Can you explain how you see this as the same thing? And not returns fraud?

It’s not returns fraud - he was operating entirely within their policy, just returned too much stuff too often and BB eventually figured out they weren’t making money off him.

I don’t think he was even intending to return things when he bought them. Dude just had high standards.

What kind of arbitrage makes money returning things to Best Buy?

Something stupidly easy to catch, like putting a different TV in the box.

Fraud

Years and years ago I had the misfortune of knowing someone that bragged about how he'd buy a video card at best buy, swap a dead card in it, then redo the shrink wrap at his job (an indie computer place) before returning it. There's lots of banal scummy scams you can do like that.

I specifically know of people who abuse the Best Buy membership alongside the return policy to essentially rent equipment for periods of time.

Likewise. The guy bought two laptops to compare for a week and returned the one he didn’t like, then later that year did the same thing between two TVs. When he went to return the TV he didn’t want, he was told he was banned from returning any other good to Best Buy and it’s monitored against his credit card.

He now pays with cash.

Perhaps after just two events that might seem a little harsh, but I definitely understand the store's reasoning here. You've got a guy that is pretty much guaranteed to lose you money in the form of his regular auditioning of big ticket items (can't sell that returned item for full price anymore). Why would a store want to keep a customer like that?

Even if you pay with cash, they still check your ID when you return things and keep track of how much you return.

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here. I've definitely seen my fair share of people on Reddit who seem to regularly have the misfortune of opening video card boxes only to find rocks inside. Multiple times -- just a coincidence, I'm sure. Not saying the person you know does this, but return scamming is definitely a thing.

This dude wasn’t doing that, he was just using Best Buy as an extended trial period for whatever new gadgets looked cool. Eventually they decided they weren’t making any money off him.

A brick and mortar casino down here banned a guy for some bathroom activity. But made him agree that it’s to everyone’s advantage if they agreed it was because he was a sharp.