I bet that soda gonna taste even better now!
norinew no, you didn’t steal. It was a mistake. And that manager was a jerk, too. 99% of people out there would have gone “Cool! Free soda!” and not reported it, never mind that some poor employee might end up being accused of stealing it or something.
You did the right thing.
I’m probably overreacting with you - I focused on your hesitation in reaching what seems the morally obvious conclusion to me.
But you have clearly thought about the situation (considering the clerk’s position was decent of you) and done the right thing.
As a teacher, I discuss this stuff with pupils, so may be rather dogmatic.
I certainly hope that none of my pupils would ever copy Dung Beetle, and celebrate their behaviour.
Obviously we have different definitions of ‘every possible attempt to pay’. As soon as I see the $5, I alert the bartender. Was that so difficult?
I also challenge your idea the barman has ‘forgotten’ or forgiven’ the payment. What would you say if he yells after you just as you leave the bar with them oney?
How about this one:
The bartender is busy, so you hold up the $5, wave it once, then walk out with it.
Is that stealing?
When I was at school a group of us used to buy sweets on the way home. Everyone else would shoplift, except me. When they realised I wasn’t joining in, they started calling me a coward and ostracising me.
Peer group pressure is immensely strong, especially during the teenage years. So I stole one sweet, literally worth £0.02 (about $0.01). That let me back into the group. But it upset me, because my parents had explained honesty clearly. So I left the money on the counter on my next visit.
I hope that answers your question.
One of my ethical tests is whether you would teach children to behave in a certain way. It’s interesting to read some of the posts in this thread in that light.
But what you did was deliberate and outright theft, glee. If I had ever been pressured into doing that, I would’ve felt the same guilt you felt and paid for it (I’ve never shoplifted so much as a penny’s worth of product in my life). What we’re talking about here is something that’s a pure accident on the part of the customer. No theft is intended. And you didn’t really answer my question.
But I’m still hung up on the fact that if it’s a pure accident on the part of the store (bad scanner code, double charge by checker, wrong price entered at register) I would expect them to correct it if they found out. And I would expect a customer to bring something to the store’s attention if I got something for free by accident.
I’ve gone back into stores several times when my change was incorrect, sometimes in my favor, sometimes in the store’s favor. It’s part of the social fabric, IMO. If I was rebuffed in my attempt to return money, that’s a different story.
I read a great book once that had a chapter on ethics. It was called the last ethics lesson you will ever need.
It said in so many words that if you are considering one action or another, visualize your action on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper.
Now using that lesson let’s look at what happen to me a few years back at Home Depot.
We went into the Depot with our contractor to purchase a bathroom remodel. We pulled up to the cashier with a flat cart, and two shopping carts full of stuff.
[ul]
[li]Toilet[/li][li]vanity top[/li][li]faucets[/li][li]Cast iron bathtub[/li][li]wood[/li][li]sheetrock[/li][li]flooring[/li][li]various odds and ends[/li][/ul]
We get to the check out and place all the small stuff on the checkout stand. The large stuff is left in/on the carts and the cashier rings it up. (standard operating procedure at this type of store)
The store manager comes over to approve the check.
The store manager is relieving the guy at the door and is the guy that checks out receipts on the way out. Wishes us a nice day.
The next day looking over the receipt, my wife finds that we were not charged for one item that we purchased.
Does it make any difference what the item was? If it was a $2. angle stop or something more expensive, does that really make a difference?
FTR I did not return the item, and I did not go back to pay for it. My reasoning (and what I would have told the hypothetical newspaper in the 1st. paragraph) It is that it is not my responsibility to train the cashiers at HD, nor is it my job to train their managers. The item was in plan view and if they choose to give it to me for free, I assumed it was their way of thanking me for being such a loyal customer over the years.
After all if both the cashier and the store manager are too flippin dumb to see a 5 foot long, 250 pound cast iron bathtub on the cart 3 feet in front of them, that is not my fault or responsibility.
Yes I may go to hell for this; I just hope I get a good seat for the trip. 
Under British and Australian law, at least, you can be charged with “stealing by finding” if anything comes into your possession that belongs to someone else and you make no effort to return it. Clearly the intent of this law is to make it obvious that not just overt theft is stealing.
In the circumstances of the OP I would pay for the drinks next time I was there if it was the shop down the road run by a family because Ben would take the money and say thanks. If I had been to Coles I wouldn’t mention it because I would assume that rectifying the error would be a procedural mess that would waste my time and the time of everyone queued behind me.
I don’t think either **norinew or rick is guilty of stealing, except in the sense of that word as making an exceptionally advantageous buy.
If they had tried to get out of the store with two cases of pop or a bathtub, and succeeded, that would be stealing/shoplifting/theft.
I have walked out of stores with lots of things I didn’t pay for, the worst example being two shoulder bags hanging off my shoulder because I was trying to figure out where they would fit. They were hanging there when I paid for the third one, the one I decided to buy (my real bag was hanging off the other shoulder), and when I realized I had 'em I took 'em back. (This was in the next store when I mistakenly reached for one of them when it was time to pay. Apparently nobody thought it at all weird to see someone carrying three purses, two of them stuffed with paper.)
OK, I’m pleased to hear you would never shoplift. I tend to react strongly on this subject because those other teenagers made me commit my only criminal act.
As a teacher I think it’s vital to give my pupils some guidance on dealing with such unsavoury pressure, especially when it might be drugs or sex next.
It might be an accident that you commit a crime, but it’s your responsibility to correct it as soon as you discover it.
To me the money involved is completely unimportant. What matters is how I feel about myself - and I feel good returning the property.
If I decide to keep something which is not mine because ‘it’s not valuable’ or ‘they can afford to lose it’ or ‘they need training’, then I become a worse person (and am more likely to commit bigger crimes).
I find these sort of ‘justifications’ for keeping the stolen goods very sad (and I hope none of my pupils grow up like this):
Cicada2003 “making an exceptionally advantageous buy” (you didn’t buy it - that’s the point)
Rick “I assumed it was their way of thanking me for being such a loyal customer over the years.” (and so you phoned them to thank them for their generosity :rolleyes: )
I had this kind of situation once. I had taken my two kids to McDonalds. It was just about the time Disney’s Tarzan had been released in theaters, and McD’s was selling Tarzan noise-making straws for $1.49. The kids had asked if they could each have one, and I said yes. We ended up with two value meals, one happy meal, and two straws. The cashier rang it up and said “That comes to $3.18” I said, “No, that can’t be right. Can you recheck the order?” she looked at our tray of food, our straws and the cash register and said “It’s $3.18” I asked for a manager, who looked at the cash register, looked at me, and said “It’s $3.18”. Could I have argued (while our food was getting cold and our youngest getting grumpy) by pointing out the individual items we had bought and the individual prices for each one? Yeah, I could have. But I didn’t.
The question I try to ask myself is: How would I feel if my children modeled my behavior? I’ve never lied about their ages to get them into places cheaper; I’ve never had them lie for me on the phone (if it’s someone I don’t want to talk to, I have them tell the person I’m busy, but never that I’m not home). In my OP example, I would have wanted them to pay for the drinks. But if they had had an experience like mine at a fast-food place, I’d have said, Hey, you made three efforts to pay full price for the stuff. Your responsibility only goes so far. glee may choose to disagree with me.
Originally posted by glee
I did say that I’d feel bad about it. However, the store I shop at is a twenty minute drive from my home. I’m not making a forty minute round trip to correct someone else’s mistake, which I had already taken steps to prevent. (The line about having a Coke and a smile is a reference to an old soda commercial.)
Does that make it a hot tub? :p ::flees::Ok now let’s talk about honesty.
I think the thing that upsets you so much Glee, if I may be so bold, is not the fact that they pressured you into committing a crime but that you caved into their pressure.
Because it isn’t about what other people do it is about your own personal choices isn’t it?
Just an observation.
As for the OP.
I wouldn’t call it stealing. I think every effort was made to pay. The store in question is certainly not a very well run place. Next time just have them scan the soda twice.
Deadly said, “I think it should be pointed out that norinew did NOT make the conscious decision to keep the item she didn’t pay for. Just the opposite, in fact. I don’t want people to get her mixed up with me and think she’s the one they think is amoral.”
If she decided not to reimburse the store for something the cashier overlooked, she DID make a conscious decision to steal.
DanielWithrow said, “Kalhoun, how much inconvenience are you obligated to suffer in order to correct this mistake?”
A little to none. I assume she shops there all the time. Somewhere in this thread I said she should pay for the items the next time she’s shopping there. If she never shops there, she should mail the money or drop it off the next time she drives by. Why would anyone think this ISN’T stealing??? If you know you didn’t pay for it, and you know you were SUPPOSED to pay for it, and you make no EFFORT to rectify the mistake, you are stealing.
Miss Bunny said, "but geez, a little “Wow, thanks for pointing that out to us” would have been nice. "
I agree. People in service positions need to brush up on their everyday manners.
Kalhoun, my OP made it clear that I had, in fact, made a conscious decision to pay for the soda. I called the store about 15 minutes after I discovered the error, talked to the manager, and, on his advice, specified, in writing, on my receipt, exactly what I had purchased. Next time I go to that store, which I do every couple of weeks, I will take the receipt to the service desk and pay for the sodas.
My OP question “would you consider this stealing” was obviously misconstrued to mean “would you consider this dishonest”. Of course it would be dishonest of me to keep it without paying. What I was looking for was more along the lines of “is it stealing or is there another name for it?”; also, kind of a “what would you have done?” kind of thing. The responses have, by-and-large, reinforced my view that the Dopers are, pretty much across the board, a stand up bunch of folks.
“I think there is a continuum here, no specific cutoffs. If I’m travelling cross country and notice the Quickie Mart 100 miles back undercharged me by $1 on my foot long hotdog, there’s no way in hell I’m going back to fix it. There is a point at which it would be reasonable to correct the mistake.”
Nor would I. But my neighborhood grocery store, in my community, is a different story.
Norinew, I wasn’t speaking to you as if I thought you were going to do the wrong thing. Sorry if it came across that way. I guess the point I’ve been making here is that if it is your neighborhood grocery, it isn’t inconvenient to rectify the mistake (which you said you intend to do). I agree, most Dopers play it pretty straight.
FTR, I have a girlfriend who will make off with whatever she can if she can slip through the checkout with it. She thinks absolutely nothing of it. It drives me nuts.
My point being that many people don’t consider it dishonest.
In retrospect, in this case I guess “stealing” is probably the wrong word. Dishonest fits much better.
I do not live in a world where I allow other people’s mistakes to dictate my action, and obligate me into doing something that I otherwise would not do. If the cashier makes a mistake in my favor, and I’ve made efforts to correct that mistake (that is as basic as placing the items for purchase on the counter), I have no obligation to incur a single second of inconvienience to correct something that is not my responsibility. I may choose to, but there is no moral or other type of obligation.
It is not dishonest, because you are not attempting to deceive anyone or conceal anything. It is not stealing, because you haven’t attempted to take something that doesn’t belong to you, and have made reasonable efforts to correct the error.