Joe has a monthly subscription plan at his local car wash. He gets one basic wash per day for $24/month. It’s a use it or lose it type deal, the washes don’t acrue.
When he signed up the car wash attendant placed an RFID sticker on his wiendshield. It’s about the size of a regualr Band-Aid.
Joe doesn’t like the sticker there. So he very carefully removed it, and then laminated it. Now he uses it to get his car washed every other day and gets his wifes car washed every other day.
Joes been doing this for years.
Someone told Joe that this wasn’t ethcal. The program was only supposed to cover one vehicle hence the sticker on the windshield. If Joes wife wants her car washed she should pay for a seperate subscription.
Joes attitude is he paid for 1 car wash per day, what difference does it make which car it is? If Joes wife didn’t have a car he would just get his washed every day. Either way, he is getting his one car wash a day. He doesn’t feel he is cheating the business. They are not putting out any more car washes than he paid for. Joe doesn’t feel he is doing anything wrong, he is just getting what he paid for.
But let’s say it does. Is ignoring a policy you think is unreasonable inherently unethical?
I can relate to Joe. I have season tickets for the Milwaukee Brewers. On some days I simply cannot attend and I give the tickets for that game away. If the Brewers organization told me they sold the tickets to me and therefore I am the only one that can use them I’d say that was unreasonable even if it was a policy I signed off on when I bought the tickets. I paid for 2 seats, what difference does it make who is sitting in them?
There’s a difference. The car wash offer may operate on the presumption that few people would bother to get their car washed every single day, even if it was free. But start passing that around, and there will always be someone happy to use the pass to get their car washed. And every wash is a cost to the car wash company, whereas it matters not at all to a sports organization whether a particular seat is occupied or not, as long as it’s been sold.
Yeah, alright Darth Vader. “I have altered the terms of the deal, pray I don’t alter them any further” is definitely an ethical stance, but one that is normally deprecated.
If Joe knew, or should have known, when he agreed to the deal that it applied to a specific car then his careful removal and lamination of the RFID pass is simply a dedicated attempt to unilaterally and covertly alter the terms of the deal. Joe is a guy who makes deals and then doesn’t stick to his end of them.
If Joe is so sure that it’s ethical and within the terms of the original deal, he can tell the carwash what he’s doing. If he doesn’t want to do that, because he knows or suspects that he is in fact breaking the deal the carwash and he agreed to, that might be a big clue about the ethics of the matter.
Similarly with the Brewers - if the deal was that season tickets are non-transferrable, and you signed off on it when you bought the tickets, then of course its unethical to break the deal. If you didn’t like it you had the option of not taking the deal, or renegotiating it. But if you entered into it fully intending to break it and to hide this from the other party to the deal then… remind me of why that’s ethical?
Joe took steps to circumvent the agreement he had with the business. There is a reason they provide just one sticker and there is a reason they place it on the windshield of the vehicle.
Absolutely unethical. It’s like taking your wife to an “all you can eat” place, eating enough to satiate both your hungers and only paying for 1 ticket because you could have eaten all that yourself if you wanted to.
The season ticket analogy is definitely wrong. They’ve sold the tickets and they’d rather have the seats filled to sell someone beer, hot dogs, gear, and so it looks better on TV. I’d guess they’d rather you gave away (or sold) the tickets than have the seats empty.
This is definitely not the case with the car wash company. There’s no way they sell enough concessions – how many pine car air fresheners can one person use?
Now let’s say Joe did not agree to or was not advised it was limited to one vehicle, though the permanent sticker seems to imply that. Abscent of a written agreement or policy notification is Joes actions still unethical? Also in this instance, assume Joes is true to his word and if his wife didn’t have a car he would indeed get his washed every single day.
Say Joe has seventeen cars in his private fleet, and he makes sixteen copies of the car wash sticker, and he arranges for each car to be washed once a month, leaving 13 days or so that the car wash sticker isn’t being used at all. Is he behaving ethically? Even generously? After all, he’s paying for up to 31 washes, but he’s using only 17. He’s practically a saint.
Usually the terms of service for unlimited car washes makes it clear that it’s per vehicle and offer multi-vehicle plans with additional discounts. eg: from this FAQ:
But it does allow transfer to another car which in context is intended for getting a new car, and has you come in for that switch. Though technically according to the terms it seems it would allow you to do this daily, though practically you most likely would be stopped which seems to violate the terms on their end:
I have a new vehicle. How do I transfer my pass to another vehicle?
If you have your pass number, please visit the wash location to transfer a new pass to a different vehicle.
So technically it is allows after jumping through hoops.
As for the ethical question, first to me if it’s a corporation it is a soulless entity which has advantages (and takes advantages) of being soulless, ethically that has to be considered into how much ethics can be extended to such a construct. That would be a personal ethical decision IMHO. In this case since the site states that there is a way to switch cars and does not specify a limit, and you are just shortcutting what is allowed I’m not sure a ethical line was crossed at this point however…
What is the end result, what is the cost to others of you doing this? What burden are you placing on society by your action? What is the expected outcome of you washing every day? Will this raise the cost of car washing for others? Thus other people are paying for your second car washing? Is that right, can you afford to pay for the car wash without being an excessive burden to you without others having to pay as a societal cost? And do you need to have your cars washed so often, is it medical such as OCD that such a societal accommodation should be granted? How do you feel about getting away with it, if there is a smug feeling about it perhaps you need to consider where that feeling is coming from and if it’s worth the cost to others. That would be the ethical question for me on this one.
Joe removed the sticker, SO he could purposely side step the parameters of the promotion. He didn’t like where it was BECAUSE he couldn’t game the system. He knows it. You know it. We all know it.
And, sooner or later the car wash WILL figure it out. And they’ll think twice about running promotions again.
Because there are no shortage of Joes in the world, who hate it when immigrants, underlings, welfare recipients, etc, game the system. They always want harsh punishment for those types, but think they’re just in a ‘grey area’.
Joe isn’t fooling anyone. And everyone he boasts to about his cleverness will see him for who he really is I suspect.
To me, the real question is does THIS ethical breach bother Joe. IME, many people have different views of ethics, their ethics vary situationally, and they will tolerate certain ethical lapses if they perceive some resulting gain.