Store Returns: What You Need to Know 3by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 03 Nov 2009 07:09 AM Now we start the busiest shopping season. We will do our careful research to get the best deals possible. But what after all of that we wind up with some things that we just don't want or don't need? And what about things that don't work? I remember one year, there must have been a problem with the manufacturing, but we went through three different "Mousetrap" board games because they were all missing pieces. On the last exchange, I couldn't find the receipt, so I was out of luck. While some store will allow you to return items without a receipt, it is getting harder and harder to do this. Many stores will allow you to make a return without a receipt if the item is $12 or less. Still you will only get the lowest price that the item has even been, not necessarily the price you paid. Even if they allow the return, they may require your drivers license number and a signature. This is to prevent fraud. There tends to be a lot of fraud with returns. Sometimes people actually steal items and then try to return them. Or, they buy the items somewhere else for less and then return the item and make money off of it. Sometimes people even get items for free through promotions and then try to return them for money. There are two ways to organize receipts. You can keep the receipt with the item if possible (such as taping it to the underside of a mattress, lamp, etc), or you can create a central system to store all of your receipts. The first method works well for gifting. Simply include the gift receipt in the box with the gift. For the second method, you can get fairly organized enough so that you won't lose the receipts, or really organized so you can use them to maximum advantage. This will depend on your personality. The simplest method is to store them all in a large envelope by month. As long as you know which month you purchased an item and where you store your envelopes, you'll be fine. Well, I didn't get to those special rules for electronics, but I'll make a special effort to cover that all in the next post! You can read more blog posts by Mary Ann Romans here! Favorite Deal Websites: Related Articles: Store Returns: What You Need to Know Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantfrugal tags User Comments No comments on this article yet. Be the first to comment! Discuss this article
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