7-11 Ethics

In My Humble Opinion
1

i just ran out to the nearby 7-11 to pick up a snack and a pack of smokes. there was a very long line, due to a clerk who didn’t seem to know what she was doing (i think she was new). while waiting in line it was obvious everyone was getting pissed at the slow moving line. so when it comes my turn, i put my chips on the counter and ask for my cigarettes. she gives me my total as $4.90
my chips cost $3.30 and my cigarettes cost something over 3 bucks, so with tax it should cost around $7. i ask her if she got the chips too, she says yes.
so what’s the “right” thing to do? do i explain to her that my purchase couldn’t possibly be so cheap and hold up the line as she rings me up again? or do i just give her a five and leave?

i just gave her the $4.90 and left, but i felt like i was getting away with something.

2

Well from the way it sounds, she wont come up short on the cash register so I would just say “screw it” for the sake of the people behind you. Now If I thought she was going to get in trouble for not having the correct amount of money at the end of the shift; I would say otherwise.

Personally I always hate it when I goto 7-11 and there is a long line becuase everybody and their mother wants to buy lotto tickets! It kinda makes the word “convenience store” a misnomer.

…oh! and people who pay with checks at 7-11 piss me off too!!
I think I feel a pit thread comming on.:mad:

3

checks at 7-11 :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: you must be kidding!

I think you are in the clear w/ possible 1 exception.

You brought the items up to the resister, she told you the price and you basically asked to double check it - she did.

The exception I see is that many states have a min. selling price for a box of cancer sticks - if you paid less then that then you are guilty of tax evasion - you know they stuff they got Al Capone on. :wink:

4

acconav, you did your best. You tried to pay the appropriate amount, you bought it to the clerk’s attention, and she didn’t fix the problem. You didn’t steal. I hereby absolve you of any blame for this incident :wink:

5

I agree wholeheartedly. Besides, if you had really pressed the matter, and she had tried to correct it, it would have been even worse. First, she’d have to call her manager to get the magic key to void the sale, then she’d have to ring you up all over again, and the manager would be keeping a close eye on her, and if she’s really as bad as it sounds like she is, it’s likely she’d get fired. So in a way, you could say you saved her job. Plus, by just paying and leaving you saved your own ass because the people in line behind you didn’t want to kill you.

6

This stuff happens to me on occasion, & I just ask if they included all items. Once I asked if the 2 items were on sale because I was just charged for one. You did the right thing. Sometimes we “get away with something,” & sometimes THEY do! I often won’t return to a store for being overcharged on an inexpensive item.

7

In the absolute terms of right vs wrong, you were wrong. You knowingly paid less for an item, which is tantamount to stealing. Those who say you did your best also are wrong. Your best would have been to pay the correct price for the items purchased.

However, I would have done the same as you.

8

Similar thing happened to me years ago. I stopped off at the local Jewel on the way home to pick up a few things - among them a package of cheese. When the cashier rang them up, the total seemed a little low. Since I was fairly confident of my ability to add up the cost of three or four items and be within a dollar of the correct amount, I asked the casher to if she was sure of the total, even mentioning that I thought it was low. (This was in the days before scanners & barcodes, when prices were actually punched into the register.) She looked at the tape & my purchases and insisted that the total was correct. I shrugged, paid what she asked for & went home.
It was still bugging me and I checked the tape myself after I got home. Instead of ringing up the cost of the cheese, she had rung up its weight.
I will admit I didn’t even consider going back to the store and trying to get customer service to allow me to pay the extra I owed.

9

Speaking as a cashier, let it go and go on with life. As long as her register wasn’t going to be flawed, time is of the essence. (And before anyone gets on my case, my manager is worse about giving out stuff fast over accurately than I am.)

Everyone makes mistakes when they are new and she’ll learn soon enough. The world continues to run along. Ethics should not be treated as an absolute right-wrong deal without taking into consideration everything surrounding the circumstance.

10

Personally, I see the ethics of convenience-store behavior as similar to everyday ethics - it’s a give-and-take philosophy. As soon as you realized you had been undercharged, you had the ethical burden to alert the cashier to her mistake. At that point, the burden shifted from you to the cashier to either correct the mistake or ignore it. You satisfied your ethical burden, and it is not your fault that the cashier chose to ignore the mistake. Of course, it would have been perfectly acceptable to don a ski mask, whip out your TEK-9 and demand that she accept more money. Violent, gun-toting behavior is always acceptable at 7-11.

Oh, and k2dave, proving tax evasion requires an element of intent. The government would have to show that you intended to defraud the government, or at the very least acted with wanton disregard for the laws of the tax-collecting jurisdiction. I think we’re safe.

11

Personally, I see the ethics of convenience-store behavior as similar to everyday ethics - it’s a give-and-take philosophy. As soon as you realized you had been undercharged, you had the ethical burden to alert the cashier to her mistake. At that point, the burden shifted from you to the cashier to either correct the mistake or ignore it. You satisfied your ethical burden, and it is not your fault that the cashier chose to ignore the mistake. Of course, it would have been perfectly acceptable to don a ski mask, whip out your TEK-9 and demand that she accept more money. Violent, gun-toting behavior is always acceptable at 7-11.

Oh, and k2dave, proving tax evasion requires an element of intent. The government would have to show that you intended to defraud the government, or at the very least acted with wanton disregard for the laws of the tax-collecting jurisdiction. I think we’re safe.

12

OK! You were stealing and you know it, now go back to the store and pay the difference! (I’ll bet they don’t take it!) You’ll feel better.

13

Better yet, figure out the difference and give that amount to charity. Or, keep a running tally throughout the year of whatever you were undercharged and give it in a lump sum to a charity.

If it really bothers you that much, I mean. I’m in the “You did your best to correct a mistake, now move on” camp.

Don’t lose any sleep over it.

14

Did she actually look at the bag of chips to get a price?
Maybe they were on sale?
If she looked at each item, and rang them both up and gave you a total, and you pointed out a possible error, I think you’re fine.

And $3 for cigarettes??? :eek:
When did that happen?
Last time I bought cigarettes, they were about a dollar a pack!

15

Even given the weak Canadian dollar (which we are doing on purpose, BTW), smokes in Calgary are selling for $8.50 a pack now. Just for comparison purposes.

16

This kind of thing has happened to me on ocasion and I take the following view:

There are signs that say check your change as when you leave the store mistakes cannot be rectified. So I pay what they ask and then leave. Their mistake, my gain.

Sometimes I have been shortchanged and noticed after I leave the shop I just shrug and go on with what I’m doing.

17

So it’s not 7-11; the Somalis own the parking lots here, the Pakistanis the 7-11’s (not racist, true. The Eritreans resent the hell out of it).

Yesterday I motorcycled downtown, and tried to get into an automated mall parking-lot. The machine wouldn’t dispense me a ticket. Punch button, punch button… wouldn’t do it. Now there’s a line of cars behind me. Back up the cycle over the sensor, punch button… still won’t.

So I go around the barrier and park. I come back, and the fricking exit barrier is stuck in the UP position. Folks with paid-up tickets are actually backing up to go through the operating gate. Me, I couldn’t get a ticket in the first place, so I rode through the open gate.

Today, I go downtown to a different lot, this one with attended exit gates instead of pre-pay tickets. I manage to get the machine to give me a entry ticket, by backing up the cycle until it triggers the sensor, then leaning waaaay forward to punch the button and get the ticket.

And when I go to leave ? Nobody in the ticket booth. Closed. So out I go again, past the barrier.

I have to think they have cameras or something for when you do that, but I didn’t see any cameras or people. It’s no fun downtown being a motorcyclist; you can park your bike in an inconspicuous, safe spot, saving full-size spots for cars, and still get a whopping ticket.

My comeuppance came a block later; I got pulled over by a motorcycle cop. “Got a motorcycle endorsement ?” he asked. (I’ve been riding for 8 years on this bike). “Yeah, M3 unlimited”. “So where’s your eye protection ?” (implying there’s some sort of glasses law). I flipped down my faceshield.

Man, that karma is a fast-acting sucker. I think he jumped out at me because he saw me check my speedometer when I saw him. 28 in a 25 zone.

18

I wouldn’t worry about acconav’s situation. Time is indeed of the essence, it’s small potatos, etc.

But where is the line drawn? You’re at Best Buy getting a $300 TV and the cashier says its $100. Well, since they’ve screwed me over before …, but if it was a respectable business :wink: , do you bring it up again? I agree that a single “please check that” is required, but a second? Third?

19

That’s an interesting point, ftg. When Dread Pirate Jimbo was in university, he got a brain-dead cashier at the school bookstore who charged him $15 for a full year’s worth of books. This was his (fifth?) year at school, and had been ass-reamed by the book prices for the last couple of years, so when he asked the cashier if that was right and she smacked her gum and said it was without even checking, he paid up, trying not to giggle with glee as he quickly exited the store.

As for me, I personally hate Safeway and their corporate policies of pretending to be committed to customer service while manipulating us in shamefully obvious ways, so when they make a mistake in my favour, I take the money and run. I wouldn’t do this at other places that I don’t hate as much.