Ethical?

[magid]

I went to the shoe store, and a man asked which of two pairs of shoes I thought would be better for him. I pointed out the (few) differences that I could see, and went on with my perusal of the Timberland display. A minute or two later, he asked a salesperson if he and 'his cousin' (me) could use the buy one get one at half price deal, and the guy said yes. In the end, I wasn't going to wait for a very indecisive guy to make up his mind, so I paid and left. Would it have been right to do this, though? Other pairs of people were, in fact, using the sale as one pair for each, if that makes a difference.

I stopped at Harvest on the way home to pick up a few last groceries. When I unpacked the bag at home, there was a bunch of bananas in the bag. I didn't buy bananas, and they weren't on the receipt. I should bring them back, I suppose, but it's frigid out tonight, and I have cooking to do. Should I keep them? It feels a bit like petty theft, but I didn't take them. Is this like returning a lost item, or a different category entirely?

Comments

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

I feel bad for the person who thought they bought, and paid for, the bananas, but there's nothing you can do. Even if you brought it back, they might not be able to resell them for health reasons. Do you eat bananas? Make something for work, maybe?

[magid.livejournal.com]

I definitely eat bananas. I have a couple of bananas sitting around the house as it is (organic ones, even). And I could make something for work (if I can figure out when to make it...).

I hadn't thought about health issues with returning produce. Bananas are rather more sealed than most, but I could see there being a blanket rule.

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

fj and I had a similar, but backwards, experience just yesterday. I noticed that the butcher had rung up the ground beef I bought as steak - at about $3 per pound more expensive. It was an honest mistake; I had been talking to him about the steak at the same time; he rang up the meat we were taling about, not the meat I had bought.

I asked fj if I should take it back, and get the correction credited to my next bill. He suggested that people make mistakes, and that there was probably a mistake that someone had made in my favor at one time or another, so I should just let it go.

Well, maybe 'my cousin' (you) got my balancing mistake.

[magid.livejournal.com]

When I notice errors in ringing up at the supermarket, I'll go to the service desk, but if it's later, I don't bother. If your cousin's bananas are making up for your ground beef, she should have a lot more of them...

I don't remember ever having a new item appear in my bag before, though.

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

This happens to me about 1/10th as often as it happens that something on the receipt never makes it into the bag I take home. That is, once every few years.

Enjoy the windfall.

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

The only things I can recall finding in my groceries that I didn't buy recently were things I didn't want and couldn't use. Bleah.

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

I have had things magically not appear either on my bag or the receipt, but never in my bag and not on my receipt.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a first for me.

[thespisgeoff.livejournal.com]

The buy one get one half-off sale: completely ethical, if indecisive-man hadn't felt the need for a wild cover story. Lying to the man - not so cool, but since the half-off the second pair still leaves a healthy profit margin, you're not taking the shoeseller to the cleaners.

The bananas, enjoy. You taking them back to the store won't help the person who expected them in their basket, and while I'd be all for returning any other merchandise, produce seems to have its own set of rules.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Shoes: yes, that bothered me, that he'd presume that I'd be ok with it. When I was leaving, he wanted me to stay 'just five minutes', but it seemed unlikely he'd be done in five minutes, and once I've given this random guy that time, I wasn't sure when I'd leave (or if he'd find a pair of shoes that suited him at all).

Bananas: I'd just gotten down to three bananas, now I have seven. Need to find people who want smoothies... (since that's my nefarious plot to use up the many kiwis I got last week).

[curly-chick.livejournal.com]

I would have been okay using the half off deal if everyone had been upfront about it. I have problems with the guy calling you his cousin to get a deal, especially without discussing it with you first.

The bananas, well, I don't have any problems at all with that. I doubt that they could have take the bananas back at this point and my feelings would be that since it was clearly their error. They can replace the patron's bananas which were lost, if called upon, without suffering a financial hardship.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I found it a bit off-putting myself, that this guy would assume it's ok to do that. In fact, he kept trying to be chatty with me while he tried on shoes, too, asking further advice. I suppose it could be fine, but he came across as someone who would take up as much time as I let him have, which I wasn't going to allow.

Four bananas aren't a big deal for the supermarket, definitely. I was thinking of it in the more general case, forgetting that produce has different rules than non-perishable stuff.

[bitty.livejournal.com]

The grocery store makes an error, nearly always in their favor, pretty much every time I shop. Thus, the rare occasions on which errors come out in my favor are merely an attempt to balance the scales.

I'd chalk it all up to mistakes, but it happens so frequently that I have to wonder.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Are they the kind of mistakes you notice in the store and end uptaking the time to have corrected, or something you find at home and decide not to bother with? (or some other permutation).

(Perhaps you have a supermarket demon tagging you? ;-)

[bitty.livejournal.com]

usually it's past the point of being able to prove that i got charged for [x] when i didn't get [x]; if i'm shopping alone, they're more likely to charge me the wrong price for something (when with BB one of us can be watching the screen while the other unloads); and i forgot what i was going to say 'cause my boss came in and i got distracted.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I think I've ended up unloading my stuff onto the belt in advance around 95% of the time, which gives me the time to watch them scan, if I want to. Though the times that I haven't, I haven't necessarily been good about checking the receipt, either, so perhaps I've been over/under/wrongly charged and don't know.

Bosses can be distracting.

[bitty.livejournal.com]

yes, but we're shopping for two, one of whom has 5 stomachs. so we can never manage to fit everything onto the belt before they start ringign everything up. full cart syndrome.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Y'know, he doesn't *look* like a cow with an extra stomach ;-).

Obviously, it means you should shop more frequently! *ducks*

[bitty.livejournal.com]

i refuse to shop more than once a week.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Good thing you don't keep kosher, then. *grin*

(I end up in 2-4 markets/week, every once in a while more...)

[bitty.livejournal.com]

I bet there's a 12-step program for you somewhere...

[cellio]

Shoes: if it was an unrestricted buy-one-get-one-at-good-price deal, then any two people should be able to pair up. It sounds like that's how people were interpreting it; I of course don't know what the offer said or how it was intended. (Their goal was presumably to sell shoes to people who might not otherwise buy right now, so they may be cool with it.) The whole "cousin" thing would be completely superfluous in that case, though.

Bananas: the practical argument about produce is a consideration, as is the number of errors in the store's favor that you haven't challenged. The temptation to say that it all balances out in the end is strong. However, you raised a halachic question, where the concerns are different.

(Disclaimer: I am not a posek. You know that, but just for anyone else who might be reading this...)

This sounds exactly like the case of a found item to me. In addition, halacha tends to frown on the "it all balances out in the end" argument; that someone won't return your lost items to you does not relieve you of the obligation to return found items to others. So technically, yes, you're supposed to try to return the bananas, IMO.

What I would probably do in that situation is to phone the grocery store about it. Chances are that they'll say "we can't resell produce so just keep them" anyway, but at least you would have tried.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Shoes: I didn't see any restrictions on the buy-one-get-one-at-half-off deal, but somehow assumed there was an implied "you", whether they assumed individual or family group. I never thought of random people joining their purchases. Without any fine print, though, I suppose it's fine. I didn't ask the guy why he said 'cousin'; that seemed like it would be inviting much more interaction than I wanted.

Bananas: I don't shop at that particular store regularly (though I may shop there more since it's now on one route home); as far as I know this was the first error in either direction.

Thanks for the halachic discussion. It seemed like a lost item, but in thinking about it more, I wasn't sure if it's the store's lost item, or another customer's lost item. If it's the store's, it's easy enough to remedy. The customer, not so easy.

And I just called the store (Strangely, though I'd thought about stopping there again (though it's a nuisance), I hadn't thought about calling. I have an odd brain sometimes.). The customer service guy told me to keep the bananas. So by all accounts, I think I'm covered.