Needs An iTakeItBack  

(I work at a popular game store where we have just recently begun taking in iDevices on trade. One day while I am working alone, this is the phone call I receive.)

Me: “Thank you for calling [Store]; this is [My Name]. How can I help you?”

Customer: “Yes, my son went in there a few days ago and traded in his iPhone. He had planned on using the money he got for it to get a new phone, but we decided we aren’t going to get one anymore.”

Me: “Okay?”

Customer: “Well, since we don’t want to get a new phone anymore, can we just get our old one back?”

Me: “Well… unfortunately, we can’t do that.”

Customer: “Can’t we just give you the money you gave us for it?”

Me: “Ma’am, there would be no way for me to do it. When we take an iDevice on trade-in, it automatically gets put as defective and we send it back to our warehouse to be restored and cleaned before we are even allowed to sell it. Even if your phone was still in our store, we wouldn’t be able to sell it back to you.”

Customer: *a bit irritated* “So, we’re just stuck, then? You can’t just void the transaction or something?”

Me: “Our systems won’t let us do that. If you guys would have changed your mind right away, or maybe even an hour later, we might have been able to help, but there’s nothing we can do about a transaction that happened two days ago.”

Customer: “This is ridiculous!”

Me: “Ma’am, when you traded the phone in, we had you sign a paper that told you basically once the phone was traded in it was no longer yours and that you were fine with losing all memory on it. Do you remember doing that?”

Customer: “Well… what if I told you the phone was technically my phone since the plan is under my name and he stole it from me and sold it?”

(I am highly confused since she has already informed me that they had traded in the phone in the thought of buying a new one, indicating her son didn’t actually steal it.)

Me: “Well, then, ma’am, you’ll have to file a police report against your son and when the police talk to us, then we can help you out with that.”

Customer: “Fine! I’ll just do that, then!” *click*

(We never heard from the police about that iPhone.)