There are several issues in the original story.
First, there's the issue of restocking fees. Customers should be clearly told that there will be a restocking fee prior to the purchase. It's not good enough to put a sign at Customer Service saying which items will have these fees, but in fact I've never seen such a sign in a Crappy store. Even putting a notice on the receipt isn't sufficient notice, but Crappy didn't even go that far. And there isn't even anything on the web site about restocking fees at all.
Then, there's the question of when a fee it to be charged. Since the web site, store signage and receipt are silent on this point, we can only guess what rules were used. But, if all the store needed to do was hang the bike back up, then there's no justification for a fee.
There is also the issue of 'original condition'. The customer said it "had a few scuffs on the seat", so it wasn't even in 'original condition' for them. Either it wasn't looked after in the store, or it has already been used and then returned. So, the customer didn't even get it in "original condition" when they purchased it. The customer went on to say, "returned in same condition as bought" and had "used once to go around the block twice to try out". So, it was in "original condition", and this should not have been an issue.
In otherwords it was not in the same condition as when you bought it. It's not considered new when you ride it around the block outside on the dirt/pavement.
There is no reason to assume that the bike was dirty - the customer even said that this was not the case. You are just making things up, to try to justify the poor treatment that this customer received.
The restocking fee was more than likely because the bicycle was used and could not be resold under the conditions of it being new and unused.
More guess-work and assumptions that are not justified.
If we are taking turns making wild guesses, the fee was more than likely an attempt to rip off a customer who merely wanted to return an unsatisfactory item in its original condition, according to the store's own policies.
The original story, and the resonse of CT_MANGER, are warning to other consumers to avoid Crappy Tire. If consumers decide to take a risk by purchasing from Crappy Tire, then need to be very wary of hidden fees and unstated policies.