After he had already picked up his iPhone 5, Edmund got received an e-mail from Best Buy reminding him to come get the phone that he had ordered. He didn’t think much of it until he received another e-mail telling him that his preorder was canceled…and then he got a refund of the purchase price of the phone that he allegedly didn’t pick up. He’s not about to take the phone back, but he wonders: is he obligated to even let Best Buy know?

In December, I preordered an iPhone 5 (black, 32 GB) on the Bestbuy.com website. That evening I picked up the phone at the physical store. I prepaid for the phone online. The next day, I got an email from Best Buy telling me to not to forget to pick up my preorder. I thought nothing of it. A week later I got an email telling me that my preorder had been cancelled. Again, I didn’t think much of it. On Christmas morning, I checked my bank acct and saw that I had been credited back the full price of the phone.

I looked in the documentation, and it appears I never received a purchase receipt. What should I do? Am I legally obligated to contact Best Buy regarding this billing issue?

We aren’t lawyers: if it’s actual legal advice that will keep you from getting prosecuted for iPhone theft, unintentional or otherwise, that you want, it would be best to contact one. So we don’t know the answer to the question legally, but morally, if you ordered and paid for an iPhone from Best Buy and didn’t receive it, what would you do?

Go back to the store and tell them what happened. Bring the pre-order e-mails. Someone must be able to straighten this out. Or am I being too optimistic?

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