I don’t know about the States, but here in the UK multi-pack sodas and the like all have a “Only to be sold as part of a multi-pack, not for sale individually” type thing printed on each can. IIRC, Stores can be fined for splitting them.
Very simply,
It was not your decision to make (ripping open the case).
And no, you weren’t robbed.
Ok so the shop mistakenly sold something, but it was sold at an acceptable price, the customer could not be held to obtaining the item by any form of deception.
Once the shop has completed the transaction then the contract to purchase would have been completed, I really do not see how the shop could then claim ownership, or expect to have non-negotiable purchase rights once the initial contract of sale was done.
What casdave said (I’m speaking as the manager of a retail store here, btw).
Oh, and what pkbites said, too.
Granted, Hayduke, you should never, ever, do what you did there - if you need something broken open, ask the cashier to break it open. However, once they sold you the soda, they’ve got nothing else to say on the matter. If the cashier grabbed your property (2 cans of Pepsi) away from you afterwards, it’s assault even if you got fair market value somewhere down the line for them. More to the point, if the manager authorized this course of action, he’s responsible for turning what would be at most a minor disagreement into not only a lost sale, but most probably lost future business (you’re not planning to favor them with your soda purchases any longer, I’ll bet).
Long and short of it, you’re in the retail business, sometimes shit happens. If you managed to make a profit in the meantime, you’ve got nothing to complain about.
Inventory guy checks in…
Ah inventory integrity vs. customer service another battle in the ongoing war.
As terrifying as it seems many companies in various types of merchandise will literally have different SKU/Item numbers for a single vs a pack and it forces them to make adjustments to thier inventory (-1 pack, +12 singles) although it balances out in the end and would generally be done in a heartbeat in the name of good service, it still forces that change in inventory.
Some big boss types don’t like any adjustments because to the bigwigs overseeing 20,50,100 stores they see only a handful of adjustments and ask “why”. In my job, I make adjustments of several thousand dollars of product sometimes, as far as my boss is concerned as long as my adjustments are “zero net” she has no problem with it and i can make those adjustments all day long.
Since this is an example of a zero net adjustment, it should never have been a big deal. In a convenience store, this could probably be a manager required issue and could panic a less than brilliant or experienced employee. Why a manager would have a cow about this is completely beyond me.
Here this is usally part of an agreement with the wholesaler to the store. The wholesaler sometimes provides bulk packs at a lower “price per can” than smaller packages, since some of these distributors (lets use pepsi) often stock thier own displays they charge different rates for singles, 6-pk, 12pk, 24pk sales. If a store is breaking the 12’s to make more singles the distributor is pissed because they make more per can from the singles as well as the store.
Can I add my vote to the answers above that say the store had no right to do what it did, and if the clerk used force to get the stuff back off you, you were robbed if not assaulted. Though I kind of suspect you gave in and let her do what she did (and didn’t really hand over the cans under threat of violence). And of course these offences were utterly trivial. And raising them with the police would most likely have caused the store to make some sort of complaint about ripping the pack open, but nonetheless, that’s not what you asked.
Can I add to that that this is GQ. The answer to the GQ is as stated. The people rabbiting on about ripping open the package, and whether what you did was rude, and what the arrangements between the distributor and the retailer as to sizes of packs might be blah blah blah are not answering the GQ.
You took some goods to the counter. The clerk knew what they were, you answered honestly as to where you got them. She sold them to you. Their right to unilaterally take the goods back off you after that point? Nil.
pkbites is totally right!!!
I just want to add:
- if You pee’d on the floor it is one act. They could call the Law.
- if they after that they knew that You pee’d on the floor, sold You whatever. It is Yours! Yours!
WTF, I have went to court against the Finnish IRS about 39 FIM (about 6 USD)! Just in principle and I won! But that is not the point, win or lose: My anchestors has not fought for freedom in vain. Neither has Yours!
It is the principle. If they want it back, charge 100 USD for a Pepsi if You like, or 1.000! It is the principle, it is not the dollar.
And to all those that are so “furious” about “You ripping up a twelv-pack”. Your attitude is that the shop-owner owns his shop so he makes the rules. It is OK. He owns. He makes the rules.
But he can’t change the law, can he?
The owner of the Pepsi is now the “little guy” Hayduke Lives!! and that does not bother You???
If the shop would have asked Hayduke Lives!! to buy the whole pack, it would be somehow understandable.
That they did not react, and sold, completed the bargain, so they had no rights to the mercandise after that. NONE!
I know I go adre-hype on these questions, but I am like I am.
It is very nice to know everything how a shop works, but there was once a President, that visiting a mall with all his security guys around, (just before election) commenting the shop and the products. Suddenly he asked “what these black stripes on the price-tag was?”
So if some of Your ex-president doesn’t know how a shop works, how can we, the small guys know?
I have heard the: “Stay in line, do as You are told, wait for Your turn, ask politely for…” too often.
OK, it is a good thing to be polite, but if the guy did not know…
In former DDR there was these shopping baskets in a shop, maybe 10 of them. It was totally forbidden to enter the shop without their shopping basket. So You had to wait, in a que of course, rain or shine, that a customer came out of the shop, handing the next guy a basket before You could enter.
I have been working half of my life serving people and if I ever run a business like that shop, and someone of my personel would do as described, he and/or she would scrub the floors of the cellar the next six months.
If I ever again open a shop, please come and rip everything up, just as long as you buy! I am the guy at the register shouting: “Everything is for sale! Everything is priced beforehand! Just take Your pick! Grab it all! Everything goes! Just remember: The buck stops here!”
Once here in Russia I lived in a small town.
The biggest shop had people that did not understand that the socialistic days are over. They moved in slow-motion, hardly answering any questions that my girl-friend made.
I asked one girl, the most lazy one, with my broken Russian, if she liked cross-words.
She immediately understood that I am a foregner, brighted up and answered: “Yes, naturally!”
I went to the other counter and bought a cross-word publication, gave it to her and told her that “she can now take all the time she wants with the cross-word, neither I nor my girl-friend will never bother her again.”
There was never any slow motion after that in that shop when I wanted to buy something.
Was I rude? Yes, extreemly. But they maybe learned something that day, so I did not feel too bad about it.
What ever shit comes in Your way, fight for Your rights and vote with Your vallet.
If You can afford it, use the small guys shop, it is usually a little bit expencive, but if he always pick up the good products for You (fruits etc.), and in this case keeps Your coke in the fridge, You win in the end. You get better service. If he is a jerk, and does not help the small guys like me and You, he will die in a month.
Boycott the shops where some, calculator-hearted, A4-bureaucrat, dollar-n@t$i keeps the personel understaffed.
Always.
If you have to shop in a place like that, because of geographical or other reasons, begin Your complaint (if You complain), by putting the personel up on a poid (fuck, was that an English word? OK, now it is.)
Like this: “Your staff is working very good, very hard and fast, and are polite, but these ques…” and make sure the staff overhears Your complaint to the small boss…
Again You will get very good service…
The rant stops here!
Although that wasn’t exactly the most articulate post in the world, it’s correct. Regardless of whether Hayduke should have opened the package or not, when he went to the register with the two cans, he presented to the clerk a potential sale. Her options were to close the deal or reject it. She picked the former. (And, as the person running the cash register, she either had the actual authority to make that decision or she had the apparent authority to do so, which in this case is good enough.) Therefore, once she had taken his money and he left the store, Hayduke was the owner of the sodas, and the store had forfeited all legal right to them (in exchange for the money). Then, when the clerk came out and took the sodas and returned the money, that was a larceny, as the clerk (or the store) was intentionally meaning to depive Hayduke of the use of his property without his permission. (This assumes that he was not willing to sell the sodas back for $1.) Therefore, yes, Hayduke, you wuz robbed.
Some above (and indeed the clerk herself) have focused on the fact that the store’s policy seems to be not to sell cans under these curcumstances. While this may be true, it’s irrelevant. The clerk, acting as agent for the store, decided that she would sell the sodas in this situation, and she had the power to make such a decision. Once this transaction was completed, her remorse of her actions had no bearing on the fact that Hayduke owned the sodas now.
–Cliffy, Esq.
They’ll probably say “Get a life! This is much too petty an occurance to get this ticked off about.”
Cliffy, think about this as an alternate theory.
Hayduke Lives!! knew that they do not sell Caffeine Free Pepsi individually. Further, he knew that if the cashier realized this, he would be deprived of his drink. He fails to mention this crucial piece of information at the time the transaction took place.
He misrepresented the nature of the goods through an ommission of fact and that ommission was material to the formation of the contract.
Thus, he formed a contract through fraud. It is not a legally binding contract. The store caught this fraud in a timely manner.
I don’t think anyone mentioned the fact that the sign said all types of Pepsi were on sale.
?!
It seems to me that the facts were presented and ignored … HL didn’t know that they wouldn’t sell the singles to him under the circumstances, but he presented the cans and the information about where he got them, and the sale was then processed. Eh?
Hayduke,
Find out who the owner of the store is and write him a letter. Give time and date.
The owner will probably be very concerned that a sale was voided and a regular customer treated in this way.
Whoever mentioned the idea about ‘power’ probably has it right. The cashier and glorified stockboy are paid squat, low on the SES scale and know it. They take crap day in and day out so when they get an opportunity to ‘act big’, they will do so.
Well, as SCSimmons notes, it seems that the facts are otherwise, but even if it had happened as you suggest, I don’t think that changes the analysis for two reasons. First, the misrepresentation argument only works if Hayduke has control over the information in question; here, the clerk has all the information she needs (proven by the fact that after she thought about it, she came after him). Hayduke has no responsibility to point out his contractual partner’s errors even if he did have a duty to point out facts of which he was in possession. Secondly, even if the sales agreement were invalid, the appropriate response is an action for replevin (or the jurisdictional equivalent) in a court of law, not self-help.
–Cliffy