How far do you go to correct it? If I notice I’ve gotten the wrong change I give it back. However, I bought 4 new tires a few weeks ago with a buy 2 get 2 free deal but of course all kinds of extra charges. I got the estimate and accepted it but when I went to actually pick up the car with the new tires, the total was about $40 lower. Looking at the bill, I noticed that the price of each tire was $10 less than the original quote. I mentioned it to the guy and said “This is lower than I was quoted” and he basically said “That’s the price that was in the computer”. I figured that maybe the previous price had been wrong and paid and left. It wasn’t until a few hours later that it hit me that even though each tire was $10 less, the total should only have been $20 less since I was charged for 4 tires and credited for 2. I looked more closely and noticed that the credits were for the original quoted price. Since the car people treat me like an idiot woman anyway (except when they know I’m a doctor and treat me like an idiot pile of money) I really didn’t want to go back and argue with them that I owed them money. I still do feel guilty, but not guilty enough to go back and argue. Am I stealing?
You went there with the intention of paying the quoted price. You were given a lower price, and pointed this out to them. They made the mistake, were then made aware of it, and still didn’t bother to correct it.
Morally, I think you’re in the clear on that one. 
Shortly after I moved to the small town where I live, I acquired a reputation for impeccable honesty by returning a bag of flour that wound up in my grocery bag that I did not pay for, or indeed, ever intend to buy.
Another time, I told a cashier she had skipped scanning a $10 item; when she told me very condescendingly she had rung up my order correctly, I let it go. Close inspection of the receipt once I got home showed I was right. I continued to let it go. For almost 30 years, I have been enjoying a stolen set of stainless steel mixing bowls.
I’ve given back too much change too many times to count. The way I see it, I would bitch about getting too little change, so it’s only fair to hand back too much change.
I usually make sure things are accurate. The other day, I discovered that we weren’t charged for a carafe of wine we had ordered (and drunk) at a restaurant, and I let them know the error. They were very happy to hear it. I had the feeling that there would have been problems if the person making up the bill had been that short.
You really need to say something, if you are aware, because chances are a dealer will come along, buy the item and make a profit that belongs to the original owner, if not legally, but morally. Case in point, at a charity tag sale, saw a pair of Bose speakers priced at $10.00. I took them, googled the value (close to $500) and went to the person running the sale and showed her the com parables online. She admitted she should’ve done the same, but didn’t have time. At any rate, the speakers were removed and listed on eBay for their true price. I felt good because the organization is truly worthy and needs all the money it can get. However, if they had ignored me and just put the speakers back out, I would have bought them, as listed and enjoyed Bose speakers. I’m morally motivated, but Not too much of a sap.
Yes, it’s stealing if you do it knowingly. But speaking up / querying it is all that is required IMO.
I figure if I’d speak up if it was short-changing me, I have to speak up if it’s short-changing them.
So, if I notice at the time I’d definitely say something. But if I made it home and noticed then, it would have to be more than a certain amount for me to bother (whether it’s owed to me or them). I only got into town once a fortnight at the most, and it’s over half an hours drive away, so if it’s $2, in my favour or theirs, I don’t care.
I once pointed out to a blackjack dealer she had not busted but in fact had 21. This got the other players at the table very upset. It was clear their interpretation of the ethics involved differed from mine.
I will always point out items that were not rung up when I notice. Not to do so would be wrong.
Mis-priced items are a lucky break. It is not my responsibility to verify that they ticketed the items correctly. They made an offer, I accepted. Exceptions to this would be people pricing things who are not ordinarily engaged in this: if the church or yard sale has a Rembrandt sitting there and I recognize it, I would tell them.
This has happened to me and as soon as I notice it, I say something. If I didn’t notice till after I got home, depending on how much it was, I’d either call right away to let the store know, or I’d wait till the next time I was there to make things right.
It’s rarely an issue any more since I almost never use cash. By and large, UPC scans and credit card swipes tend to be accurate, but if an item scans wrong and I see it, I’ll say something.
If I notice the error I point it out.
But I’m usually halfassedly multitasking, so the cashier asks for money and I look up from my phone and swipe my card. Who knows?
That wasn’t a blackjack dealer, that was someone dealing blackjack.
This sort of thing has happened to me on several occasions. Sometimes I will inquire when the total doesn’t seem to be as high as I was expecting it to be, and I will be told “Oh, there’s a three-for-the-price-of-two deal this week”, or “Today is 20% off Widgets day” or something like that.
I wonder what people’s reaction is if there is an obvious glitch on a website. Buy it? Send an e-mail to webmaster@whatever? Recently, there was an error on Best Buy’s website where a $200 Best Buy gift card was $15. News of it exploded on deals sites, Reddit, Twitter, etc and they easily sold tens of thousands of them if not hundreds of thousands before it got pulled. Best Buy canceled the orders but there was a whole lot of people with little compunction against buying gift cards at 92% off. Would they have spoken up if it was in person?
This comes up in other places online as well. Especially with digital sales where you don’t have to wait for your item to be shipped but can immediately download it. You’ll have a game that’s supposed to be 75% off but it gets flagged twice (75% off the 75% off price) and people buy and download it for 94% off.
How does setting the price you will pay have any more or less to do with you than placing the correct pricing sticker on the item?
You wouldn’t know, most of the time. This was a hypothetical designed to test your moral intuition. As I wrote upthread, if it helps you, just imagine you know the manager and he told you that he intended to sell the item for $20 instead of $10.
I share your moral intuition that buying a badly misvalued item from a charity sale feels wrong. But I have a hard time reducing that to an intelligible principle. Does your answer change if instead of a sale for charity it is just some random neighbor? Or someone across the country? Or Bill Gates?
I’m curious about what the legal facts are for this. I’m having trouble finding any cases where someone bought something super expensive for very cheap because of an error and someone got in trouble for it. I did find someone who got arrested after keeping money a bank teller accidentally gave him, but that’s not quite the same.
This makes sense to me if you’re accidentally undercharged for a bottle of Snapple, but I don’t think it would be the same policy if you are accidentally undercharged for a bag of diamonds. It seems like there would be the possibility of being arrested for such a big, obvious undercharge like that.
Here is an old thread I made on this subject. As you might imagine, opinions varied. I remain of the view that it is a different situation because you are playing a game involving risk where one side loses and the other wins, not like a retail transaction where you are purchasing an object. I think I would act in the same way if the situation arose again, but I would not get angry at someone pointing out a dealing error that goes against the table.
In terms of the OP, I’m not sure if it is theft, legally speaking, but I think it is immoral not to draw attention to an error in your favour if you would draw attention to an error against you. Having drawn attention to the error in your favour, I don’t think you are obliged to pursue it further if the cashier/manager decides to proceed anyway.
Just the other day I had a couple of drinks missed off a restaurant bill, which I pointed out to the grateful cashier. Feeling good about oneself is worth the loss of a few pounds.
I couldn’t find what eventually happened with that instance with Best Buy, but in some cases like that, the online store canceled the order, because the price was a mistake. All the articles about it say that a lot of people bought cards, but that Best Buy likely wouldn’t let the sales go through. Here’s an article about WalMart having incorrect prices and canceling orders.
I see it as being different than being in store. In a physical store, I could be taking advantage of the teenage cashier’s mistake and walk out there without anyone in authority noticing. For online sales, I believe it’s more centralized, and it’s more likely someone will notice a glitch sooner, and they can either decide to honor it or not. Sometimes they do honor the accidental sale, in which case you’ve lucked out.
I’m of two minds. There are businesses with which I want to have an ongoing mutually respectful business relationship, I behave honorably with these businesses. I’ve gone back into Costco to pay for a missed pineapple.
There are other businesses which are in a mad race to the bottom, providing little in the way of business relationship, treating customers and staff alike as nothing more than a means to an end. These businesses, I think of errors on their part as the cost of doing business in the shitty way they’ve decided to do their business. Your business is sloppy, under stocked, under staffed with underpaid undertrained employees, it’s not my responsibility to verify your pricing for you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought something at KMart that was labeled $10 and rang up for $5. It’s not because they screwed up the price, it’s because they can’t be bothered to label their merchandise properly.
I had something really rare happen last year: a bank teller error in my favor. The teller gave me $200 where she should have given me $100. The receipt showed the $100, so I could have walked off with the other $100 scot-free, but of course I went back and returned the excess.
I thought I was at a garage sale?
It isn’t my job to second-guess any marked prices. How can I know what type of mistake someone has made, if any?