Long “celebrated” by consumers for its lenient return policies, CostCo has begun to feel burned by its nice guy persona. Customers have taken advantage of the policy to an unfair degree, returning ancient items in exchange for newer, fancier devices. Great for the customer, bad for business.

In response, CostCo is cutting its open-ended return policy back to 90 days—which is still pretty damn good. It will also be extending the warranties on TVs and PCs for total of two years. And it will start a technical support hotline in order to provide assistance to frustrated consumers.

While it sucks to see this go away, I really can’t complain. For starters, we don’t have CostCo in Louisiana, so it’s irrelevant to me. But, speaking reasonably, that return policy was shenanigans. A total money pit for the company and wholly unnecessary.

Costco tightens return policy on electronics [MSNBC]