Today I was ripped off by a malfunctioning clothes dryer. The concierge said to call the number on the machine and they would send me a refund. But I can’t be bothered to call and get the $1.75 back. Suppose I said this out loud and another person said they would make the call for me if I would give them the money when I received it. Ethical? (I think yes. Once the money is in my hands I can give it to whoever I please.) What about if they asked me if they could claim the money since I wasn’t going to? (I don’t know about this one.) What about if they heard me say I wasn’t going to claim it, so they claimed it themselves without my knowledge? (Here I think they are clearly in the wrong. I could well change my mind and claim the money, or ten people could be in their situation and call in to claim the same money.)
I agree with you. Ethical for you to decide that it’s not worth your time and let someone else get the refund. I think of it as subcontracting the collection of the refund for 100% of the proceeds. Not ethical for someone to make a claim without your agreement.
Exactly as ethical as a company selling debt to a debt collector. Actually, slightly more ethical.
I think the OP covered this as ethical. But in the case of a debt collector going out and collecting a written off receivable of a company without the Company’s consent…definitely illegal and unethical.
In some cases, I’d call it a duty. We have a stupid deposit law in my state. On the few occasions that I have returnables for some odd reason (they’re usually not very much), I’ll make it a point to just give them to someone in line at the disgusting deposit-return machines. You see, if I throw them out, the state collects the unreturned deposits for its coffers. I’ll no longer stand in line for those disgusting machines; my time and health is worth a lot more than the 40¢ I’d stand to collect.