Is this stealing?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I know, I know, if you have to ask, it probably is. But, I really don’t know on this one.

For a while now, I’ve been wanting to get one of those motion-activated light switches for the garage. In my house, we have a garage door opener on the garage door and use the garage as the main point of entry to the house. The front door gets used once in a while, usually by a guest. Being dark in the garage, we were frequently leaving the garage light on all night (and day) because we’d forget to turn it off. Yeah, the garage door opener has a light that turns on when the door goes up or down and turns off automatically, but right next to the interior door it is pretty dark, so usual practice is to turn on a separate light near the door, which gets left on. So, I decided a motion-activated light switch would be the ticket.

Anyway, I was at a local large discount store (think Sam Walton) and in the housewares section, they have a motion-activated light switch, price around $14. I decide to get it, along with a outlet timer ($4) and some file folders ($5). I go to check out, and the total is less than $12. I saw three items ring-up and one of them rang up as $1. I pay and take the receipt and notice the light switch rang up for $1, the others the price posted on the shelf.

I took my goods and went home. Later, I guess I got greedy. My wife liked the outlet timer and wanted one for a lamp in the living room to turn the light on and off while we were gone. So, I went back and got another outlet timer and 5 more motion-activated light switches as well as some other items.

Now, in my opinion, the first switch was not stealing in any way or form. This same store has over-charged me on items (that I have discovered once I got home) and I figure these things even out. But, when I went back, that is what I wonder about. I mean, I got the others just to have spares (they can’t last forever, can they?) and for $1 each, it makes sense to have them on the shelf. But, I also knew there was a problem with their system and if I had let them know about it, I’m sure they would have wanted to raise the price. But, again, my decision to get the extra 5 was based solely on the fact that they were only $1 each; that is, the price they were charging.

I am not too worked up about old Sam’s descendants being cheated, I am just wondering if it was stealing?

excavating (for a mind

2

In a legal sense, I’d say no. You selected your item, brought it to the register, and paid the amount requested of you. You did nothing to cause the transaction to ring up incorrectly. You did not switch the price tag/bar code with a cheaper item. You are not responsible for programming Wal-Mart’s scanning devices. Perhaps there is some sort of sale/promotion that hasn’t been marked on the shelf tags yet. Perhaps the computer screwed up. Either way, it’s not your problem.

3

Not stealing, but in the sense that “this is a real steal” is not really stealing.

Same thing: There are these pens I really like at Rite-Aid. My kid keeps “borrowing” them (okay, he is really stealing).

A couple of weeks ago I got a pair, usually $3.99, and they rang up as $1. Yes!!! I went back and got about 5 more.

Now they are back to the regular price,:frowning: but I’ve got some in reserve:cool:.

4

I just got a multi-hose outlet timer/controller thingy from Walmart because it was marked at $6 (regularly $40) and it would be useful on my farm. All the other timer thingies were marked down from the original $40 to $35 bucks. I took it to the cash register and it rang up as $6. I can only think that either they’re using ‘easter eggs’ to try to induce more buying or they’re database may be hosed a bit. That is not stealing and not your problem.

The only way it could be ‘stealing’ is if someone (like Anonymous) were doing a barcode attack against them (they stick fraudulent bar codes on products so they ring up as cheaper products), but the item would not show up correctly on your receipt if that were the case.

Since I would also like remote activated switches… was it Walmart and which one? Maybe I’ll go check our local pricing. And if you want automated control over water hoses, their two hose controller is at only $6 bucks last time I was there. The three hose and four hose controllers are also on sale, but more like $35.

5

to me it is stealing, you knew it rang up wrong and what it should have been. May not be stealing from a legal point of view but for me it is still wrong. If you hadn’t noticed until you got home i’d say you wouldn’t need to do anything but you should have said something at the store. Ask “is that right?” If they say yes, not your problem. How would you feel if you owned a business and someone did that to you. Again may not think it’s stealing but it sure isn’t right.

6

If they weren’t on sale, I’d have to say it was stealing. You knew they were ringing up at the incorrect price but you didn’t say anything. If they had scanned too high would you have said something? If you had asked the clerk she might have mentioned they were an unmarked sale or something; that’s happened to me.

7

You did something wrong and you know it.

8

Not stealing. Knowing how Walmart price systems work, you got an item that (1) is on clearance and hadn’t had the shelf tag switched, (2) is on clearance and was put back in the incorrect spot, or (3) is on clearance but cross-referenced with a non-clearance item. All situations are pretty common, and (2) especially so since strays/returns are usually reshelved by people who have no clue where things actually go. Even if you wanted to pay the higher price, there literally is no method for anyone in the store to do a price override and charge a higher price for an item. You could argue to pay more, and they can’t comply with it.

The truth on this one is less nefarious than an Easter egg, and more mundane than database problems. It’s laziness on the part of the person who maintains the clearance pricing. Repricing stuff sucks, is boring, and items are often missed when retagging. If the UPCs on all the timers are the same, and the one you got rang up at $6, then all of them will ring up at $6.

9

Large retailers routinely discount products down to almost nothing. Usually it’s when they have a slow seller, or just a few items left, and they want the shelf space for something else or for updated packaging. Their POS software will progressively discount till they’re all gone. I’ve seen $20+ items reduced to a few cents - it’s not a bug, they just want to get rid of them.

10

Vague recollections of crim law here, and with all of the usual disclaimers regarding my not being your lawyer, not admitted to practice in your jurisdiction, and so on.

At common law (which is all I can speak to here, as I don’t know your jurisdiction), theft offenses are incredibly technical. Did you commit common law larceny? Certainly not the first time, due to lack of intent. Probably not the second either–it’s more complicated, but I suspect it would fail to be “trespassory” taking.

That said, is there some other theft offense that may more or less fit? Probably–they generally made them up at common law whenever they had something that didn’t quite fit but that the judges agreed was naughty. Not sure which now–I leave it to a crim law professor to sort this out.

11

I agree that the OP isn’t stealing. If the item is being rung up at a lower price than the shelf is labeled, it’s probably a labeling error.

12

Look, I do cashiering at a local home improvement store. Right or wrong, if the system rings up a price then that is the price. If the price is wrong on the high side, then if the customer complains the manager can and will correct down (btw…that is the law). But not the other way around. What corporate inputs in the computer system is gospel. You or us (employees) are not required or obligated to question their “mistakes”. The manager can report to corporate that an item may be priced too low, but he is not obligated to report. This even applies to the mom and pop stores also. Management (ownership) must be responsible for their own actions and should not expect their employees to be accountable for their mistakes. Note, I said accountable. Any good employee should be responsible enough to alert management about a price discrepancy. You did not do anything wrong. End of discussion.

13

What’s the local law and the store’s policy? I know many stores where, if there’s a price difference between the till and the shelf, you get the lowest price; usually customers will mention it and someone gets sent to update the information on the shelf (there will also be someone checking which price is the right one, but the first priority is getting them to match).

14

The solution here was pretty simple. You just needed to point out that the switch rang up at $1.00. The cashier would have shrugged and sold it to you at that price anyway, because that’s what cashiers do. And you would have felt better about the whole thing.

15

My conscience would tell me that I was stealing in the described circumstance.

The law may (or not) permit it as a mistake in my favour, but if I notice I’ve been undercharged, I point it out, in the same way that I would if I notice I have been overcharged. Fair’s fair.

16

Good for you. They have overcharged all of us in the past, and good for anyone that passively gets one over on them. If the price on the shelf was $14, and it rang up for $20, you would have pointed that out. They likely would’ve argued, sent someone to check, and it probably wouldn’t have been short and sweet. So knowing their predisposition to argue, why would you pick one by telling them they’re undercharging?
Also, Wal-Mart here has a policy about if the item rings up for less than the advertised or posted price, the item is yours for the price that rings up. I imagine most customers wouldn’t even notice the undercharge, and it would take a cashier to notice it and then question why an item was selling for so cheap, and then the policy would come into play to protect the customer. So you were actually entitled to the price it first rang up at, and however many of those items you brought to originally purchase. Of course, a cashier that had any sense would not allow you to go buy more than what you intended to pay $14 for, but they can’t prove your intent until they discover the error. So until they know you know the price is an error, they can’t prove you had any prior knowledge of the discrepancy. Nor are they going to interview cashiers or watch security footage to see if you bought the item earlier and knew of the problem. So milk it while you can. Go buy all they have in stock and put’em on Craigslist or eBay.
I’m also bitter about how Wal-Mart does the per unit pricing breakdown on the shelf tags, since I use them to decide which size of a grocery product to buy. Long ago, I got suspicious that the per units weren’t accurate, and now have the habit of whipping out the calculator to find a totally different per unit price than what they stated on the tag.

17

Over here, the store has to give you the product for the cheaper of the two prices, so what you were doing was perfectly legitimate in Australia. Your region may differ.

Oh, and all Australian supermarkets voluntarily adhere to the supermarket scanning code of practise that requires them to give you the first (of duplicate items) free and the rest at the cheaper of the two prices so you’d actually have been overcharged if that happened to you in an Aussie supermarket!

18

Uh, you may want to ask your manager about this one. If my employee is seeing dollars go out the door because of a corporate pricing error and feels they have no obligation to report it then I rather not have that employee working for me.

19

This +1.

I had much the same thing happen at Wal-Mart - the pair of shoes that were marked at $9.64 rang up as $5. I asked the cashier about the discrepancy, and she said “No, $5 is the price.” I don’t think that is stealing - the cashier was acting as the agent of Wal-Mart, I checked with her to be sure she wasn’t ringing it up wrong, if Wal-Mart is asking $5 for the shoes instead of $9.64, I am willing to buy at that price.

It’s not like switching tags or anything. If Wal-Mart made a mistake in entering the price at $5 instead of $9.64, I gave them the chance to correct it. If they say No, the price is lower than advertised for whatever reason, who am I to argue?

It may have been the case that the shoes were on clearance, or whatever the equivalent is at Wally-World - the next time I went to buy shoes, they didn’t have that kind for sale.

Regards,
Shodan

20

Fact is, you don’t know that the price is wrong. They could be clearing out old stock for a new model, and just didn’t properly label it as a clearance item. It’s not your job to know.

Walmart also chooses a business model where the employee checking you out is semi-powerless and mostly ignorant of the pricing model. Trying to get this sort of thing fixed is either going to be a major hassle for you, or the cashier will shrug and say $1 is the price. It is their job to run the store, and they pay the price for incorrectly loading inventory into the system. It’s a cost of using their business model, occasionally things will ring up wrong, and their employees won’t have a clue.