Gaelforce
05-19-2011, 04:57 AM
So this starts a few years ago when the stone was lost from my engagement ring. We have a rider on our insurance so it was covered and so they sent out a gemologist to our home to replace the stone.
Several months later, I was cleaning out the back half of the king cab on my pick-up and pulled the floormats out (I had previously searched the truck half a dozen times but it never occurred to me to take out the back mats). Sure enough, sitting all by itself on the black vinyl floor was the original stone.
I called the insurance company and told them I had found it, again months after the claim had been handled and closed so it had been close to ten months or so since I'd filed the original claim.
They had no idea what to do. No one had ever done this before. There were no forms, no procedures and no precedent for how to handle it if someone finds what they'd lost originally. I must have spoken to half a dozen people before I ended up getting someone's boss on the phone who asked me what I wanted to do. I said that if it wasn't too much trouble, I'd like to have the original stone re-set and give them back the replacement since the original has some sentimental value. He was stunned and quickly offered to pay for the stone to be re-set and sent me all the packaging and shipping to return the replacement.
I figured this was an isolated incident.
Yesterday, The Husband found a Kindle on the train (he's a conductor). He didn't want to turn it in to Lost and Found because he's always worried the more valuable items might disappear. In the past he's brought them home while he asked around for (or was asked by) the owner and he returned it. He's never failed to find the owner of anything valuable (we've gotten the occasional free umbrella or pair of gloves over the last 30 years, but the laptops and ipods he's found have always gotten back to their owner)
Never having had a Kindle, I tried to find an e-mail address or some way of contacting the owner on the device. I finally gave up and called Amazon to ask them how to find the owner.
I explained that I had found a lost Kindle and I was trying to return it. They asked for my account information and I was a bit confused but after I gave it they followed up with "So you want to return your Kindle. What's wrong with it?"
I patiently explained again that it wasn't my Kindle but one I'd found that I wanted to return to its owner.
"Oh. One moment while I transfer you."
The same exact conversation was repeated and I was shunted to a third person. He told me that no one had ever called them to return someone's Kindle before and that's why they kept passing me along. No one knew how to handle it. I gave him the serial number and he e-mailed me a pre-paid UPS label so I could ship it back to Amazon since they couldn't release any info about they owner (listed only as 'Atsuko' on the Kindle).
I just find it kinda sad that a major insurance company and a major online retailer don't know what to do when someone returns something that was lost. I would have thought there were procedures in place, but apparently most folks just keep things instead of returning them.
It's a pretty depressing thought :(
Several months later, I was cleaning out the back half of the king cab on my pick-up and pulled the floormats out (I had previously searched the truck half a dozen times but it never occurred to me to take out the back mats). Sure enough, sitting all by itself on the black vinyl floor was the original stone.
I called the insurance company and told them I had found it, again months after the claim had been handled and closed so it had been close to ten months or so since I'd filed the original claim.
They had no idea what to do. No one had ever done this before. There were no forms, no procedures and no precedent for how to handle it if someone finds what they'd lost originally. I must have spoken to half a dozen people before I ended up getting someone's boss on the phone who asked me what I wanted to do. I said that if it wasn't too much trouble, I'd like to have the original stone re-set and give them back the replacement since the original has some sentimental value. He was stunned and quickly offered to pay for the stone to be re-set and sent me all the packaging and shipping to return the replacement.
I figured this was an isolated incident.
Yesterday, The Husband found a Kindle on the train (he's a conductor). He didn't want to turn it in to Lost and Found because he's always worried the more valuable items might disappear. In the past he's brought them home while he asked around for (or was asked by) the owner and he returned it. He's never failed to find the owner of anything valuable (we've gotten the occasional free umbrella or pair of gloves over the last 30 years, but the laptops and ipods he's found have always gotten back to their owner)
Never having had a Kindle, I tried to find an e-mail address or some way of contacting the owner on the device. I finally gave up and called Amazon to ask them how to find the owner.
I explained that I had found a lost Kindle and I was trying to return it. They asked for my account information and I was a bit confused but after I gave it they followed up with "So you want to return your Kindle. What's wrong with it?"
I patiently explained again that it wasn't my Kindle but one I'd found that I wanted to return to its owner.
"Oh. One moment while I transfer you."
The same exact conversation was repeated and I was shunted to a third person. He told me that no one had ever called them to return someone's Kindle before and that's why they kept passing me along. No one knew how to handle it. I gave him the serial number and he e-mailed me a pre-paid UPS label so I could ship it back to Amazon since they couldn't release any info about they owner (listed only as 'Atsuko' on the Kindle).
I just find it kinda sad that a major insurance company and a major online retailer don't know what to do when someone returns something that was lost. I would have thought there were procedures in place, but apparently most folks just keep things instead of returning them.
It's a pretty depressing thought :(