# Is this ethical? (Gaming a subscription plan) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2022, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304 "2022-11-21T09:23:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/61 "2022-11-21T18:54:59Z")
In case anyone is curious like I was, the monthly plans range from $20 to $40 per month. There are four different plans that range from basic wash to extras like tire scrub and special waxing. These plans are equal to the price of about two washes at their level so on your third wash in a month, you are ahead of the game. Just buy two passes ffs. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/62 "2022-11-21T18:59:49Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > But the guy is probably a miserable human being regardless. I have met so many of these types; very standard in conservative small-town (and small-minded) America. They are, in fact, miserable sacks of shit in a human skin suit that think everybody owes them _something_. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/63 "2022-11-21T19:21:24Z")
I feel the same way I once bought a season ski pass through my daughters school for her. She never went, I wanted to give it to another kid in her school for free! The ski management was firm about it, non transferable, no refunds, nada. I think as long as Joe is driving the car he wants to get washed, he gets his free car wash. If his wife was driving Joes car she too should get the free wash. If she’s driving her car she should skip the free wash. Lol. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/64 "2022-11-21T19:29:35Z")
In real world terms, it is very possible that the car wash owner doesn’t care. They might feel the marginal costs associated with the extra washes are outweighed by keeping a regular customer. I can think of any number of situations where a regular customer could ask an owner/manager: **“Look, I know this might be against stated policy, but I’m a regular, I give you a lot of business and always tip well. Would you mind if…?”** So far, there has been no mention of Joe being up front about what he is doing - which suggests pretty strongly to me that he KNOWS he is doing something wrong, and that the business would disfavor. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/65 "2022-11-21T19:33:12Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > In real world terms, it is very possible that the car wash owner doesn’t care. They might feel the marginal costs associated with the extra washes are outweighed by keeping a regular customer. Indeed. Which is why I have been advocating for Joe to simply ask the manager if it’s ok. I can’t imagine why Joe would be reluctant to do that. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/66 "2022-11-21T19:46:48Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > What kind of monster washes their car every other day? Exactly. Yeah, it is unethical. Now say his car was at the shop or something for an extended time, and he was driving the other car- maybe. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/67 "2022-11-21T20:27:11Z")
I’d say it’s unethical if you believe in honoring the terms of a contract. The daily car wash is wasteful but that’s a different debate. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/68 "2022-11-21T20:31:54Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Indeed. Which is why I have been advocating for Joe to simply ask the manager if it’s ok. I can’t imagine why Joe would be reluctant to do that. The benefit of asking would be that Joe’s conscience would be as clean as his car, and he wouldn’t run the risk of being banned for life by a pissed-off car wash owner. The risk of asking is that he might be told that his contract meant what it says, and he’d lose the ability to wash two cars an insane number of times for the price of washing one car an insane number of times. So the question is, does Joe value his conscience? ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/69 "2022-11-21T20:39:55Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > What kind of monster washes their car every other day? Well, I washed my car last week! (At least, that’s what I call it when I park outside and it rains!) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/70 "2022-11-21T21:18:18Z")
Setting aside the carwash entirely. In my state (FL) putting my trash, even a handful of it, into some store’s dumpster out back is a crime called “theft of services”. Until I have so over-filled their dumpster that it can’t hold all the store’s trash that week I haven’t really harmed the store (or the dumpster company) at all. They paid for the right to fill their dumpster to the brim between emptyings and even my tiny burger wrapper interferes with their right to fill their dumpster, albeit very minimally so. And most (all?) weeks they won’t fill their dumpster to the brim, so my burger wrapper is in practical terms absolutely, positively irrelevant to their unimpeded complete use of their dumpster to their heart’s content. And yet the legislature has seen fit to criminalize my behavior. Back to the car wash. The wife’s car is obtaining a commercial service from a vendor under false pretenses. Which may well, depending on the specifics of state statute, in fact be a cognizable crime. Probably not one any police or prosecutor would bother doing anything about, but a crime nonetheless. Ethics? Well IMO ethics is more like safety that comes on a spectrum than it is like pregnancy which either is or is not. I find the various justifications for Joe’s behavior all amount to excusing bush league dishonesty and misappropriation of something of value. So less than ethical _enough_ for my tastes. Not that I haven’t probably done worse a time or two myself in different circumstances. I happen to have a similar sticker & car wash program on my car and no, I would never try to wash two cars off one membership. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/71 "2022-11-21T21:57:39Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > > [@Smapti](#): > > > > What kind of monster washes their car every other day? > > Exactly. > > Yeah, it is unethical. This. Who the hell washes a car every day? They didn’t sell “one car wash per day”, they sold, “wash one car as often as you want (limited to once a day).” Honestly, washing his car every single day isn’t unethical, but it’s kind of a dick choice. Now, is it major league, i would break off this friendship, unethical? No. And it’s even possible the shop knows he’s stealing a lot of car washes, and doesn’t care, just like convenience stores don’t really care about small amounts of shoplifting. But yes, of course it’s unethical. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/72 "2022-11-21T22:26:17Z")
I’m not saying that I would never steal under any circumstances, but I can say that would never be such a cheap chiseler to steal car washes that cost less than a dollar a day. How the hell can that kind of lowlife sleep at night? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/73 "2022-11-21T22:35:55Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > They didn’t sell “one car wash per day”, they sold, “wash one car as often as you want (limited to once a day).” Honestly, washing his car every single day isn’t unethical, but it’s kind of a dick choice. Now that I don’t necessarily agree with. If he genuinely was the type who wants to keep his car that clean, or who drives in such a way (like on dirt roads or in mud) that he would need that many washes, I think he would be fully entitled to use it more than they expect. Just like I’m entitled to use all of my allotted bandwidth from my ISP. You can maximize what you pay for. It would only be sad if he got more carwashes than you need. But, yeah, if it prominently says that it’s unlimited washes for one car (limited to 1 a day), then it’s unethical to switch that out for 2 cars. Where I would give pause is if they try to sell you on the value of 30 washes or something. Say the car wash normally costs $5 and the pass costs $15. If they try to argue that you’re getting 90% off by getting the pass, then the lines start to become fuzzy. Also, if the price is greater than 2 or 3 times the single wash, I would argue that the average driver is getting a bum deal. Even my grandpa who was very particular about cars (as he always resold them) would only wash ever couple of weeks unless he drove on some dirt roads. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/74 "2022-11-21T23:00:17Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > And, sooner or later the car wash WILL figure it out. And they’ll think twice about running promotions again. > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > I’ll be honest, Joe is there every single day, and nobody who works there noticed that he doesn’t have the sticker that everyone else has on their windshield? Seems to me, if management cared about these terms, they wouldn’t make it the responsibility of their customers to enforce the terms. > [@3AxisCtrl](#): > > Apart from the ethics (which I agree are dodgy) there’s a practical problem: The car wash probably has video cameras, and thus the ability to check which vehicle(s) are being washed under any particular RFID tag. Okay, I got respond to these posts because I feel like there’s a misunderstanding what these car washes are. Every car wash I’ve that has some sort of monthly plan are basically 99% self-service. You go up, select what you want at at kiosk, pay (or scan your card in this case), and then drive into the thing. There’s someone there to make sure you enter it correctly, and maybe someone else does a quick spray of your car, but that’s it. No one is paying attention to you, and no one even knows if your a member or not. And they’re not going to check the video feed to make sure the same car is going through each time. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/75 "2022-11-21T23:06:40Z")
If all of us decided to game the system in the same way, that would cause true financial harm to the car wash. So what makes Joe so special that he gets to do it, but not all of us can? I wouldn’t place this real high on the unethical scale, I guess, but it’s very icky and cheap. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/76 "2022-11-21T23:24:24Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Now that I don’t necessarily agree with. If he genuinely was the type who wants to keep his car that clean, or who drives in such a way (like on dirt roads or in mud) that he would need that many washes, … > [@BigT](#): > > Even my grandpa who was very particular about cars (as he always resold them) would only wash ever couple of weeks unless he drove on some dirt roads. So, you are pretty much agreeing with > [@puzzlegal](#): > > Who the hell washes a car every day? > > They didn’t sell “one car wash per day”, they sold, “wash one car as often as you want (limited to once a day).” You just think there’s an outside chance the guy really wants to wash his car every day, and isn’t just doing to it to “get as much as possible from the deal”. Yeah. Okay. Some teeny tiny chance. I’m betting he’s a dick. Also > [@hajario](#): > > In case anyone is curious like I was, the monthly plans range from $20 to $40 per month. There are four different plans that range from basic wash to extras like tire scrub and special waxing. These plans are equal to the price of about two washes at their level so on your third wash in a month, you are ahead of the game. It’s clearly not priced expecting drivers to wash their cars every day, or every other day. They probably assume most drivers will use the service less than once a week, on average. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/77 "2022-11-21T23:45:12Z")
What if, instead of sharing the pass with his wife, he was sharing it 10 of his neighbors? That would result in a loss of revenue to the business, for sure. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/78 "2022-11-22T00:05:38Z")
Sure, if I look the other way when granny shoplifts a trinket at my variety store, that’s my choice. It doesn’t change that granny is stealing. Whether there is enforcement, or not. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/79 "2022-11-22T00:14:04Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > > [@BigT](#): > > > > Now that I don’t necessarily agree with. If he genuinely was the type who wants to keep his car that clean, or who drives in such a way (like on dirt roads or in mud) that he would need that many washes, ⁢ > > … > > > [@BigT](#): > > > > Even my grandpa who was very particular about cars (as he always resold them) would only wash ever couple of weeks unless he drove on some dirt roads. ⁢ > > So, you are pretty much agreeing with > > > [@puzzlegal](#): > > > > Who the hell washes a car every day? > > > > They didn’t sell “one car wash per day”, they sold, “wash one car as often as you want (limited to once a day).” ⁢ > > You just think there’s an outside chance the guy really wants to wash his car every day, and isn’t just doing to it to “get as much as possible from the deal”. Yeah. Okay. Some teeny tiny chance. I’m betting he’s a dick. I just disagreed that your blanket statement that getting your car washed every day is a dick move. And then I used that as a jumping off point to then say there are other situations where I might not be so quick to side against the company. We’re in GD, so I didn’t take it as we were only talking about the specific situation given, but also more generally. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304/80 "2022-11-22T00:21:13Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > They paid for the right to fill their dumpster to the brim between emptyings and even my tiny burger wrapper interferes with their right to fill their dumpster, albeit very minimally so. We pay by the ton in addition to being limited by volume. I think that is usual for facilities that generate a lot of trash. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-ethical-gaming-a-subscription-plan/975304.md?page=5)