neat future purchase<\/a>), and it reached “I want to speak to your manager” level by the time I was checking out.<\/p>\nThe gentleman next to me was in his mid-30s, wearing a t-shirt, athletic shorts, and flip-flops. He asked the store manager, “What’s the problem with returning this? I didn’t open it.” and pointed at the box on the counter.<\/p>\n
The manager replied, “The box is still sealed, so that’s fine, sir. The problem is that we stopped selling this version of the iPod in early 2005.” At this point, I looked over. It was a 40gb iPod Photo, which would’ve dated it late 2004\/early 2005.<\/p>\n
“So?”<\/p>\n
“So, if you bought it from Apple, that means it’s been sitting in that package for two years. If we accepted it as a return, what are we supposed to do with it? We can’t resell something that’s been obsolete for two years.”<\/p>\n
“Why is that my problem?”<\/p>\n
“Because you don’t have a receipt and you’re asking us for $499 credit for something with no value.” I forgot how much those were selling for. The biggest iPod nowadays costs $150 less than that, with twice the capacity, video, and longer battery life.<\/p>\n
“I’m going to take this up with your corporate office.”<\/p>\n
“Do you want their number?”<\/p>\n
He stormed out, flip-flops slapping at his heels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I hit a nearby Apple Store after work yesterday to pick up a pair of iPod Nanos. I’m using them as giveaway incentives for a couple of surveys we run at my magazine. While I was at the counter, a strange transaction took place nearby. I had missed the early stages of it while I … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Backdating Option”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-o1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1234,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/getting-better-all-the-time","url_meta":{"origin":1489,"position":0},"title":"Getting better all the time","author":"Gil","date":"December 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, my dad picked up a new iPod. He called me to ask what sort of video files it can play. I wasn't sure -- outside of the movies and videos you can buy at the iTune store -- because I haven't bought a new iPod since July 2004. It's\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1167,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/ipod-the-cpi","url_meta":{"origin":1489,"position":1},"title":"iPod & the CPI","author":"Gil","date":"October 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The iPod turned 5 years old yesterday. Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek has a neat observation on how improvements over that span are pretty much beyond the pale of the Consumer Price Index, which people can contort to tell us that we're much worse off than we were in, say,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6053,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/far-from-the-tree","url_meta":{"origin":1489,"position":2},"title":"Far From the Tree","author":"Gil","date":"July 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"To quote Kip Dynamite, \"I love technology.\" I'm not a super-geek, but I am a geek. I admit it. I like neat gadgets. During our trip to Louisiana last weekend, my mother-in-law asked me how I knew about the Kindle and the iPad and all this technology. I was stuck\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Apple\"","block_context":{"text":"Apple","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/apple"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1201,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/how-many-microsoft-points-does-it-cost-to-kick-your-ass","url_meta":{"origin":1489,"position":3},"title":"How many Microsoft points does it cost to kick your ass?","author":"Gil","date":"November 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Microsoft's getting ready to launch its iPod killer, the Zune music player, next week. Walter Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal (pay only, so no article link for you!) reviewed the thing today. He tried to be kind, but it doesn't look good: [T]o buy even a single 99-cent song\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1053,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/alta-vista","url_meta":{"origin":1489,"position":4},"title":"Alta Vista","author":"Gil","date":"July 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Microsoft is trying to get PC designers to get some of that Apple feeling, by incorporating such exTREME! trends as the use of black! and white! The PC world used to be divided into two camps: those who made lucrative software and the poor schlubs who built the low-margin hardware\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3478,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/my-morning-commute","url_meta":{"origin":1489,"position":5},"title":"My morning commute","author":"Gil","date":"February 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Good thing I got an early start today! It put me on the road with perfect timing, so I could get behind this guy -- -- for two miles. At this moment, I was going around 17 mph, or one-third of the speed limit on that sign to the right.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3447\/3289803055_5056935f71.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}