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Do you go back and pay for groceries that the clerk missed?
Michael H
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Example:
You just bought your week's worth of groceries. When looking over the receipt you notice that the checker only scanned one of your four twelve-packs of pop (soda). That means you have three twelve-packs of pop (soda) that are unpaid for.
For the sake of completeness of the theoretical situation, you come to this realization while you're in your car but before you leave the parking lot.
Do you:
A) Go back in to the service counter and ask them to charge you for the missed items
or
Say "bank error in my favor" and go on your merry way
spoiler: This is inspired by last weekend
You just bought your week's worth of groceries. When looking over the receipt you notice that the checker only scanned one of your four twelve-packs of pop (soda). That means you have three twelve-packs of pop (soda) that are unpaid for.
For the sake of completeness of the theoretical situation, you come to this realization while you're in your car but before you leave the parking lot.
Do you:
A) Go back in to the service counter and ask them to charge you for the missed items
or
Say "bank error in my favor" and go on your merry wayspoiler: This is inspired by last weekend
Michael H on
0
Posts
Also, fight the power. :P
i do not have a car
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
Groceries though? Nobody is getting fired over my unscanned two-ply.
Eventually, the cashiers were taught to look down now, but by then, I moved and I shop somewhere else, and I don't drink bottled water anymore.
Considering that they mark up the price for water bottles by a fucking large amount, I have no sympathy for them.
Xbox Live: Kunohara
Yeah, it's cool to steal stuff you consider overpriced, am I right?
Congratulations! Your theft went unnoticed! Remember kids, as long as you have plausible deniability stealing is fine, because you won't get in trouble!
For the OP: The profit margin on grocery stores averages about %5, and they have huge problems with theft, which can eat a lot of that tiny profit margin. If it's not less than five bucks, and a fraction of the amount I bought, I go back in and pay for it. If I'm already home, it probably has to be closer to the $20 mark; then I'll give the store a call.
edit: Remember, the guy that owns that place has a family to feed too. It's not like he's raking in the easy money makin it rich owning a grocery store.
--LeVar Burton
If you go to the service counter, it's likely that the cashier who missed your items will get a writeup or a verbal warning, which could result in them losing their job, depending on the circumstance. As far as my crappy retail jobs have gone, failing to scan an item that a customer takes out of the store is logged as internal theft, it can be grounds for immediate termination if the boss is in a bad mood.
If you go to the original till, they're just going to be annoyed that you came back and filled a spot in the line. So really, not worth the effort.
But actually trying to sneak something past the till? Yeah, no. Don't do that, because at that point it becomes theft, charges can be laid against you, and guess what, grocery story security actually really enjoys busting people who try to pull that.
However, I've also legitimately forgotten to pay for stuff and walked out of the store scot-free, so it's probably a wash.
If I noticed right away I would correct the cashier, but once I've walked more than 10 yards away it's too far to go back.
OP: I'd say, morally, you have an obligation to go back and pay for the soda. But, realistically, I'd say most people wouldn't because of the hassle involved. Stores do factor in losses like this in their pricing, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
However, if this was a case of the cashier giving me back too much change, I'd almost certainly go back if I hadn't left the parking lot. $5 for me is not a big deal, but it might be a problem for the cashier.
Rigorous Scholarship
I'm wondering how you can miss that they didn't ring up a $500 item at the time you pay for it.
On the other hand, I have also gotten home and realized I didn't have something that I paid for (got left at checkout or whatever) and I've gone back to the store and gotten what was missed with no questions asked. I've also been the beneficiary of about $40 in free produce because there was something screwing up the scale (which made everything a pound more than it was), so they customer service counter just gave me everything that was weighed for free. Overall I think supermarkets are really good about making things right when there's an error, so I feel bad taking advantage of them.
I used to work in a supermarket and know that margins can be pretty tight. I've also been the victim of "he didn't give me correct change!" scams so I think it's important to be an honest customer and pay for stuff that's been missed.
According to business unwritten ethics in the real world, yes. Everyone is taught that this is wrong, but when stakes get high in business or politics, successful people unlearn that lesson.
If I found out they missed something I wouldn't go back. I also don't go back when I think I was overcharged for something. Either way I'll just be more careful the next time through. If I notice being overcharged while its being scanned, I'll ask about it, just like I'll ask if I think they missed something.
its only cheating/stealing/illegal if you get caught.
With attitudes like this, it should not be unclear why America is in a recession.
Also, yes. I go back and pay. If I owned a store I wouldn't want people stealing from me.
Also what Buttcleft said. Rarely has that particular supermarket been accommodating for me.
Xbox Live: Kunohara
To date I can recall giving people back at much as ~$15 in extra change I'd been inadvertantly given, snagged the last person to use an ATM who left a $20 behind, and turned down $200 from someone to break a company policy.
I'm no saint. In fact, I know I have a price.
It's just way higher than most people are willing to go so far.
In terms of this theoretical grocery scenario, it'd depend on a lot of factors. How much was it? I'm more likely to go back and pay for a large mistake than a small one if both choices would, as noted above, waste a bunch of people's time. Am I in a hurry? If so, I might instead try to drop the cash off the next day or another day. This isn't ideal, as it'll obviously still lead to trouble for the person counting the till, but this also ties into the above coralary. (nothing going on tonight? 10 minutes in a line won't kill me. Life or death struggle pending? They can wait a day for their $5)
So, no, I don't return and pay for stuff.
In the end I decided that other people might want to keep them money, but I wasn't the type of guy to do. It was a matter of self-respect. I pride myself on being a good guy with firm principles. Screwing them out of the money would be a direct contradiction to that.
Edit. money wise it was more like 200$ change instead of 40$ and the purchase was around 5$.
I never go back, if I can get away with free stuff due to someone's incompetence, then I will, and I don't feel bad about it at all.
Where Madness and the Fantasical Come to Play
Yeah, in that kind of situation, it's really dickish to keep the money. It's most likely going to come out of the cashiers pocket. You're not sticking it to the man, you're screwing over some poor kid who just saw his pay for the entire shift leave in your pocket.
I know EXACTLY why I do this, too. It's not out of sympathy for the clerk, although I do feel bad if they make an error that I don't catch. It's my Dad.
One day, I couldn't have been more than 5, my Dad and I went to the grocery store - a Kroger that had just opened up in my area. We had walked around the store, and he bought his standard Dad supplies; a beef-log, a block of cheese, Triscuts, beers, Fritos, Helluva Good French Onion Dip and jellybeans. While he was paying at the register in typical embarassing Dad fashion, I wandered over to the gumball machines. I didn't have a quarter, so I instead went around and turned all the metallic knobs for fun. The top row was candy, the bottom row, cheap plastic rings. Lo and behold, on the bottom row, in one of the prize chutes, was a ring. Smiling like I won the lottery, I pocketed the trinket and walked out with my Dad.
When we got to the car, I asked him for assistance in opening the plastic bubble that the ring came in; my Dad's face turned the shade of a horrifically sunburned floozy, screaming: WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?! Obviously, he knew I walked into the store with no quarter, and walked out with an item that despite being manufactured at the low low cost of less than a cent (and the life of a small Filipino kid) still managed to wrangle 0.25 from the average consumer.
In his mind, this equaled theft. As such, he dragged me back into the store and demanded to see a manager. I was crying; after all, thieves are bad people, and I had no idea that I was stealing. I had inadvertantly turned into a villian. I knew the Bible was full of these, and in movies, they were treated with the heavy hand of an unforgiving law. I had no concept of shades of morality. Stealing was wrong, and I was bad. I had always considered myself to be good; I looked both ways before crossing the street, always covered my mouth when coughing, and said 'please' and 'thank you.' Having lost my sainthood without even knowing it with earth shattering. I could never get it back. I had done wrong and by virtue of my father's reaction, I could feel it in every pore of my body.
The manager came out and saw my Dad, incensed to the point where his face was now purple, and a small child now screaming and crying like he believed himself soulless (hint: I did). When my Dad explained the situation, the manager didn't know how to react; it was a cheap plastic ring, found in the prize chute of a novelty gumball machine. The manager explained to my Dad that he didn't technically believe this was considered stealing - his exact words were, "When I was growing up, an extra prize in the prize chute was called a 'freebie'," which calmed my Dad down, but not considerably. I was still forced to hand over the ring - which the manager had no idea what to do with - and walked out of the store in shame.
Dad explained the situation to my Mom. The whole time, I felt like I was going to vomit; when it came to laying down the law, my Dad was a benevolent angel compared to my mother.
She just looked at him and said, "Mike, do you have to be such a dick?"
So now, every time I think I'm getting good fortune by catching a secret sale or an unannounced two-for-one deal, I check with the cashier. Seventeen years after the fact, I'm still wary.
Now I have a better grip on the shades of gray that accompany life, but I'm still set in my ways. No freebies. Not then, not ever.
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That's not much different than slipping something in your pocket and hoping no one catches it.
Rigorous Scholarship
And yet, some people are getting away with things (mostly those with power) and some are not, either by choice or lack of options. I personally refuse to be a person who gets the bad end of a deal whenever possible, even if it means acting unethically in response to someone attempting to do the same to me.
However, I have gone back to pay for things that were missed, usually only when it's a place I frequent. There are times that I'm on the road and don't notice that something I bought was missed until I check a receipt later while doing an expense report or something, and there's no way in hell I would be inconvenienced enough to go back or try to contact them over it. In some cases, they really are responsible for tracking purchase of items in their store.
There was a time I went far out of my way to pay for something, although the law essentially coerced me. I bought like $85 dollars worth of gas for a moving truck, and noticed that the receipt I was given was for SOMEONE ELSE'S CREDIT CARD. In Michigan at least, people go to jail fairly frequently for drive-offs, so I wasn't in the mood to mess around with it. I went back and talked with the cashier, she called the owner in, he couldn't fix the problem and didn't even know how to charge me for it. I wrote up a quick agreement in my work notebook and had the owner sign it, just so that there was a paper trail showing that I attempted to pay for the product I received.
That's an odd one though.
I mean, if I see a wallet on the ground, I will not take anything from it. I will try and get it back to its original owner.
Xbox Live: Kunohara
I loved grabbing things off the shelves and putting them like in my coat pocket and walking towards the front of the store.
And then getting in line and pulling them out to pay for them.
In the end, I hid the milk, under my jumper and went back inside, did a long tour and bought it. Bam nobody noticed!
Given that I didn't scrutinise my receipt while I'm leaving the supermarket perhaps in the past things have been missed? It seems unlikely just in terms of the mechanics of the situation. I suppose something could get swiped twice or a vegetable weight could get fucked up?
That said, there's a place I go for lunch quite a bit and if the price they come up with seems wrong I'll normally double check they put it all in the till.
Also, last Christmas, I suspect there was a confusing error at a farm shop that meant we didn't pay for some apples, pears and ginger. I only realised once home, and I wasn't entirely sure. Nothing came of it.
But you're doing it knowing they don't check the bottom of the cart. Just because you're stealing in plain view doesn't make it not stealing.
Where Madness and the Fantasical Come to Play
About half of the time they put in the wrong code for produce which either results in a net win or a net loss. I don't go back for either.
I almost went back once when I picked up 10 avacodos (priced $1.29 each), but the clerk must have thought they were weighable so I saved about $10 through silliness. I felt a tinge of guilt when i realized her error, but fuck going back and waiting on that line again.
Walking out of the store with an item you know you did not pay for is theft, morally and legally.
Rigorous Scholarship