[QUOTE=Lobsang]
If we were friends before, would we still be friends? Would you think any less of me?
If that were the case in the OP (and I’m not saying it wasn’t, just that it wasn’t stated) then I agree. If a shop posts a sign that in essence says “All money you walk out with is yours,” then of course there is no obligation to return it. In my life I have never seen such a thing.
Me, too. I can imagine yielding to the temptation to keep it, especially if money was tight, but I certainly wouldn’t feel entitled.
Count me as another who got a cheerful refund when I was shortchanged. They counted the register just based on my phone call, and had it ready for me when I got there.
Since you made it such a big difference, I would hump my butt back there and correct the error.
As for my spouse, Sam Stone, I have sat in a Home Depot parking lot waiting while he went back in to pay for a $2.48 item that he had accidentally left in the cart at the checkout. I’m not sure if I’m quite that well-behaved. :o
Somehow our code keeps getting messed up 
Anyway, I’ve never been in anything like the hypothetical situation you describe, but if I were, the issue of whether we would stay friends depends on our personalities. If my brother had sold something of his, which contained something of mine (without his knowledge) to you, and you decided to keep it, then I’d be a little shocked and upset, I’d think differently of you. (I have actually been in a not too dissimilar situation with a friend in the past)
But the shop clerk and the customer are not friends. If the customer decides to keep the $40 and the shop clerk thinks less of him (assuming somehow he can work out which of today’s customers he gave too much change to) then so what? The customer and clerk are virtual strangers.
If they are not strangers, or if I was given too much change by a clerk who happens to be my friend, then I will go out of my way to return it.
Disclaimer:Drunk logic contained in thread
Gotta say, this makes me pretty sad. Since when is doing the right thing dependent on whether the other guy would do the right thing or not? In the first place, I know of plenty of retailers who, perhaps grudgingly, will accept my word as a customer that I was short-changed. One time in particular at a Sizzler, it wasn’t until I sat down at the table that I looked at my change and realized that the cashier had given me change for a ten when I’d given her a twenty. The manager’s response was that they’d count the drawer and see. He came to me later and said that the drawer count came up even shorter than my $10, and asked if I was really sure that I’d given the cashier a twenty. When I said yes, he (reluctantly, but still) gave me the $10.
Besides, if a retailer doesn’t correct their mistakes, that’s wrong. And for a customer to keep extra change is wrong. I hate, really, really, really hate, to use a cliche, but two wrongs don’t make a right. And those why say that they’d keep it because it was the clerk’s fault and they should pay for their own mistakes, are just rationalizing their own wrong behavior.
Gotta add an ironic twist to my Sizzler story that I never get to tell: I was at the Sizzler with a friend of mine, and we’d occasionally do the old poker hand in the serial number thing. Yeah, you guessed it: we’d been doing that as we were standing in line. And it wasn’t until long after the scene above where the manager gave me the $10 that I was struck by one of the biggest "d-oh"s of my life: When I’d first gone up to complain to the cashier about being short-changed, I could still remember most of my twenty’s serial number; I just didn’t remember that I could remember. What an incredible missed opportunity! When I told her that I’d given her a twenty, and she disputed me, I could have merely said, “Well, one of twenties near the top of the stack will have a serial number that starts with 9445866. Check for that.” Damn.
In my defence I am British. So naturally I am an amoral heathen.
Really it’s no big deal. A mistake was made, £10 is in the wrong hands. Life goes on. Life is infinitely more important than a £10 accounting discrepancy.
(As I said, £50 notes are very rare in the uk. the situation in the op, if it occured in the UK is likely to be an overcharge of £10)
There wouldn’t even be a question in my mind…I’d give it back.
You reap what you sow.
The ultimate contradiction :smack:
And again :smack:
Once more for luck :smack:
Robot Arm’s corollary to Gaudere’s Law.
This is a no brainer. Someone who came up $40 short on their register would almost certainly get fired – around here, anyway. There is no way I’m going to have that on my conscience.
Plus there’s the whole “it’s the right thing to do” thing.
(I would add, though, that every single time I’ve done the right thing in a situation like this, I’ve ended up getting a badly-needed break in my own life. You reap what you sow.)
Return the money.
Took my children with me grocery shopping and when we were putting the groceries in the car we realized that my purse had been laying on a bag of grapes that inadvertently hadn’t been rung up & paid for. Back into the store we went, where we paid for the grapes.
I could tell my children 100 times to do the right thing in all situations, but my actions speak much louder than my words.
Return the money.
I’m an American of British (and Manx) extraction myself, so I’m not sure that’s it. 
Certainly the IOM is a different world than ours, if you have the luxury of dealing mostly with proprieters. I just looked it up - there are 20 times more American employees of WalMart than there are residents of the Isle of Man. I’m envious.
Sorry about the hijack for diplomacy, Idle Thoughts.
I know that America and Britain are similar in many respects. I also know that they differ wildly in other respects. A singular infraction such as giving someone too much change (even as much as $40, which converts to about £20) is extremely unlikely to result in a firing. Britain’s laws are weighted heavily in favour of employees. A company would not get away with firing someone for accidentally giving too much change.
How interesting that in these days of corporate hotshots pocketing every scrap of scrip they can stuff in their wallets, those posting here will agree to moral justification.
I can’t give Enron and Tyco a pass for their millions if I’m equally dirty with the dollars in my charge.
Honesty is like pregnancy-you are or you aren’t.
Regardless of what the employment laws are in Britain, some things are universal. The money’s not yours. You should give it back even if you know the employee won’t lose their job.
It’s not like you don’t know where the extra $40 came from. It just got handed to you in the store … it’s not like you found it laying around on the sidewalk with nobody in sight, or it’s been several days since you were last there and you’ve been to several other shops since then and you have no idea where you ended up with the extra change. It happened 2 minutes ago, you know exactly how you ended up with it and exactly who gave it to you, and you know it was a mistake. There’s no excuse for keeping the money, I don’t care what part of the world you live in.
I’m talking morals here, not law. Legally, you can do what you want. But in situations like this, thinking only of oneself will result in getting bit in the ass later. We expect merchants to give us our change back in an honest manner with every transaction. It’s not too much to ask for customers to do the same.
PS: Around here, an employer isn’t going to buy the “I must have given out too much change” story. Most of the time they will just assume you stole it.
I would give it back for that large a discrepancy. If it was a dollar or two I wouldn’t, if I was already in the car. If I noticed it at the checkout I would give it back straight away (I have done so in the past).
I would probably give it back. It definitely would depend on how late I discovered the error. I am not going to drive back to correct a small difference. I have in the past corrected checks when dining out where they forgot to include a drink or two I have ordered.
But happily I am in the position that $40 not a lot of money to me. Back in grad school the choice would have been harder.
I worked at a Kmart for many years and a person would be fired for such a large shortage. On the flip side customers routinely called after getting shortchanged and we would instantly count the drawer and refund the money. I never saw a case where there wasn’t the extra ten or whatever in the drawer.
I would return the money even if I had to drive back. If I was too far away to drive back I would mail the money in. I think it’s the right thing to do and even if it’s not it’s the NICE thing to do. We"ve all made mistakes and know the feeling of relief when someone goes out of their way to be generous about it. Being a cashier is often a young person’s first job why should everyone be so heartless?
I, too, am a little surprised at the responses here. I guess I shouldn’t be.
I do count my change as it’s given to me. Once, a few years ago my SO and I were in a book store. I had just sold a bunch of books because I had no money, probably because I was drinking and smoking at the time. The cashier had just paid me, and I immediately noticed that she over-paid me 20 or $40.00.
I said nothing, and when we got into the car, I showed the mistake to Barb and asked, “Should I keep it?” She said it was up to me, and needing the money I said, “Let’s go.”
Three or four blocks down the street I started to feel pretty crappy, and I said, “Turn around, I’ve got to take the money back.” She said, “Good for you” or something like that, and turned around.
Of course I lied to the cashier, saying that I hadn’t counted it until we were quite a way down the street. She was quite grateful and thanked me a few times.
Screw the money. I felt great!
It’s fraud.