returned the tool case filled with cans of spaghetti and ravioli to weigh it down," the employee said. "It was neatly packed and re-zipped to make us think it was the original purchase."

A Target team member told Business Insider that the stores have a $200 limit on returns made sans receipts, and that customers who return items without receipts receive a store credit in lieu of money.

The team member told Business Insider about witnessing a shopper attempt to exchange a razor without a receipt.

"She had hit her $200 limit — meaning that she couldn't return it," the team member said. "She left 20 minutes later, a different woman came in with the exact same razor — in the same Walmart bag, even — to return it with her license. Not surprisingly, she had also hit her limit."

But other shoppers successfully exploit return policies.

A different Target team member told Business Insider that one man returned several sets of bedsheets, claiming that his wife had bought too many.

"They were $150 a piece," the Target team member said. "He had a limit on his ID. He didn't have the receipt. We exchanged it for a $450 camera. He bought those sheets from a secondhand store."

Costco is known for its generous return policy. According to employees, members can even get away with returning mostly eaten food.

A Costco employee of 12 years told Business Insider that they wanted customers to "stop bringing half-eaten food and saying it was bad."

They added that they've seen shoppers return clean-picked bones and explain that the "meat was no good, but they had to feed their family something."

And a different employee of the warehouse chain described seeing members bring back "all-eaten pies or baked goods," only to claim that they hadn't liked the food.

A Walmart associate told Business Insider that they saw a shopper return "a pair of underwear that was already worn."

A team member at Target described a similar incident in which a guest returned "a shirt that had been worn, washed, and reeked of cigarettes. We didn't even carry the brand that it was."

The store accepted the return, and then tossed it out in the trash.

A Costco member in California said that they frequently saw members "abusing our incredible return system." The employee listed a few of the most ridiculous returns they had witnessed, including "smelly socks, 20-year-old refrigerators, and stained mattresses."

"We've seen it all," the employee told Business Insider.

A different Costco employee described how a woman returned two dirty, five-year-old toilets to their warehouse.

"She said she 'didn't need them anymore,'" the employee said. "She didn't even clean them. I'm embarrassed that we ended up taking them back, but we did make her take them outside and clean them before we did."

Other Costco employees told Business Insider about customers who returned "a 10-year-old vacuum," "10-year-old mattresses," and "dead roses."

A California-based Costco employee told Business Insider that it's always annoying when people try to return "things that are 10 years old and 'just stopped working.'"

These kinds of returns don't just happen at Costco, though — a Target team member told Business Insider that they once encountered a person attempting to return an old, open box of condoms.

Sometimes, retail workers encounter shoppers who try to return items that they clearly purchased elsewhere.

And sometimes, those shoppers succeed.

A Walmart associate from Tennessee described witnessing a customer return a product from Kmart.

"It was accepted with the Kmart sticker on it," the associate told Business Insider.

A different Walmart associate said they saw someone try to get a refund on "a gallon of out-of-date milk from Kroger."

Meanwhile, two Target team members described seeing shoppers attempt to return Walmart-branded clothing.

"I don't work in customer service often, but I did have someone try to return a non-Target item," a third Target employee told Business Insider. "She kept insisting she bought it here."

Are you a retail worker who's had to deal with ridiculous returns? Email acain@businessinsider.com.