I’ve been in retail a long time and I’m still annoyed and pissed off at times when I see the petty thievery that goes on. I keep telling myself it’s a small % of people that do it, but I’ve also seen bad behavior become so common and accepted that major companies change their policies to deal with it.
Rent for free scam is always one that bothered me. Go buy something you only want to use for a while and then make up some excuse and return it. It may be withing the legal boundaries but it is essentially stealing. Other petty scams are more blatant.
I worked with a guy who advised me to go through the drive through and then complain at the window that I ordered fries that weren’t rung up , and they’ll give you fries for free.
“So you’re advising me to lie just to score some free french fries?”
Another co worker would brag about how he scammed free meals at certain restaurants by finding something to complain about. Not confessed, head bowed, but bragged.
I’ve begun to recognize customers who believe that complaining loudly will get you a discount or something thrown in.
I was just in the thread about the people who were arrested for eating a sandwich and in store and not paying for it. That can be an example of chronic behavior that stores develop policies to address.
A friend of mine is a manager at MCD’s and I hear stories of petty scams there all the time.
“Hey man I ordered two sandwiches and you only gave me one”
No , I just put two in that bag.
No No I only got one. You owe me a sandwich, or a fries, or a desert I “ordered”
The newest one. Someone orders a big bag of food and gets a receipt and a cup to get their drink. They go around a corner. When their order comes up their partner gets it and says thank you. Then they come back to complain they never got their food, they have a receipt and cup, so they get a refund.
Restaurants can deal with this by making sure employees give out and ask for receipts, but that slows down the process a little, because of the crooks.
They just piss me off. Have a little character and stop thinking you’re clever because you screwed someone. Stop trading your integrity for a freaking burger.
I understand, and it’s frustrating when people who think they are good people do shitty things.
One of my right-winger co-workers is a complete study in hypocrisy.
She rails on and on about her religion and pet ‘moral’ topics and then does stuff that just boggles my mind.
She said when she’s mad at the company, she gives free stuff (that should be charge for) away. I told her that she needed to quit doing that not for the company or the customers or her own pay, but for herself- because it tarnishes her ethics.
Recently, we all went to a restaurant. She told us that she wanted a particular, flavored margarita, but wanted to also try the watermelon margarita. She said she was going to order the watermelon one, taste it, and then send it back by telling the waiter she didn’t like it and that she wanted another flavor. I thought she was either joking or would find she liked the watermelon one and keep it.
Nope.
She did exactly what she said. Ordered a 9 dollar fancy drink, tried it, said it was pretty good and then sent it back, ordering the thing she really wanted in the first place.
Who does shit like that?
I guarantee you if someone tricked her out of nine bucks, she would tell everyone about how they are going to hell for weeks.
I think some people convince themselves that if they are taking it from a corporation, it’s not really stealing, or affecting a specific person.
Anecdote: the donut shop near my place has a container of donut holes on the front counter, for people to help themselves. I’ve seen folks (usually teens) come in and order one donut, then help themselves to maybe twenty(!) donut holes. OK, the place doesn’t set a limit, but come on.
I don’t think I’d do too well in retail.
Oh, well, presumably they’ll get their punishment for being unethical when they bloat out from all that fat and sugar in a few years.
Hell, why didn’t she just ask if she might be able to taste it anwyay? If it had a bar, the bartender can whip up a tiny dash of the stuff if you want to try it. Sure, I would guess there are some places that wouldn’t, but if you’re ordering another drink anyway, I see no problems with getting a taste of something unusual. So not only is she nasty, she’s rather dim.
Arrrrgh, I have an aunt who pulls shit like that. I’ve heard her brag about:
Returning a started case of soda to a grocery store (I forget what half-assed reason she gave them) because she found it $.50 cheaper at another store.
The old trick of buying a fancy dress for an event and returning it to the store the next day.
Moving the %off sign toppers in department stores to racks of stuff not on sale and arguing with the clerk to get the discount.
Taking all the napkins/sugar packets/coffee creamers off restaurant tables, also at buffet type places she makes sure to load up a takeout box with whatever’s expensive.
Buying a new paper shredder, putting her old one in the same box, and RETURNING HER OLD SHREDDER TO THE STORE FOR A FULL REFUND. After that one I told her if she ever told me a story like that again, I’d call up the store and tell them exactly what she did because that’s theft, plain and simple.
When I worked retail it was disgusting what people tried to get away with. It never seemed to get through their little peabrains that increased shrink drives prices up because retailers have to compensate for their losses somehow. They just go on whining “It’s not my fault, prices are sooo hiiiigh so what else am I supposed to do!”
Some folks seem to feel some urge to try to be clever and outsmart the stores. Some kind of challenge that must be met. Maybe it’s for some subconcious bragging rights. “I’m smarter than those dumb fucks at Costco!”
They are not convinced that it’s hurting anyone. Corporations are rich, right? Stick it to 'em.
It seems as if there is so many people who spend so much time and creativity trying to cheat (or “game”) the system. Too bad they can’t direct that energy more productively.
I used to work for a company that sold HVAC supplies to contractors. One particular customer would routinely buy common models of thermostats from us, replace his customers’ old thermostats with new ones (undoubtedly charging them a premium price), then return the old, used ones to us as defective. I’m talking *every time * he walked into the store, he had at least 2 or 3 “defective” stats to return. Old, dirty, beat up, painted on; we all knew what he was doing, and I’m sure he knew we knew. The boss’s take on it: “He’s a good customer, just let him do it.” Grrrrr…
It’s the same mentality as protesters who smash store windows and burn police cars during riots. They believe all stores are corporate-owned and wallowing in excess cash, and that the police will have to pay for replacement cars. I guess they never heard of franchising or paying taxes.
Also, what about the dumb fucks who decide that they don’t really want the pack of chicken, or frozen entrees after all and just stick it on a random shelf somewhere else in the store, instead of taking 40 precious seconds to return it from whence it came?
I have a co-worker who brags about stuff like this. His wife is right there with him. If they find a mismarked box of say lip balm that usually sells for $2 a stick that is marked $2, they will buy that box and make a fuss when the clerk tries to tell them that the price is by the stick. They won the arguement, then brought the lip balm to work to give out because they didn’t like the brand.
I don’t remember the details, but he once got a lot of a very expensive BBQ for free because the kid loading it on his cart put some of the other pieces inside the hood and the person in question didn’t say anything to the clerk and walked out after paying something like 300 for over 600 dollars of product.
He brags about this. When I tell him that I couldn’t sleep at night, he says its not stealing because its the store/clerks fault. He’s stopped bragging to me, but I know he still does it because I hear him telling SG, who totally approves.
Everyone pays for shrink. Its stealing!
I’m the other way, I keep a running tab in my head, so I know about what I should be paying at the register. If the total is too far off (3 dollars on a grocery run is OK, 3 dollars off on a service that should cost 12 gets questioned), either up or down, I will question it.
Fuck Dude! Sounds like you stand tall. When you take your last breath, that’s all you"ll have. I’m with you. You’re going to have to be satisfied you did what you knew was right. Calling shit bags on what they did wrong will never pay off. Trust me. It will only take it’s toll on you.
Lesson hard learned.
Mr. Neville, who is otherwise a mensch, wanted to do this with a window A/C unit when our air conditioner stopped working. I wouldn’t let him. I know all kinds of other people do it, but it’s still stealing.
I dunno. I did this at Best Buy a couple weeks ago. I don’t lie, so I wouldn’t have done so if they required a reason for returns, but I checked their return policy beforehand, and it didn’t say anything about only certain reasons being valid for bringing things back.
So the store says you can buy things and then bring it back within thirty days and get your money back. They don’t say that it needs to be because your dissatisfied with the item, and they certainly are aware that people do the rent for free thing, so if they didn’t want them to they could make some effort to require people to give reasons for returns, and they actually advertize their return policy in the stores. I don’t really see any reason not to take advantage of the policy then.
I don’t steal, but I don’t really see the reason to not do something a store allows you to do as stealing just because it might be disadvantageous for them.
I used to work in a clothing chain that had very liberal return policies. Basically, if it didn’t look like it had been worn, you could return it.
Prom dresses. Sweat stains, stretched seams and heel marks, and these girls would swear to God they’d never worn the dress. I’m talking screaming at me. I don’t make the rules, lady. If my district manager comes in to go over the clothes we have to trash and decides the dress has been worn and shouldn’t have been accepted for return, guess who has to pay for it? I’m not financing your prom.
And don’t get me started on Easter and hats. Buy the hat Saturday; return it Monday. I think the chain finally stopped selling hats because they weren’t really selling them, they were just loaning them out.
My chuch-going Jesus-loving sister-in-law is like this. We bought a really pretty glass pendant light for our kitchen, and my dumbass husband broke the shade while he was installing it. She said, “I would have taken it back and told them it was broken in the box!” I just looked at her and said, “We won’t be doing that.” I got the old “it doesn’t really matter … it’s just $40 … they’re a huge corporation … blah blah blah.”
WRT fancy dresses, these days, most of them have a 4" x 6" tag that is placed in the side seam that says something like “THIS TAG MUST BE ATTACHED AND INTACT IN ORDER TO RETURN THIS DRESS”. Makes it a little harder, at least.
Act only in that way which you could envision benefiting all of humanity if everyone acted in that way. Who said (something like) that?
Stores want to bend over backward to have liberal refund policies, but obviously if everyone took maixmum cynical advantage of the “refund” provisions, there’d be no refunds even for legitimate reasons, and maybe no stores.
This is why socialism can’t work. It’s just another name for theft, with the justication having its only difference that “the rich” are the nebulous Other who can and should foot the bill for the chiselers instead of “the big corporations.” Social contract breaks down, nobody can have anything nice because of the cheaters.
