Tip 80: The art and science of the store return
Returning things to the store is sometimes a convenient way
to get money for items you later realized you don’t need or that didn't work
out for you. The rules that stores have
place restrictions on returns and can make it hard to get your money back. Here are some tips on returning items to the
store that you might think couldn't be returned.
When I was moving out of a house, I found some project items
and building materials in the attic for projects I never got around to
doing. There are a few ceiling lights
and things like this. Although they were
purchased several years ago, they were still new in the box. I decided to try to return them to the
store. Of course, I no longer had a
receipt. I was pleasantly surprised to
see the items ring up and I received a gift card for store credit for the full
price of the items. I was probably
better off not having a receipt- most receipts for returns expire after 6
months anyway. So the lesson here is
that if you have new-in-the-box unused items,
you might as well try to return them.
Someone else can use them, and you can get a full refund, even if it is
in the form of a gift card.
Another successful return was my cherry tree. I bought a cherry tree at Lowe's in the spring
and planted it in my front yard. Trees
from Lowe's have a 1 year guarantee, and I put the receipt in a safe place, just
in case. The summer was extremely hot
and dry. Even thought I watered the tree
a lot, it dropped its leaves in August which is at least a month early. I decided to give the tree a chance to come
back the following spring before returning it.
Unfortunately, it did not leaf out in the spring and was completely
dead. I decided to take the tree back to
exchange it, but during the year that had passed, I forgot where I put the
receipt. I should have kept it in the
box with all of my other receipts, but for some reason I tried to put it
somewhere special and lost track of it.
It took some serious effort to get a refund for the tree
without a receipt. The tree still had
the tag on it, but they would not do a refund without the receipt- too many
problems with returning trees to a different store is what one clerk told me. I ended up bringing the tree in several times
and explaining that I had a hole in my yard and that I wanted to get a new tree
started. No luck. There was a way to search records for the
purchase, which we attempted, but they needed the date of purchase which I did
not have. I was beginning to worry about
the 1 year limit on the guarantee expiring.
After several weeks of working to return the tree, I walked
into Lowe's with the dead tree and a shoebox full of receipts from Lowes. Of course, I did not have the receipt for the
tree, but I had tons of other ones from years of shopping there. My point was that I was a regular customer at
that Lowe's store location, and I had a tree with Lowes tags on it that I was
trying to return. I asked to see the
store manager to go through my situation and the receipts with him. The clerk recognized me and called the store
manager. After a brief exchange, they
offered me a gift card with the full price of the tree. I happily headed back to the nursery to pick
out a replacement.
There are a few lessons to take from this story: 1) keep track of your receipts, 2) if you are
returning something under warranty, don't wait until the last minute, and 3)
persistence often pays off when trying to return something.
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