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#1 Sep 23 2014 at 4:25 PM Rating: Good
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On my way home from work today I stopped at one of the local super markets to check out some stuff, and picked up some fruit. I spotted some honeycrisp apples, and they were $1.97 per lb. A pretty average price. I grabbed four of them, they were pretty large (a little more than 3/4 lb each).

Got to the checkout, and they were rung up as "Roma Tomatoes" and was only charged $0.98 each. When I saw the name ring up wrong, I opened my mouth to say something. Then I noticed the price and just kind of shrugged to myself, grabbed my stuff what left.
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#2 Sep 23 2014 at 5:52 PM Rating: Good
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I'd burn my local super market to the ground if I could get away with it. Getting things for a lower price or free at their expense is a small consolation.
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#3 Sep 23 2014 at 6:02 PM Rating: Good
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I'm not.
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#4 Sep 23 2014 at 10:39 PM Rating: Good
Pretty bad. Unless it is a real game changer.
I got a "free" meal Saturday night, but it was a "classic" fat person thing. Who ever grabbed the plates to bring to the table didn't check the ticket. I didn't know how they were going to server the Steak Mexicano. So I didn't question it, it is just that is not what I was served.
I went to town eating, as I was pretty hungry by the time we decided on where to eat...
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#5 Sep 23 2014 at 10:49 PM Rating: Good
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Depends if I care about the store or not, big anonymous chain I'll probably keep my mouth shut but the bottleshop I was at last weekend forgot to ring up one of the beers so the total price was off by €20, I mentioned that because that would've felt like stealing.
#6 Sep 23 2014 at 11:25 PM Rating: Good
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My roommate once went back into the grocery store to pay for a $1.50 container of pepper that they forgot to charge him for. I thought he was being silly. I'll speak up when I think it'll affect the cashier, like when they give me too much change. I'm also likely to mention it if it's a very large issue. Beyond that, I don't worry about it, especially when it has the potential to create a wait for those behind me in line.
#7 Sep 24 2014 at 11:21 AM Rating: Excellent
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His Excellency Aethien wrote:
Depends if I care about the store or not, big anonymous chain I'll probably keep my mouth shut but the bottleshop I was at last weekend forgot to ring up one of the beers so the total price was off by €20, I mentioned that because that would've felt like stealing.

Likewise. Large chain, I probably wouldn't have said anything. The small corner store where the owner gives me free desserts with my lunch, I'd have pointed it out.
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#8 Sep 24 2014 at 12:51 PM Rating: Excellent
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If I said I lied a lot would you believe me?

I don't usually correct a 'lower price mistake' anymore because places almost always tell you not to worry about it. Even mistakes that are too high can be ignored if it takes more time and energy than it's worth. I'm not taking a half hour out of my day to go back to the market and get my extra $0.75 back.
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#9 Sep 24 2014 at 3:11 PM Rating: Decent
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I find it somewhat disturbing how many people modify their level of honesty based on their perception of the ability of the victim to absorb the cost of a potentially dishonest act (or even just how much you like or dislike them). It's a questionable ethical foundation IMO. And it's not even necessarily internally consistent. You shouldn't assume that the gross profit margin for that mom and pop store is lower than it is for a large chain store. Nor should you assume what the relative loss rates are.

Me? If I notice something is incorrect on my bill, I point it out. It does not matter who the other person is. I've entered into the transaction agreeing to pay X price for Y goods/service, and I should hold up my end of that. Nothing else should matter at that point.
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#10 Sep 24 2014 at 5:21 PM Rating: Good
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Mistake amounts to x dollars.
Mistake takes y seconds to solve.
My time is worth z dollars per second.

x < y*z needs to return a false, otherwise it's not worth the time, right?
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#11 Sep 24 2014 at 5:26 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
I find it somewhat disturbing how many people modify their level of honesty based on their perception of the ability of the victim to absorb the cost of a potentially dishonest act (or even just how much you like or dislike them). It's a questionable ethical foundation IMO. And it's not even necessarily internally consistent. You shouldn't assume that the gross profit margin for that mom and pop store is lower than it is for a large chain store. Nor should you assume what the relative loss rates are.

Me? If I notice something is incorrect on my bill, I point it out. It does not matter who the other person is. I've entered into the transaction agreeing to pay X price for Y goods/service, and I should hold up my end of that. Nothing else should matter at that point.

right, unless it costs you significant money, at which point you'll just pretend it didn't happen until they come after you directly and start emptying your bank account.
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#12 Sep 24 2014 at 6:29 PM Rating: Decent
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Sir Xsarus wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I find it somewhat disturbing how many people modify their level of honesty based on their perception of the ability of the victim to absorb the cost of a potentially dishonest act (or even just how much you like or dislike them). It's a questionable ethical foundation IMO. And it's not even necessarily internally consistent. You shouldn't assume that the gross profit margin for that mom and pop store is lower than it is for a large chain store. Nor should you assume what the relative loss rates are.

Me? If I notice something is incorrect on my bill, I point it out. It does not matter who the other person is. I've entered into the transaction agreeing to pay X price for Y goods/service, and I should hold up my end of that. Nothing else should matter at that point.

right, unless it costs you significant money, at which point you'll just pretend it didn't happen until they come after you directly and start emptying your bank account.


Now that's one hell of a deflection. Assuming you're speaking of my interaction with the IRS, I'm not sure how the fact that I was the victim of a big government agency with the power to garnish wages and seize assets mistakenly thinking I owed them money and then taking a year and a half to realize their error and pay me the money back (with interest!) in any way invalidates my statement about variable honesty with regards to grocery bills based on the perception of the grocery store's ability to absorb the loss.

I'm talking about the questionable ethical position that theft (well, something close to theft) is ok if the person you take from can afford to lose the money (actually, if you *think* the person can afford to lose it, which is an interesting aspect all to itself). It's directly related to (derived from perhaps?) the social justice arguments that the Left uses. Taxing the rich is ok because they have enough to absorb the loss, so it really doesn't matter what the money is spent on. I think it's a BS excuse people use to try to justify taking money from other people. I just find it interesting that it appears as though that same political ideology creeps into and affects people's day to day personal lives as well.
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#13 Sep 24 2014 at 6:32 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
I find it somewhat disturbing how many people modify their level of honesty based on their perception of the ability of the victim to absorb the cost of a potentially dishonest act (or even just how much you like or dislike them). It's a questionable ethical foundation IMO. And it's not even necessarily internally consistent. You shouldn't assume that the gross profit margin for that mom and pop store is lower than it is for a large chain store. Nor should you assume what the relative loss rates are.


Its not really about profit margin at this point but volume of sales.
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#14 Sep 24 2014 at 10:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Now that's one **** of a deflection. Assuming you're speaking of my interaction with the IRS...
I was going to bring that up but then decided to be nice.

You should rate me up, gbaji.Smiley: grin
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#15 Sep 25 2014 at 8:24 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Now that's one **** of a deflection. Assuming you're speaking of my interaction with the IRS, I'm not sure how the fact that I was the victim of a big government agency with the power to garnish wages and seize assets mistakenly thinking I owed them money...

"Mistakenly" because you decided not to file your taxes because it was inconvenient.
You once wrote:
Well, being the relatively young and foolish lad I was back then, when tax time came around I didn't know how to figure out my taxes and didn't want to pay someone to do them for me so I did what any person would do (NOTE!: Don't ever do this. It's really dumb. Seriously. Not kidding!). I just didn't file. Yeah. Not the brightest move in my life (and I've made some dumb moves, so that's saying something).

So you were too lazy and didn't feel like paying anybody so you just decided the best thing to do was pretend your obligation didn't exist. Then the Big Scary Government Agency "mistakenly" thought you owed them a lot more money than you did (and you DID owe money which you just didn't pay because Math Is Hard!).
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I determine that I really only owed about $4k or so back then

Four thousand dollars which you just neglected to pay and pretended your debt didn't exist until the Big Scary Government had to seize your accounts

But, yeah, you're "disturbed" over questionable ethical foundations regarding whether or not you underpay a buck on your produce Smiley: laugh
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#16 Sep 25 2014 at 8:35 AM Rating: Excellent
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I love how suddenly he was a victim. Smiley: lol
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#17 Sep 25 2014 at 8:43 AM Rating: Excellent
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A few months ago when it came up, he weaved some retcon story about how it was an brokerage firm completely to blame and THAT'S why the IRS came after him. It's as though he forgot that you can actually read back pages of the forum.
Gbaji furiously backpedaled when he wrote:
Secondly, if by "defrauding the government", you mean having the IRS think you earned more money than you did because your brokerage firm double reported a sale, claim you owned them back taxes because of this, filing additional paperwork showing that it was an error in the reporting and not in the filing, having the IRS basically say "pay us what we think you owe us anyway", paying them, then waiting a year and a half for them to process the correction, realize that you did actually pay the correct amount in the first place, and then pay you the difference (with interest, which they promptly made sure to issue a 1099 for), yeah... I "defrauded the government".

Sounds legit. I can see how you'd get "I didn't feel like paying anyone so blew off my taxes until the government seized my account" out of "I totally did it all right and was totally on top of paying everyone always and it was some silly brokerage firm that done messed it up!" The fact that the second story came after a year of mockery completely adds to its legitimacy Smiley: laugh

Edited, Sep 25th 2014 9:44am by Jophiel
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#18 Sep 26 2014 at 10:36 AM Rating: Decent
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Depends if it was a hot looking babe working the checkout. By the laws of man if you do anything remotely nice for a member of the opposite sex they are required to sleep with you correct?
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#19 Sep 27 2014 at 12:27 PM Rating: Excellent
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I don't think I'd have said anything either.
#20 Sep 27 2014 at 12:45 PM Rating: Good
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If I noticed while at the register, I'd say something. If I didn't notice until I got home, I wouldn't.
#21 Sep 28 2014 at 3:16 PM Rating: Good
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In the situation the op described, I'd probably not bother.

Gbaji, I think we can recognize when a business is 'big' enough, that dealing with a one-time mistake of such a trivial nature is probably inefficient for both the customer and the business.
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#22 Sep 28 2014 at 5:35 PM Rating: Good
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I picked up more apples today. They charged me full price this time.
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#23 Sep 28 2014 at 5:45 PM Rating: Good
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TirithRR wrote:
I picked up more apples today. They charged me full price this time.


On the bright side they didn't cut off one of your hands.
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#24 Sep 28 2014 at 6:47 PM Rating: Good
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I'm not always a thief.

One day I went to a Subway and did not notice a small hand written sign on the door as I entered that said they were having issues with their card reader. I got my sandwich, went to check out, and they couldn't swipe my credit card. I had no cash. The Manager was their and she said not to worry that she'd buy the sandwich. I thanked her, left. Ate my sandwich and stopped by the store, bought an item and got cash back. Went back to the Subway and paid for my sandwich.

Cashier and manager were surprised to see me again. But since I was stuck in that town working for 5-6 months, and that Subway was less than a mile from the shop, I felt it would be awkward if I went back in there every couple days for lunch after not paying for my sandwich the first time.
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#25 Sep 29 2014 at 5:06 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
But, yeah, you're "disturbed" over questionable ethical foundations regarding whether or not you underpay a buck on your produce Smiley: laugh


If the grocery store required you to spend hours filling out forms to figure out how much that produce costs, you'd have a point.

My decision not to file wasn't because I didn't want to pay, but because calculating the exact amount under/over was overly complex. I had no clue if I owed them money or they owed me (when you do exercises like that, the brokerage firm will automatically pay an amount to the IRS based on the "income" you're gaining, and it's usually more than you need to cover the taxes). My motivation was not about money, but my own time and annoyance at having to figure out the exact amounts. I knew it was in the ballpark (which it was). I actually assumed that I was losing out on a return at the time and was willing to take that loss rather than spend the time required.

The question in this thread was specifically about cases where you know that you owe someone a specific amount of money, but choose to keep your mouth shut when they make a mistake in your favor. That's a completely different thing. If I know I owe someone something, I endeavor to pay it. Always. The flip side though, is that I'm usually not that much of a stickler for calculating precise amounts. I usually err on the side of me paying extra though, not the other way around (obviously, the IRS thing worked out differently as it happened, but that's a rare case). If I can't remember who paid for the most rounds of drinks, I don't demand we check the bill or something. I just offer to pay the next one. It's not worth the time to worry about such things IMO.

However, if someone *is* a stickler for such things and does insist on complete calculations (like the IRS), then I'll make sure to be a stickler right back. Like, for example, the case of "gbaji 2, IRS 0", that just happened this year. When I filed my taxes this year, I somehow brain farted and forgot to attach my Schedule A (itemized deductions). I just put the number down on the form and moved on. Well, the IRS sent me a notice challenging the amount I'd put down, and required that I send them the Schedule A I'd forgotten to print out the first time. When I opened up the file I noticed that I'd somehow forgotten to include my property taxes and state income taxes on the form (doh!). So I'd significantly under reported my deductions (no clue what sort of brain farting was going on when I did that). In any case, I added them into the form, printed it out, and included a note instructing the IRS to make whatever adjustments to the result they felt appropriate. At the time, I had no expectation that they'd actually allow for the new deductions (since they were technically filed after the deadline), but would just verify that the original amount was accounted for and move on.

So imagine my surprise when the IRS sent me a check for $4600 a month or so later. Now, if they'd just ignored the fact that I'd forgotten to include a form to support my unusually low deductions for that year, they'd have not lost any cash. But by being sticklers, they lost money. Again.
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#26 Sep 29 2014 at 5:20 PM Rating: Decent
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TirithRR wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I find it somewhat disturbing how many people modify their level of honesty based on their perception of the ability of the victim to absorb the cost of a potentially dishonest act (or even just how much you like or dislike them). It's a questionable ethical foundation IMO. And it's not even necessarily internally consistent. You shouldn't assume that the gross profit margin for that mom and pop store is lower than it is for a large chain store. Nor should you assume what the relative loss rates are.


Its not really about profit margin at this point but volume of sales.


I disagree, but that's really just the side point. Bigger issue is that it's still dishonest.
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