The Store Thief "Riddle"

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21
  1. Not really, as I think that the author meant for there to not be a “right” answer, and it is based on how you interpret the information that he left out.

His intent is to chuckle when he comes across debates like this, knowing that he succeeded in creating such disagreement.

And if he would agree that your answer is the right one, then I must point out that not everyone who poses a question knows the correct answer. Like I said, if his intent was to unambiguously ask how much was stolen, then the the way the question is written actually asked demonstrates that he is too stupid to be held as any sort of authority on the “correct” answer.

  1. And the lack of the words, “how much was stolen” or “loss due to theft” leads me to believe that the question is not how much was stolen, nor how much was lost due to theft. That it is stated how much was sold leads me to believe that that is part of the profit/loss for the store, and should be taken into account when asking how much money the store lost.

Then you agree that it is an ambiguous question. It does not contain enough information to tell what the intended answer is. It neither contains the cost of the goods sold, nor a request for the amount of money lost due to theft. Instead, it leaves it to the reader to decide what the intent is, and how to fill in that missing information.

I’ve seen such riddles a million times before as well, and I understand the intent as well. The intent is to create an ambiguous question that can be interpreted in more than one way, leading people to different answers. That some people have as visceral a reaction as the OP did to people coming to a different conclusion based on a different way of looking at the question is exactly what the author is looking for.

22

No, it would still only be $100. The thief still bought it for retail price. And over those two specific interactions, it is still $100-profit.

The only way that it would be more than $100 is if the store decided to mark up the price after selling to the thief.

23

From my example, 1070-910=160 in opportunity cost

Or rather, +70 - (-90) = 160

In civil court I ask for the 160, I obtain testimony/evidence that the sale would have been made if the thief hadn’t bought the last stock.

ETA:

wait… it wouldn’t be 1070 if I sold to a third party. It would be 1010. I’ve confused myself. :S

+70 - (-10) = $80. So with a $10 profit on the sale, I lose between $80 and $90, depending on whether I would have made a sale without the thief. That makes more sense.

~Max

24

So if I steal money somewhere, and then go somewhere completely different and buy something with the money, and then get caught after that–
The police will be ok with me keeping what I bought? The person or place that I stole the money from will be ok with me keeping it?

Of course not – because the entire transaction is fatally tainted.

The mere fact that the thief “bought” the $70 item does not make that transaction legitimate. And NO, I am not talking about morality; I’m talking about an attempt to (in essence) launder money. It does not matter whether you look at the case from a legal, ethical, moral, or financial point of view; any logical person will inevitably arrive at the same conclusion–the $70 transaction CANNOT cancel out the theft of the cash.

25

The sale of the item for $70 does not make a difference either way. It neither adds nor subtracts from the theft.

The store is in the business of selling things at a profit. Every day customers come in with money , give it to the store, and leave with goods. That is just a normal business transaction.

So a thief buys something with stolen money.

  • The sale is not a loss to the store. Selling things is what stores do.
  • It is only a gain to the store if you assume that the goods would have been unsold otherwise. If you assume that somebody else would have purchased the same items, then the store hasn’t gained.

The store lost $100. Or, to be precise, the theft reduced their profit by $100.

26

But no. That item wouldn’t be lost. It would be purchased.

The purchase isn’t relevant. This scenario is precisely the same if you just imagine a different person making the purchase with different money.

27

If you do that, then the first store is out the $100. Are you saying that somehow the store that was bought from is out something?

You will owe the first store that $100. The second store has nothing to do with it. The police aren’t going to take what you bought and force the second store to take it as a return.

Why not? Money was exchanged for goods. That is what makes a legitimate transaction.

The only way that works is if you are looking at it from only a moral point of view, and somehow see that money as “fatally tainted” which makes no legal, ethical, financial, or logical sense.

It makes no difference to how much was stolen, but it does make a difference as to how much the store lost over those two interactions.

Lets say a raven swoops down and steals a $100 bill out of the till. While the shopkeeper is philosophizing that if a raven comes into your store and steals a $100 bill, it is either an act of God or it isn’t, and in either case there isn’t very much you can do about it, someone comes in and buys something for $70. Does that sale for $70 help to offset the loss from the raven flying off with the money?

If so, then the store has lost $100 minus the profit off the sale. If not, then explain how selling things at a profit doesn’t help to offset losses.

The entire point of the question is that some people will fixate on the moral component, and will only see it as how much was taken by the thief. Others will look at it as how a business runs, and know that profits offset losses. Whether you are looking at it morally or fiscally will determine what answer you come to, and there is no “right” answer.

With the information given, it’s like arguing over whether the dress is blue or gold without knowing what kind of lighting conditions the picture was taken in.

28

And the purpose of this is to generate hits and shares.

29

It looks to me like that purchase is a completely separate transaction and has nothing to do with the theft. It shouldn’t matter whether you bought something with the stolen $100 or with a different $100 bill.

30

Yes, they will. But you’ll owe the store you stole from a hundred bucks. It doesn’t matter what dollar bills you give them. You owe them $100, not something you bought from another store.

31

If a thief goes into a store and pockets a product priced at $70 and $30 cash from the register, how much did the store lose?

32

The point is, the store sells things as normal business. Let’s say that in an average day it makes $2,000 profit.

One day a raven steals a $100 bill from the till.

Profits for that day are reduced by $100. They make $1,900 that day instead of the usual £2,000.

They lost $100.

33

Since no one has asked, I will. What if the item was a conveyor belt?

34

I’m starting to think it was this:

35

I don’t follow the logic. Why would that make a difference?

36

And this is, of course, the case. This is a common Facebook ploy. You ask a controversial question where people will be very opinionated about the answer, and you get a lot of engagement. A lot of engagement means that the Facebook algorithm will send this post out to more people, as well as send subsequent posts from the same poster out to more people. The question is being asked specifically because there is no one agreed upon answer.

As for the question itself? The following is my take: You correctly identified that there is insufficient info to answer the question in a monetary value. The actual answer is that the store is out $30 and one item that had been priced at $70. Sure, if you assume that item would have been sold, then you can argue that this amounts to a $100 loss vs. an honest transaction. But that’s an assumption.

It’s possible that the item in question never would have sold. Perhaps is it perishable, and would be thrown away after no one bought it in the required time period. It’s also possible they’d have to reduce the price to get anyone to buy it. There is no guarantee that the item in question was actually worth $70.

However, that’s assuming a system where you consider a loss of profit to be a loss. Or, equivalently, requires you to consider the value of the item to be the price at which it is sold for. If you consider its value to be the value that you purchased it for, then the store is out $30 + the original cost of the item. No one is guaranteed a profit, after all.

And, of course, you can choose to split the interactions, as @RickJay has done. You can treat the theft as illegitimate and the purchase as legitimate. You can treat it not like someone stole $30 + an item, but as someone stole $100 and purchased an item. In that case, you do get to $100. The reason I don’t do that is that I believe the thief was using “someone else’s money” and thus would not have purchased the item otherwise, so I don’t think his purchase counts to set the value of the item.

But, still, I wouldn’t say than any of the three perspectives I’ve given here are objectively wrong. That’s the point, after all. There is no one clearly agreed upon answer. But people will passionately assume the others are wrong, which helps it go viral.

37

I say 100 dollars.

What if the thief stole a hundred dollar bill, then later that day went in with two fifties of his own to make that purchase?

The store is out the initial 100. The later purchase is a completely separate issue.

Another way of looking at it would be if the thief snuck 70 dollars back into a register: then the store is out 30 dollars. Then the thief steals the 70 dollar item - meaning the store has now lost a total of 100.

38

And, this leads us to, at the end of the day, the cash register is short $100 when you compare starting balance, sales, and ending balance. Therefor, the store lost $100.

39

Suppose a thief steals $100 from Baxter’s Bookstore, then spends $70 in Sam’s Shoe Shop. Has Sam ‘lost’ $70 from the sale?

If the thief steals $100 from Baxter’s Bookstore, then spends $70 in Baxter’s Bookstore, has Baxter ‘lost’ an additional $70 from the sale?

If there is a difference between the two, please explain.

40

Probably a reference to plane on a conveyor belt debates, they can get very long, and this discussion is looking to be similar.