Best Results Organizing

In lieu of sugar plums, many of you have visions of turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce dancing in your heads. For other readers, Thanksgiving is about far-flung family members coming together to play a Kennedy-esque game of touch football on the front lawn (or, more likely, mom doing a semester’s worth of her college freshman’s laundry).

But for one subset of readers, this Thanksgiving week is the culmination of 51 weeks of intensive training. For such intrepid souls, Thursday’s big meal merely provides sustenance for the grueling work of conquering doorbusters and early bird sales.  For these people, it’s all about Black Friday!

No professional organizer worth her salt (and Paper Doll considers herself sufficiently salty) would neglect, at this point, to illustrate the value of purchasing gifts of experiences (restaurant and movie gift certificates, theater tickets, zoo and museum memberships, etc.) and knowledge rather than tangible presents that will likely turn into must-dust, must-dryclean clutter within a matter of weeks. That said, for those insistent upon getting up early (or not sleeping at all), standing in freezing rain until the doors burst open (please, please be careful out there!) and shopping until you drop, there’s one last paper trail report you should know about:  The Retail Equation!

If you like to pick up a pile of goodies and head straight for the cashier, figuring that you (and the kids, and your gift recipients) can try things on later and return them if they don’t fit (bodies or personalities), this is definitely a topic for you. You may have noticed recently that when you return or exchange an item, you’re likely to be asked to whip out your driver’s license. (No, you don’t have to prove you’re young enough to be seen in that mini-skirt in public or old enough to play Candyland.) It’s all part of a vast network to keep track of returns and exchanges in hopes of preventing fraud.

Retailers outsource their risk analysis (just like the insurance companies and lenders we’ve been discussing for weeks) to The Retail Equation (formerly The Return Exchange).  This company maintains a database of consumer behavioral patterns, including frequency of returns or exchanges, the dollar amounts of what is being returned (or exchanged) and the elapsed time since the original purchase (and how that time frame compares with the store’s stated return/exchange policies). 

Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, if you tend to make a lot of returns or exchanges, you may find that more and more retailers will be refusing to accept the returns. That’s a big “Yikes!” to shoppers who have a habit of bypassing the dressing rooms to make sure clothes fit, or who shop for their growing children without the kids in tow.

Retailers tend to disallow returns if they fall into one of two categories:

• Returns that break the retailer’s return policy, such as a return without a receipt, after the allowed return period or too many returns in any given period.

Depending on the state in which a retailer operates, it may or may not be required by law that the company post the policy, so it’s a good thing to look around the cashier area or back of your receipt to find a stated policy. If you don’t see a written policy, ask the cashier what the requirements are. Some stores require returns within 14, 30 or 60 days while others have no stated limits. Other stores limit the dollar value of items or number of purchases that can be returned in any given period (usually one business day). And most stores require a receipt with any return.

• Return behavior that could be construed to be abuse of retail policies

This category includes purchasing big ticket items and returning them immediately after a specific event, like buying a big screen TV the day before the Super Bowl and returning it the day after, or purchasing a prom dress and returning it in mid-June. In the retail industry, this is called renting or wardrobing…and Paper Doll would like to go on the record to say that it’s just really tacky.

The Retail Equation’s patented Verification-1 software system is designed to identify fraud and abuse related to returns, a $15.5 billion problem in the United States. The system is formulated to deter the less than 1% of shoppers (i.e., not you, dear readers) whose behaviors “mimic return fraud or abuse”.  The biggest concern is merchandise that is stolen, then “returned” or exchanged, and indeed, some thieves will retrieve the receipt you throw in the trash, steal that exact item and then use your receipt to make a return.

In general, you shouldn’t have to worry as long as you follow some basic rules:

• Keep your receipts for items that you’ll have a likelihood of returning (and get gift receipts for presents to make it easier for your recipients to return a too-snug sweater or duplicate DVD).
• Note the return periods for the items you buy. Consider making a notation on your calendar for the Saturday prior to the close of a return period for the things you’ve made during a big shopping trip.
• Avoid those questionable return behaviors, like “renting” big ticket purchases for one-time events and then returning the gently-used items.  (I’m sure no Paper Doll reader would even consider such behavior.)

Unlike all the other reports we’ve been discussing over the last month, The Retail Equation is not categorized as a credit reporting agency (CRA) according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, so consumers do not have a legal right to annual copies of their reports or a dispute policy requiring speedy investigation.

However, if an identity thief has stolen your good name (and checkbook) and is buying up goodies and making returns for quick cash, you do have a means of regress.  If you’ve had a return rejected (or are just concerned about the paper trail The Retail Equation has been keeping on you):

Send an email to returnactivityreport@theretailequation.com with your name and phone number.

A representative will return your call and ask you to provide some identifying information, including your driver’s license number and state, and the transaction ID from your attempted return. (If you didn’t make a return and are just checking your report, simply say so.)

It’s not a particularly speedy or automated process, but it does give you insight on your shopping and return habits. And, perhaps, if you’re returning so many purchases, it could mean that you don’t really need that kind of clutter in your life and that shopping isn’t the most fulfilling hobby for you. Just a thought.

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Over the past month, we’ve been looking at all the data being collected about us as we go about our daily lives as consumers. Our credit reports, our banking habits, our homeowner and auto insurance claims, the medical tests we undergo and the prescriptions we fill–all of this information is collected by third parties and distributed to lending institutions and insurance providers, so they can determine whether we’re shiny pennies worthy of their trust or too risky for them to serve (or serve inexpensively).

The good news is that these reports, if accurate, can reflect the hard work and dedication we’ve put in to building solid personal paper trails of responsible spending and banking, safe driving, and good, clean living.

The bad news is that an identity thief, whether purloining our financial or medical identities, can wreak havoc on the information in these consumer reports. Almost as bad (if not as intentional), keystroke errors by data entry workers can link the financial histories of a Junior with a Senior or a John Q. Public with a Jon Q. Public, or exchange the information of two unrelated people with similar names or Social Security numbers differing by one digit. 

All of this can cause us to pay double-digit interest rates for mortgages and credit cards, and increase our insurance rates (for homeowners and auto to health, life, disability and long-term care policies) beyond the reach of affordability. Unnoticed, such fraud or errors might even keep us from obtaining credit, bank accounts or insurance of which our true histories would deem us worthy.

The final good news (everything cycles around again) is that the Fair Credit Reporting Act ensures that for all of the reports we’ve discussed (with the exception of The Retail Equation), consumers have the right to free annual reports, free reports whenever an adverse action is taken against them (such as denial of service), the opportunity to dispute errors and have them investigated and corrected in a speedy manner, and the chance to have your side of events be included in your file if the reporting agency refuses to make the requested correction.

To recap our Who Knows Your Secrets series, we’ve covered:

From Little Sister to Big Brother (Your credit reports and who can access them)
Checking Up On Your Checking History (Safeguarding Your Bank Accounts)
Get A CLUE About Insurance Reports (Get the Insurance…and Rates…You Deserve)
Someone’s Snooping In Your Medicine Cabinet (Your Health History)
Employers & Landlords & Yentas: Oh, My (Everyone Else Who’s Up In Your Business)

While the topic of your consumer paper trail isn’t exactly turkeylicious, Thanksgiving is the unofficial start of a holiday season in which we need be ever more vigilant about our expenses and our financial lives. Please let this series of posts stand as mile markers as you traverse your paper trails…over the river and through the woods.

Readers, Paper Doll wishes you all a happy, healthy Thanksgiving.