Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with return

I used to have a dearth of iPhones. Now I have a glut of iPhones.

harperpitt — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:11:09 -0800

Last week I lost my iPhone. Yesterday my new iPhone was delivered. Today we discovered my original iPhone lying face-down in my front yard. Now what? After drinking way too much bourbon, I woke up last week to find that my iPhone 3GS had disappeared. After tearing up the house looking for it, I resigned myself to the fact that it was lost or stolen, and I bought a replacement.

Through at&t's website, I "upgraded" my phone to a refurbished 3G model with only 8GB of memory, as opposed to the 16 my 3GS had. I paid $250 and reset my contract to get this new refurbished model, which was delivered yesterday.

Today, my roommate discovered my first iPhone laying face-down in the mud of our front lawn. Its sturdy rubber casing prevented it from getting any (obvious) damage, and it boots up just fine. Obviously, I have no idea if there are any problems with the phone I can't see.

So now what do I do?

- Can I return the crappier iPhone to at&t? Can I get my money back, or my contract changed back?

- Should I do this, or is the second iPhone (crappier though it may be) safer, since it's never been exposed to water?

- Can I take the iPhone Mark I to an Apple store to find out if there's any insidious damage I can't see?

- Is there anything else I should be thinking about here?

- Can/should I make the iPhones duel to the death?

Rental Car Scratch

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:55:49 -0800

Ever scratch a rental car in Europe? Relatively minor bumper scratch. Looking over the paperwork, it appears I've screwed up and not purchased the coverage I intended to, so I'm assuming I'll have to pay (and there's no need to discuss that further, lesson learned). Credit card coverage not active. I do have US insurance, no access to the policy wording right now.

How much did it cost you? Online travel forums have interesting answers, but they tend to attract the most unhappy examples. Question anonymous just in case there's a dispute pending. Thanks.

How to guarantee return postage into the future.

SirStan — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:31:50 -0800

Return Postage - Forever? I have an item that will be traveling from volunteer to volunteer throughout the USA. This item has been abandoned twice (not forwarded on). I would like to provide with this item an "emergency return shipping" label inside the box with the item such that a future volunteer who does not have the means or desire to ship the item on will be able to simply toss the label on the box and send it back to me, and I will coordinate its continued travels.

I have sent back numerous APC batteries with undated/unaddressed labels -- however when I try to create a "return" label on ups.com they want a 'from' address.

How can I achieve something similar to what APC does to allow me to return batteries to them (also; 3rd party toner frequently has these return labels).

I would like this label to be usable for 3+ years.

Should I give a dead stranger's book to his children?

Salvor Hardin — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 12:22:02 -0800

I found a neat antique book, and now I've tracked down its old owner. He's dead. Should I offer to give it to his children? I found a CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics 25th edition from 1941 at a recycling center! It's in excellent shape, and, being a physicist, it'll make for a cool desk piece. It has a name and address handwritten on the inside cover.

I did some googling on the person who wrote his name on the inside cover, and I found his NYTimes obituary. He died a year and a half ago at age 88. He sounds like he was a pretty interesting guy - an orthopedic surgeon, lecturer, college track star, golf enthusiast, ran the Boston marathon, served in US Army Medical Corps, animal rights philanthropist, etc.

I also located his five children (he also has many grandchildren and even a few great-grandchildren).

Now for my question:

Would it be a nice gesture to contact one of his children and offer to send the book to him? I feel like this could be a touchy situation, since I know little about these people or their former patriarch. The only sign of his ownership is the name handwritten on the front inside cover along with a home and school address.

Note: I realize of course that I am not obligated to return the book to his children - just asking if it's a nice idea or a stupid idea. Thanks hive mind!

Once again back is the incredible / the rhyme animal / etc etc etc

Cantdosleepy — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:14:21 -0800

Your favourite 'Back' and 'Return' songs. Music fans - hit me! Hi all,

A sibling is returning from a far-off place and I'm driving to the airport to collect. I need to make a badass mixtape full of returning songs.

Provisos:
*It's a sibling - so no romantic 'got you back so let's make love'-type songs.
*Cheese-wise we're talking power cheese or no cheese at all. The compelling stupidity of Backstreet's Back is a good choice. The over-every-college-movie-montage horror of The Boys are Back in Town is less okay. Back in the USSR and Get Back are great. Tangential stuff like Back from Fan Francisco by Magnetic Fields is good too.
* The sibling is not into the metal.
*The sibling will likely by hysterical with jet lag. Subtle cuts from a dubstep mixtape with 'back' in the title will likely go right over heads.

Thanks!

What happens if I try to return a free, opened iPod?

alitorbati — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:06:21 -0800

A friend recently bought a MacBook for college and, through Apple's promotion, got a free iPod Touch with it. I have a few questions: 1) If the iPod is opened, can it still be returned? 2) What will happen if Apple does take it back, since technically the owner payed nothing for it? (Store credit, perhaps?) and 3) If the iPod should somehow malfunction through no fault of the owner, would Apple replace it as they would any other purchased iPod still under warranty?

Quarter Life Regression, or how to get back into Magic: The Gathering

utsutsu — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:34:27 -0800

What is the best way to get back into Magic: The Gathering? I played the game (as well as others) a lot as a teenager and recently my best friend has been introduced to the game and is addicted something fierce.

I would like to join him in his quest but here is my situation:

- I've lost my old cards except for a small handful.

- I would like to get in on the cheap-ish, sub $200 for sure. Where can I get cards for the cheapest either online or in the real world in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada?

- What is my best bet for buying cards? What sets? Starters? Boosters? Boxes of boosters? Boxes of boosters split with said friend?

- Any particularly crushing black themed decks currently? I played a black / blue back in the day that relied on Nightmares to do the heavy hitting and Royal Assassins (before they nerfed with with a cost for their ability) to thin out any pesky attackers.

Thanks for any advice including, but not limited to, "waste of money, don't bother, you are a huge nerd"

Any way to return a car that's making my mother's back hurt.

kfs27 — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:28:45 -0800

My mother recently traded in a 2004 Subrau Outback and bought a 2007 model of the same car a few weeks ago. She loved the car when test driving and was very happy with it for the first few weeks. Now she is finding that it is aggravating her back problems and causing her extreme amounts of pain. She has tried adjusting the seat in all ways and even called her doctor (who wasn't much help, so she's going to try to talk to someone else) She's only put a few hundred miles on it so far. Most searching I've done has shown that she really has no hope but to sell the car back and that maybe the dealer will be nice if she bought her old one back or bought a different vehicle.

Any ideas? Is there any hope?

Tax Hell

mand0 — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 05:30:03 -0800

I forgot to claim a $4,000 contribution to a Roth IRA account during the 2006 tax season. How do I go about claiming this in the 2007 tax season? (more inside) Now as far as I understand, claiming a contribution to a Roth IRA on your taxes can only help you (i.e. give you a larger refund). So I shouldn't be in any trouble for forgetting. Is that correct? Can I claim the contribution I made in 2006 in 2007 or do I have to amend my 2006 tax return?

Just want to do my homework before I visit a tax professional, thanks :)

Filing for child tax credit separately

mithiirym — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:18:14 -0800

Is it legal to file for child tax credit separately? We have three children and will get roughly $7,000 back on our return this year if my girlfriend claims all three children on her own. If I claim one our kids on my own, she'll get about $6,000 and I'll get $2,500 which would help us out a lot more than her claiming them all. Is this legal? It seems like a good idea when it comes to the return, but I don't know if we'd be allowed to do it like that or not. Any advice?

Where can I return bottles in New York City?

oaf — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:29:37 -0800

Where can I return bottles in New York City? I just moved to New York, and my building doesn't take plastic bottles for recycling. I also just noticed that I'm paying a deposit on them, and it would be nice to get it back.

I've seen this question, but it doesn't answer the question of where I can take bottles myself. Searching Google just turns up pages supporting and opposing bottle bills.

I live near Columbia University, in case you can recommend somewhere nearby.

You ever do a google search for "iMac fan"? Yeah. Pointless.

sourwookie — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 00:15:26 -0800

So I just got the newest iMac today (the one that was announced last week). After 4 hours or so of use the fan has kicked on in a most noisy way and it won't shut down. Restarting does nothing. Take time to let it cool. Restart. Just more fan. So...anyone got a "here-n-now" fix or do I take it back to the store in the morning?

After the eurail pass, the white picket fence?

vytae — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 11:29:52 -0800

Past and present world travelers, backpackers, and real-world avoiders: where are you now? Answers to previous AskMe posts indicate that many of you have abandoned or postponed the "real world" to go on grand adventures around the world at some point in your lives. You decided to wander around Europe or Asia for a year after college, you joined the Peace Corps, you dropped out of corporate life to hike the Appalachian Trail, etc. Any time someone asks, "Should I go?" the majority of you answer with a resounding "Yes!"

My question is what you've done since your grand adventure, and how (or whether) you've adjusted to a more "normal" lifestyle. Did your extended travel experience get the wanderlust out of your system? Did you return to a nine-to-five cube-farm job that satisfies you, now that you've seen the world? Or did your post-college trip turn into 30 years of traveling around the world on the cheap? Or maybe you came home with the knowledge that you could never stand the rat race, and now you lead some kind of "alternative" lifestyle back home. Whatever it is that you're doing now, I want to hear about how you made the transition. Is it possible to build a satisfying life after an incredible vagabonding experience?

Drowning in gifts

SBMike — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:35:06 -0800

[PostingForGirlfriendFilter] What to do about my girlfriend's mother's excessive gift-giving? So my girlfriend has the same problem every year at around this time (both around Christmas and her birthday, which is also in Dec.) with the gifts her mother sends. If it were simply a case of receiving gifts she didn't like, the obvious answer would be to just accept the gifts graciously and lie to the mother, but there is quite a bit more to the situation. In looking for similar threads, I found this thread which should give you some idea of the types of gifts she buys. Her mother is really quite unreasonable about the whole gift giving experience in the following ways:

-We have a small apartment, and since we are both in our 20s, we tend to move around a lot. My girlfriend has told her repeatedly that we don't have room for large gifts or things that take up a lot of space, but she insists on sending whatever she has picked out regardless of size. She also tends to send a lot of gifts at once, when we really do not have room in our apartment. My girlfriend has often requested entertainment such as CDs, DVDs, etc. that she can enjoy without filling up our apartment, but the mother will not listen to gift requests. We have actually ended up taking many of her gifts to Goodwill by the bagful just to free up space in our apartment. This affects me too, as I don't like a cluttered apartment.

-The mother is completely against "practical" gifts. In this interpretation, practical means anything my girlfriend might actually enjoy as well as mundane items that we need. We are both recently out of school, don't have much money, and would actually really appreciate it if she sent us a gift we could use. Actually my girlfriend would be quite happy if she didn't send any gifts, but gave her peace of mind by paying off some of her bills or helping her with student loans, or even a gift certificate to a chain store, but the mother won't hear of such practical gifts. Her idea of an ideal gift is a decoration for the apartment (which we don't need) or more furniture (definitely don't need).

-The gifts come with stipulations. Knowing that my girlfriend actually doesn't like many of the gifts she gets, she continues to buy the same types of gifts but will then tell my girlfriend not to give away or return any of the gifts. She expects my girlfriend to keep every single thing she gets her for all of time. Our apartment is literally filled with boxes holding previous years' gifts, and they just sit there. If it were just a matter of a few gifts, we could take them out when she came to visit, but it is small gifts by the dozens.

-The returnability of the gifts is virtually null anyway. It would be great if my girlfriend could return the gifts she doesn't like and use the money to buy something that would make her happy, but while the mother spends quite a bit of money on the gifts, they cannot really be sold on ebay or returned to a store.

-There is the issue of taste. The mother uses gift-giving to impose her tastes on my girlfriend, who feels some obligation to keep the gifts even if she doesn't like them. She doesn't understand my girlfriend's tastes at all, and sees my girlfriend's dislike of her gifts as a character flaw. She blatantly picks out gifts that she would like without thinking about my girlfriend's wants at all. Like I said before, in our apartment of limited space, we would like to set the decor with items of our choosing. She also does not know my girlfriend's size as far as clothing goes and routinely gets clothing that is too big for her.

-She attaches sentimental value to everything. Not just to the occasional gift that clearly took some thought and effort to pick out or that she made herself, but to little knick-knacks, paperclips, the boxes that the gifts come in, shoes, clothing, small pillows, everything has so much meaning and sentiment attatched to it, which notches up the guilt factor quite a bit.

-My girlfriend and I are concerned about the environment, and we are upset with the wastefulness of the gift-giving. There is the excessive packaging she uses (much of which is non-recyclable) as well as the cost in fuel to ship large items across the country. Once again, smaller gifts would solve this problem, but the mother is persistent.

I know this is coming across as us sounding terribly ungrateful and bratty, but this happens every single year, and all the guilt associated with the expectations of the mother really wears on my girlfriend, and make her hate receiving gifts when it is something that should make her happy. She has tried everything, from politely suggesting gifts (doesn't work), to asking the mother to donate the money to charity rather than spending it on her (to which she says that she will donate money to charity and buy gifts for her), to asking her to forego gifts alltogether (she won't). This upsets me, since I see the mother spending lots of money on gifts for her daughter without caring that my girlfriend doesn't like the gifts at all, when she could spend a lot less and make my girlfriend a lot happier. I suppose it'll be clear to most of you that this isn't the only issue that exists between my girlfriend and her mom, but it is one that comes up every year without fail. How do we end the madness?

how do I calculate my 401K return?

dy — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 11:20:49 -0800

I've been scratching my head this whole morning, trying to figure out how my 401K is doing, my own account per se. The personalized rate of return on my statement takes into consideration other factors that don't really apply to me, and thus I think it's not a true indicator of my account performance.
I tried to find an MS Excel function to do this; so far, I have not had any luck. What I want to find out is the average return per week or per quarter given these known numbers on my statement:

1. a beginning balance in dollars (B)
2. an ending balance (E)
3. number of weeks contributed in this quarter (N)
4. weekly contribution amount (W)
5. total quarterly investment additions (W x N)

FYI, the contribution is made on a weekly basis for a same amount. It's 100% vested and is invested in one plan. What is the formula to calculate this weekly return? Thanks a lot.

Tricking the post office?

gfrobe — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 12:07:51 -0800

When addressing a letter, if I was to intentionally switch the destination and return address and then drop it into a mailbox without a stamp, would it get to where I originally wanted it to go? Obviously it's not worth the hassle to save the price of a stamp but I'm just curious if the post office would be legally obliged to return to sender. And if so, would this just work locally or could you do it cross country?

Return and delete don't work in OS X

Mo Nickels — Wed, 24 May 2006 19:35:07 -0800

I've just copied all my data from an iBook G4 to a Macbook. For some reason, the delete and return keys don't work in Safari and Mail.app on the Macbook. I think I've solved this before but I can't remember how and can't find the answer. I've updated everything to the latest binary. Only Saft is installed as an input manager. Application Enhancer is not installed.

My Ex-Boyfriend's Back

hamster — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:17:32 -0800

What to do now that the ex is back in town? I lived with my ex-boyfriend for more than three years, until he ended it and went on tour. Two days after it ended, while he was still sleeping in my bed, he hooked up with a woman five years younger than me (she's 20, he's 26) who shares my name, and went out of his way to flaunt their relationship. Gross.

I met a wonderful man a month after the breakup, and though I'm taking it slowly, he's a very nice presence in my life. I've bought a home, had a lot of career success, lost ten pounds ... in short, I'm recovering nicely from a very tough heartbreak. It helped to know that the ex would be out of town, and we haven't spoken in four months.

...Though now I've had word that his tour ended early, and he's emailing mutual friends from a cafe near my home. He's living in the same small corner of the city as me; odds are I'll be seeing him everywhere soon, and possibly with that pre-pubescent slag.

I'm not sure what it will feel like to see him, and I'd like some advice on what to expect. Will it ever get easier to see him? What will he be thinking when he sees me? How to deal with the anxiety of knowing I'll run into him? It's like knowing I'll be hit soon with a baseball bat.

Taxes so simple you don't need to file?

smackfu — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 06:44:13 -0800

Do any countries have a tax system where the average taxpayer doesn't file a return but does pay taxes?

How have you previously resolved disputes with retailers?

sequential — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 21:44:26 -0800

Today, I attempted to exchange gift without a receipt or a credit card at a Best Buy store. It did not go well. Please help me resolve the dispute that resulted from my experience. Long story short, I entered my local Best Buy with an unopened box of software. I explained the kind of exchange I was hoping to do to a CSR. If she had said that I needed a receipt then and there, I would have left the store immediately and contacted the gift giver for a receipt. Instead, she responded by taking the box out of my sight to the Geek Squad area. While out of my sight, the box was opened and rummaged through, then returned to me. The CSR reemerged and explained that Best Buy did not accept returns or exchanges of any kind without a receipt. She then handed me the now obviously opened box, to which I demanded a replacement so that I could leave the store with my personal property in the same condition it was when I entered. She refused, took the box once again, disappeared, and returned with a manager. The manager repeatedly insulted me, didn't take a second to listen, outright refused my request, and accused me of lying.

After sharing a few choice words, I was banned from the store permanently and chased out of the store. To be fair, I had remained calm and collected the entire time I was in the store, though I did defend myself. However, when the manager simply rubber stamped his employees opening of the software, I shared a few choice explatives in my normal talking voice, and saluted Best Buy with my middle finger as I walked out of the store. I'm not proud of how I handled that part, but my behavior did not have any bearing on why they opened the box in the first place.

How would you get your money back? The resale value of the product is a few dollars on Amazon.com or eBay, so simply turning it around is not acceptable. Has anyone ever had luck with Best Buy's email or telephone customer service? Previous experience tells me that I'll get a scripted response. Is it worth the effort to file complaints with the FTC, my state's AG, and the BBB? Previous experience tells me that virtually nothing will come of the effort. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

(And don't hesitate to vent about your experiences, as that may be the best answer in the long run.)

Returned Gift to Company for Refund; Chargeback Given to Gift-Giver

bonheur — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 14:46:01 -0800

Is there a good way to go about returning or exhanging gifts without embarrassing anybody? [MI] I was raised to believe that gifts should be treasured and returning a gift is a slap in the face to the giver. However, going through my stuff during a recent move made me realize how many gifts I have sitting around with the tags still on that I will never use. I decided that this year, any gifts I won't use I'll return to the store for an exchange or refund. Lo and behold, I received one particularly expensive item I decided I didn't need, so I contacted the store (in another state) and arranged to ship them the item in exchange for a refund. I received a letter from the store today containing a credit card receipt, and stating that the refund had been made to the credit card the item was purchased with. What do I do now? Contact the original giver and explain the situation and ask them to write me a check? Contact the store and try to wheedle a check out of them? Pretend nothing has happened? I'm embarrassed, and I'm afraid the gift-giver will be too. Help.

Found iPod

weston — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 11:22:32 -0800

My brother found an iPod a while back. He sent it to me as a gift. I'm delighted, but wonder if Apple has a registration program which I should use to try to return it to the previous owner. And if that doesn't work out, I'm wondering what the essential accessories would be, since this is just the iPod.