I’ve been an amazon.com shopper for years. This week, for the first time ever, I had to return something. It turned out that the description on the site was missing some key information and the item was not right for me. It was only about $5, so I decided that I would try for a refund and if the return wound up being a big hassle, I would just eat the amount.

Well, Amazon won’t let me return the item. I tried to go through the return process and got a message that said I’m a valued customer, so I can keep the item AND get my refund! Wow! I’m thinking that the cost of the item and my shopping history (no refund requests ever) prompted this decision.

I will still be able to use the item, so being able to keep it is a nice bonus. And, geeze, there’s no reason to be so mysterious, it’s a recorder (the musical instrument) with an uncommon fingering style. So once I dredge up 25 year old skills on the more standard type, I can graduate to this other one. 🙂