Not too long ago, I was buying lunch at a Subway and wondering why there were dollar bills in the “take a penny, leave a penny” jar as I reached into it. Later I realized I had taken a few cents out of the tip jar, in full view of the cashier. I hadn’t realized that a Subway would have a tip jar in the first place.
A couple years ago, I wan to WalMart on my lunch hour. I bought a 40 lb bag of dry dog food, among other items. I told the checker first thing, ‘I have dog food’. She said OK. As she was ringing up the last of my items, I said again, ‘don’t forget the dog food.’ She assured me that she wouldn’t.
I was in a hurry to get back to work so I wouldn’t be late, and as I was sitting there, back at my job, I thought… y’know, I think that bill shouldn have been more than that. I got the receipt out and checked, and sure enough… she had forgot the dog food.
I told her twice. I didn’t take it back.
My wife likes to tell the story of how her family got a vacation for 4 to Disney for free. My MIL bought a package deal from some now-defunct airline that included airfare, hotel, and a week at Disney. She put down a deposit (something like $100/person) with the rest to be billed after the trip. Well, sometime between their vacation and the bill, the airline went out of business. She never got a bill and couldn’t get a hold of anyone that wanted the money. I’m not sure exactly how much it was worth, but it was enough to help buy a new minivan when their old one crapped out.
I got a bunch of free stuff from Best Buy once. They had a promotion where if you bought this TV you got a free computer chair. Since I was in need of both, I thought it was a great idea. So I bought the TV for $350 and they told me that the chair was out of stock, but they were getting a delivery in a few days, so they’d deliver it to me for free.
A few days later and no chair, so I called and they said that they weren’t going to send me the chair, but I would get something comparable. So a week later I got an invoice for the chair with the price of $200 crossed out and a handwritten $50 next to it. In the envelope was a $50 gift certificate. I was confused so I called the customer service line and they told me that the invoice was correct and a $50 gift certificate was all I was going to get. I said “Fine” and spend the $50.
Three months later, I got another letter from BB apologizing for the inconvenience of them not giving me my chair and a gift card for $300. So, if I’m doing my math correctly, $350 = TV + $350 in gift cards.
I suppose it wasn’t completely free (I was out $350), but I got a bunch of DVDs, CDs and video games (I had long since bought a computer chair).
At one summer job, my timecard got messed up somehow, and rather than being paid for 40 hours per week in one of the pay periods, I got paid for working 0 hours in one of the weeks, and 80 in the other. So I ended up with 20-hours extra pay for “overtime.” I tried to fix it, but neither my boss nor the payroll people seemed to care. That was a government job.
When I was in college, there was a soda machine right outside the room with all the computer workstations (actually computer terminals -this was 1977!). One evening, I bought a soda (for, what, 50 cents?), and the machine emptied itself. I took the seven extra sodas into the terminal room and passed them out to all the other students.
A year ago, our cable company started sending us HBO, unordered. They’ve never charged us for it. I haven’t bothered to tell the company about it, as I never watch it.
I think it was around 2001, I was living in Istanbul but moving on to New Zealand.
I had $6500 in my Turkish bank account and I went to the branch to withdraw it. It was the day when a run on the Turkish lira had devalued the currency to about a third of its previous day’s value and everyone in thebranch was taking out their cash and buying dollars.
When I had gotten to the head of the queue to the teller she explained that they had no dollars at the moment so she would give me a slip of paper guranteeing me my cash which I could collect in one hour. She checked my account and wrote on the slip $18,000 and signed it.
I started to point out her error but she sharply cut me off saying the reason why they had no dollars now was because there was a currency collapse and she assured me that the figure was correct and I would get the money in one hour.
So I went for a coffee and beer and waited the one hour. I went back with the slip and fully expected them to have noticed and rectified their error and give me my $6.5K.
They didn’t, they gave me me the $18.5K. I started to speak again and she just shot me a look! So with my pocket bulging with the filthy lucre and a one way ticket to New Zealand on a flight in 3 hours I left.
in 2003 I put in a medical expense claim for 25,000 peso ( approx $500) They paid $25,000
( they took that back quickly)
in 2008 My company overpaid me my monthly cheque by $45,500!!!
they could only recover that over 6 monthly installments but at the end repaid me $12K of the deductions!!! My job then moved to Italy so they just took it out of the tax I had paid to the spanish authorities!!!
result!!
This happened when I was in college. I was waiting in line to use an ATM behind this one guy. When he was done withdrawing his money, he left. I started to pull out my card for my withdrawal when I noticed a $20 bill in the tray. The guy before me had somehow missed it when he picked up his money. I grabbed the bill and tried looking for the guy, but he was gone. I had no idea who he was or what he even looked like, so I kept the $20.
Up until recently, I used to camp out at Abbott’s Magic Get-Together in Colon, MI. Every year the same group of us would camp out together. I was usually the first one setup at the campsite and almost always the last one to leave. Every year for 5 years, someone would always leave a folding chair (which would be unmarked). I never wanted to leave anything behind in the site, so I would take it and bring it with me the next year. Nobody ever claimed any of the chairs I was left with. I still have them too.
I didn’t profit for this, but I used to sell “Muffins for Mammograms” at my old newspaper office to raise money to pay for mammograms for women who had no health insurance. I took orders for muffins, brownies, and cookies, they were delivered, I distributed them and collected the money for the program.
One year I got a delivery that was far and beyond what I had ordered. *Cases *of brownies. I immediately called the office and told them I hadn’t sold these, and the woman in charge said they couldn’t spare anybody to come pick them up and I could just keep them. So I sent an e-mail to the entire building (hundreds of employees) telling them first-come, first-served for $10 a box (or more, if they wanted to contribute to the cause). Made almost a thousand extra dollars on top of what I’d sold.
Same with me and cable.
When my officemate had a breakdown and dropped out of graduate school, she asked some friends to box up her stuff, specifying that books and papers were supposed to be mailed back and the rest we could throw out or keep as we would. Then we found an awesome jewelry box. Beautiful design, mother of pearl laminate. The officemate hadn’t asked for it back (and we were rather bitter that we had to deal with her stuff) so we added that to the “keep or throw out pile.” Became my sister in law’s christmas present.
A few years ago I came home from work and there were two large boxes from UPS at my front door.
There was no delivery name but the address was right. I lugged them inside, they were heavy, and opened them to find an almost full set of brand Le Cruset cookware. There was no packing slip or invoice.
I’d just moved into the house a few weeks before and thought maybe it was for the previous tenants. I called the landlady and asked her to contact them and see. She did. It wasn’t.
I called UPS and explained the situation. They said they could only do something if the shipper filed paperwork. The shipper was some multi-node distribution company that stores and ships for lots of different companies. When I called they said they couldn’t do anything without an invoice number.
So, I figure it was a gift from the spirit of Julia Child, inspiring me to up my cooking game by giving me the best tools possible. I did.
This is relatively common bevvy in Eastern Canada, but I’ve never heard of it ready-made before. Where is that from?
A couple of years ago, I accompanied my mother to ShopKo because she wanted to purchase a baker’s rack she had seen in a circular.
When we get there, we find out they are out of that particular style, but they’ll give her a raincheck for the shipment that would come in by the middle of the week. That works for her, so she pays for the rack right then and there, so all she has to do it pick it up when they call her. 3 days later, they call, we go get the rack, and live happily ever after.
Months go by… I come home from work one night, and I have a message on my machine from Becky at Shopko, letting us know that our baker’s rack has been delivered and we can pick it up any time.
So we went and got it. Again. Already paid in full. 
This one is my favorite!
I also had free cable for a year c. 1997 – it was just on when I moved in.
One day the cable guy knocked on my door and said that I was on the hook for back payments. (Seems a dubious claim to me.) I invited him to step into my living-room and pointed out the absence of a TV.
(As it happens, I did have a TV tuner card on my PC and a little LCD projector, and I did get some use out of that signal from time to time.) I didn’t cry when it was disconnected, though. There wasn’t really much on worth watching at that time.
About 25 years ago, I moved into a new apartment on a shoestring. One of the guys helping me move went ahead and hooked up my tv for me, assuming that I had contacted the cable company. Unfortunately, cable wasn’t in the budget just yet. Fortunately, it didn’t need to be. I got free cable for a year and a half before vandalism at the outdoor box required replacement and they only reconnected paying customers.
Just recently, I checked out at Wal-Mart without paying much attention to what the total should be. I came home without being charged for an HP color ink cartridge for my printer.
well you’re all going to hell.
please to be saving a seat for me.
At my local Safeway they once neglected to charge me for a bottle of liquor. I hemmed and hawed about it and after much debate with LiveJournal friends (“if you say anything I’m never speaking to you again!”) what I ended up doing was buying 5 bottles the next time I went (they have this thing where you can buy 6 bottles and get a 20% discount) so I brought them up to the cashier and said "charge me for 6 because last time I didn’t get charged for the bottle I bought last time. So technically I paid for it, but I paid LESS than I should have.
Then a couple months later I didn’t get charged for another bottle of liquor. I said “haha, ok, you got me. This like, my reward for being ‘honest’ about the other bottle?” and I didn’t say anything.
Then a few months later I was buying one of the big jug sized bottles (because they were having one of those crazy sales where the 750ml size was $15 and the 1.5L was $19 or something) and guess what. I get home and I’m FRANTICALLY searching up and down the receipt for it and sure enough - NOTHING.
The funny thing is…my psychiatrist keeps telling me to quit drinking, and my husband keeps telling me to quit drinking, but the grocery store is apparently ALL FOR IT!
It’s never anything else either! I never get an accidental free bottle of catsup or a free box of cereal - they are constantly over charging me on stuff like that. And GOOD LUCK getting them to honor a Pepsi coupon! What gives?
I don’t think MLS is. I can’t see any reason why the cast iron skillet was not legitimately his (or hers); it had clearly been abandoned. Likewise the other items.
It’s true - and the post office things. I clearly remember a commercial from when I was a kid where an eskimo received an oscillating fan and he scratched his head and the voiceover said something like “if you ever receive something through the US Postal Service you didn’t order - it’s yours to keep! Our mistake!” They ran it for several years.
About 5 years ago, I was gifted a 50 gallon fishtank from a co-worker, if I would just come get the damn thing out of his backyard!
So after getting it, and bringing it to my house, and my wife stopped having a seizure over how big the damn thing was, she bit the bullet and we headed to PetSmart to get stuff for the tank.
Including a tank stand.
My wife decided on this nice one, with frosted glass doors, and shelves in the middle… very nice. $250.
At checkout, apparently the girl scanned a shipping lable and not the price tag, because we got it home and realized the bill was a bit short.
It (and the fishtank) are now at a very very good friend of mines. It’s still really nice too. hehe
Once in college I quit a job. A month later, I got a letter from them firing me, and saying how I MUST return my name badge. I still have it, and laugh every time I come across it.
My last apartment had a ritual every few months of a neighbor asking me if I wanted free cable, yup oh yeah. They would break the lock on the box and ‘hook us up’, the cable company would eventually fix it, over and over.
My dad lives in Bizarro world, and is the opposite of everybody who posted here.
- He once got two huge computer monitors instead of the one he ordered, and paid to ship back the extra (rather than offering it to me, damn him).
- After he bought his house and ordered basic cable, he instead got the super package, for the basic price. He called three times before they came and “fixed it”.