Is it still wrong if it's the clerk's idea?

I was going to make grasshopper (mint chocolate) cheesecake. The recipe called for 2oz of Creme de Menthe. Went to the State store (in PA, wine & booze are only sold in state-owned stores; beer sales are even more complex - but that’s for another thread) where I only saw 750ml bottles. I asked the clerk if they had smaller bottles because I only needed a little bit for one recipe & joked that this one ingredient cost more than the rest combined. She said that was the only size bottle they carried. She then told me to save the receipt & bring the bottle back telling them that I bought the wrong thing & they would refund my money. :eek: Futher that she wouldn’t be back in this store until next Saturday as she was working in a different store during the week, kind of implying I should return it to her next weekend.

I admit I can be cunning & devious, but this comment shocked the even me. It’s definately immoral. It might even be illegal (theft by deception?), I dunno. This was the clerk’s unsolicited idea to me. How often does something like this occur? How much money is wasted by returning opened bottles, which obviously can’t be resold?
More importantly, how much of a bottle can I get away with drinking? Can I pour two glasses of wine for a nice romantic dinner & return the rest of the bottle? Can I open a bottle of champagne, say it was no good & since I couldn’t get the cork back in the bottle I had to [del]drink it[/del] pour it out so it didn’t spill in the car/violate open container laws on the way back?

In my mind it is theft, doesn’t matter if the clerk suggested it. Just keep the bottle, the stuff lasts for years and is great on vanilla ice cream.

It’s not the clerk’s store so she doesn’t have the right to suggest you steal from somebody else.

There are plenty of employees who will do things like this. Maybe she hates the job, maybe she had an argument with the boss.

Or maybe she just likes you. (winking smiley)

Someone on this board mentioned that Red Lobster had a problem during one of their “all you can eat” crab leg promotions. Supposedly servers were giving people doggy bags full of crab legs, in order to get a bigger tip.

Of course it’s wrong.

If it was in anyway legit the clerk would have told you to bring the remainder back with your receipt, give it to whoever was on duty and say “Oh hi, I only needed that much and I couldn’t find a smaller bottle”. If it was right, lying wouldn’t be necessary.

And IMO, it’s exactly this kind of dishonesty that causes stores to tighten up their policies, making life harder for people who do have a legitimate return. If you* do this, you are one of the people everyone speaks of when they talk of those who spoil it for everyone.

*General “you” addressed to anyone who does this stuff inc. the dishonest clerk, not the OP in particular.

I have to agree it’s wrong. If she had offered you a discount, or perhaps even said just take it I might be able to believe that store workers had some leeway in what they could do to make customers happy. What she’s suggesting clearly indicates that store management would not be aware or approving of it.

Or maybe she’s deliberately setting you up for failure - and looking forward to hearing a story about how a customer came in and made a fool of himself trying to get a refund on a partly-used product.

(to the OP) Yes. Of course it’s wrong. How is it that you even need to ask?

I forgot to add the ROLLEYES emoticon at the very end because the last 2-3 sentences were meant as SARCASM. Above that I explicitly state it’s wrong & possibly illegal.

Did I run into the wackadoosal of the year or is this behavior more common than I think?

I wanted to add a story of how it can be done ethically right.

I was picking out tiles for our new kitchen, and wanted to try out several to see how they would look. The store didn’t give out single tiles to try out, so I had to buy a box of them; about a square meter, 12 of them. So I did.

We laid the tiles out on our floor and that same night, my husband dropped a pan on them, breaking three.

I cleaned the remaining seven, put them back in the box, and made a new label that said how many tiles were in the box now, how many square feet/meter it was now, and how much it cost (original price minus 25 %). Then I brougth back the box and asked for a refund for just 75% of what I paid.
The store clerk happily went along. He said he was glad I was upfront about it and that I had saved him a lot of work. Most people would just bring back the box with the broken tile hidden in the bottom, and not say anything, thus leaving the clerk to deal with angry customers returning the broken tiles.

Of course, this won’t help with Creme de Menthe.

Is it possible that she meant: *You could buy this bottle now, and if you manage to find a smaller bottle elsewhere, and use that, you can return this larger one intact *?

Yes, I cannot see a liquor store giving refunds on opened bottles.

Unless the clerk is the owner, or has permission to make such a deal, it is wrong, and theft. And the idea of a liquor store offering refunds on open bottles is about as likely as me fucking Hitler next Thursday.

Moving thread from MPSIMS to IMHO.

I find it strange that she told you to simply say you bought the wrong thing instead of claiming there was some problem with the product.

I don’t often make returns or pay attention to return policies, but I didn’t know you could just say you meant to buy something else and get things returned. I thought there generally had to be some sort of defect with the product, especially with an edible item that they can’t resell.

No, the OP mentioned that in Pennsylvania, liquor can only be purchased in state stores. So unless another state store stocked a smaller bottle (or the OP went out of state), this couldn’t happen.

Fair enough - I have no way of knowing how far and few those stores would be, but it sounds like you’re saying they’re not on every corner.

You did seem to understand the situation in your post. But I took your thread title “Is it still wrong if it’s the clerk’s idea?” at face value and assumed you were asking for opinions on the issue.

Clerks in state-run Pennsylvania liquor stores are also undoubtedly restricted by statute as to how much leeway they can give customers, as in almost none. Any deviation from state guidelines is likely to mean prosecution for the employee. I used to live in Pennsylvania and I know that liquor sales are controlled by the state to a Big Brother-like degree.

Yeah, it’s fraud. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, but that doesn’t make it any less immoral.

Make grasshopper drinks with it, imo. Used to be my favorite cocktail when I was a lightweight.

There is only one retailer of wine & liquor in PA, the state (well, Commonwealth) of PA. While there are many locations to purchase, they all sell the bottles for the exact same price.
For S&G I checked. PA only sells two bottles of Creme de Menthe, both 750 ml, either green or clear/white. You cannot buy any other size or brand in this state. It is also illegal go to another state to buy booze & bring it into PA, even for personal consumption.
There are a lot more bottles in the catalog than are carried in the store; they will special order something that they have it the catalog for you, but it may take up to 30 days for it to come into your store.
Their “spectacular” service almost makes me want to return the bottle for a refund. :rolleyes: