# Would you pay the extra money? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 18, 2016, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-pay-the-extra-money/749462 "2016-03-18T22:46:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-pay-the-extra-money/749462/41 "2016-03-20T02:39:21Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > My guess is the salesman made a genuine error that was only picked up when they checked their accounts at the end of the month. In that case, the actual error would be that they don’t keep their accounts up to date. Running a business isn’t like balancing a personal account. They don’t just do the bills once a month. They need to know their cashflow at all times. Otherwise, they’d never be able to, for example, balance their registers or know if cash was going missing. In this particular case, you know they didn’t wait until after the furniture was delivered to take the payment. If this is mistake was real, it would have been spotted when they entered the sale in their records. ---
**Author:** ![Jake\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Jake\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake_Jones)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-pay-the-extra-money/749462/42 "2016-03-20T05:41:08Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I have a different question for the folks who climbed up on their high horses. What if the deal was verbally agreed at $1500, written up at 1500 and the cashier accidentally punched 1800 into the CC terminal and you signed for 1800 without noticing the difference? 25 days later when your CC bill comes you’re reviewing the transactions and spot the goof. $300 in their favor. Oops. There is no high horse to climb up on and you’ve presented a false analogy. I addressed clerical error in my first reply. It’s not the same thing as trying to alter the agreed upon terms of a completed transaction. > [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > Perhaps I’m naive, but I’m surprised about how many people assuming it’s a scam. My guess is the salesman made a genuine error that was only picked up when they checked their accounts at the end of the month. It doesn’t matter. The offer was made, accepted and confirmed. The transaction was completed. Payment was accepted, merchandise was delivered. Win or lose, it’s over. Trying to renegotiate after the fact is unprofessional, severely damaging to the reputation of anyone who tries to do so and offensive to the other party. > [@](#): > > The salesman is then told it’s coming out of his pay, so decides (either with or without the agreement of management) to see if he can avoid the issue by getting the OP to pay. They probably just didn’t think through how bad this looks from the other side of the fence. **I agree with the general feeling that you shouldn’t pay and they need to own their mistake.** This is the key factor. Own your mistake. Big boy rules. The salesman’s pay, assuming he is a commissioned salesman (which is a pretty safe bet) is dependent on his ability to make profitable sales. If he made a bad offer based on bad information, his recourse is with the provider of bad information. If he made a bad offer based on his own error, he has no recourse. Under no circumstances does he have recourse with the party that accepted his offer. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-pay-the-extra-money/749462/43 "2016-03-20T19:28:51Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > Perhaps I’m naive, but I’m surprised about how many people assuming it’s a scam. My guess is the salesman made a genuine error that was only picked up when they checked their accounts at the end of the month. The salesman is then told it’s coming out of his pay, so decides (either with or without the agreement of management) to see if he can avoid the issue by getting the OP to pay. They probably just didn’t think through how bad this looks from the other side of the fence. I agree with the general feeling that you shouldn’t pay and they need to own their mistake. I think I would bet on this scenario as being the one in effect. Normally in a scenario like this the store manager would scream the salesman, eat the profit difference and move on. I’m guessing the salesman is on the hook for this difference and wants to take it off his shoulders. Honestly as a sales person myself given the relatively small amount of overall dollars we’re talking about to do this is kind of poor form. ---
**Author:** ![pendgwen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3da27b/32.png) [@pendgwen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pendgwen)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-pay-the-extra-money/749462/44 "2016-03-20T19:35:18Z")
Update: I replied to the email saying that I paid the quoted price so there’s nothing for me to correct. I’m still debating whether to contact the store and ask if it’s their policy to try and change the price after furniture has been delivered. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-pay-the-extra-money/749462/45 "2016-03-20T21:15:21Z")
> [@pendgwen](#): > > Update: I replied to the email saying that I paid the quoted price so there’s nothing for me to correct. I’m still debating whether to contact the store and ask if it’s their policy to try and change the price after furniture has been delivered. The manager can’t stop the practice unless s/he knows about it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-pay-the-extra-money/749462/46 "2016-03-20T21:37:10Z")
Back when I was hypothetically shopping for furniture, I presumably looked at a number of different stores, and at a number of different products at each store. The one I eventually chose to buy, I presumably chose in part because of its cost. Maybe, for instance, I saw another chair just like that one at another shop, but $15 more expensive, and so I chose this one. Well, then, in that case, if the chair I actually bought had had a price tag on it that was $300 higher than what I actually paid, then in that case I wouldn’t have bought that chair; I would have bought the other one at the other shop. Which means that I didn’t actually pay $300 less than I “should have”; I only paid $15 less than I should have. So no, it is not reasonable to expect me to fork over an extra $300. How much extra is it reasonable to expect me to fork over? I only see one logical place to draw the line, at 0. We made a deal, we agreed to it, and I might not have agreed to it if the deal were different. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-pay-the-extra-money/749462/47 "2016-03-20T22:33:12Z")
On top of everything else: even if you paid the extra, how do you know that will be the end of it? Is there anything stopping them coming back again to say it was _really_ supposed to be $1,900 and not $1,800 nor $1,500? ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-pay-the-extra-money/749462/48 "2016-03-20T23:45:05Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I don’t believe that’s entirely true. The lawyers on this site can address that better than I can. I believe that is entirely true without throwing in additional facts. If I go to a car dealership, we agree on a price, set it down in writing with no contingencies\* and they receive payment from me, then the car is mine, period. They can’t come back at the end of the month with ‘oh, actually we were thinking the dealer price was different, you owe us more money’ and force me to pay it. I challenge you or ‘the lawyers on this board’ to provide a cite of that scenario actually happening, it should be easy to do if such a thing is possible. - Auto dealers do a lot of shady stuff with financing, like offering a deal then finding ‘oh, the finance company didn’t approve that deal’, but that’s not the scenario being talked about here. > [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > Perhaps I’m naive, but I’m surprised about how many people assuming it’s a scam. My guess is the salesman made a genuine error that was only picked up when they checked their accounts at the end of the month. The salesman is then told it’s coming out of his pay, so decides (either with or without the agreement of management) to see if he can avoid the issue by getting the OP to pay. They probably just didn’t think through how bad this looks from the other side of the fence. I would consider your scenario a scam. If a person who works at a business doesn’t like the terms of employment with their boss, it’s between them and the boss/business. Trying to get me, a third party who made a simple, honest transaction at the store. Trying to guilt that third party into giving the salesman money he’s not entitled to is trying to scam a person who doesn’t owe any money out of money. Also, if the boss isn’t in on the scam, the employee is likely to lose his job when you complain to the store about the scam. The employee didn’t think through how bad this looks on the employer side of the fence, and will likely have to learn the hard way that businesses tend to frown on you taking money directly from customers for personal gain outside of legitimate channels at the store, without even getting into the kind of damage this does to the store’s reputation. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-pay-the-extra-money/749462/49 "2016-03-21T01:50:05Z")
> [@seal\_cleaner](#): > > Happened to me with a car. I think it was an honest mistake, but I went back to the dealership, turned the car in, and picked up my old one. By the time I got home they had already left a message on my machine apologizing and confirming the original deal. An aside I thought of reading this post: what if, on the way back to the dealership, a Porche ran a red light and t-boned you and the car you were trying to return? Could the dealership still demand the extra money? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-pay-the-extra-money/749462.md?page=2)