Is This Ethical 2.0?

[colin007]

So because of the poll by @boil3rmak3r I'm asking the following. As you all know, when you go to the store certain apples are marked at a cheaper price than others. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't really cost the apple factory more to grow a honeycrisp than it does to grow a Macintosh. So sometimes when I go through the self checkout, I enter in the code for the cheaper Macintosh apples because I feel like I'm getting ripped off by completely arbitrary pricing. Is this stealing/ethical?

And no, regardless of the results of this poll, I will not be going back and reimbursing anybody anything. 😉

[saevel25]

17 minutes ago, colin007 said:

As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't really cost the apple factory more to grow a honeycrisp than it does to grow a Macintosh.

You are missing the point that when you purchase something from a store, they are not turning around and giving that money to the apple producers. The store has already agreed upon a price to buy the product, then price it to get a rate or return. 

Let's say the store got HC apples at $1.00 per apple. They were able to get M Apples for $0.50 per apple. Economic principles at play here for how the apples are priced to the grocery store. That means, the grocery store may sell an HC apple for $1.25, and an M Apple for $0.75. 

When you go and claim you bought M when you really are taking HC. You are costing the grocery store $0.50 of value. Also, the grocery store is not even making their money back on the apple they bought because the $0.75 for the M apple is less than the $1.00 for the HC apple. 

Yea, not a good thing to do if you want your grocery store to stay in business. 

I voted yes. You are stealing the potential value that the grocery store would have if you actually paid for what you bought. 

Even if you want to a farmer's market, where you are getting direct from the producer. Maybe the seeds for the apples cost different. You are probably not getting away with this sort of thing there due to the one on one interaction with the producer and the buyer of the apples. 

A lot of stuff goes into pricing. Don't assume you are getting ripped off. When comparing apples to apples, they are not all the same apple. 😛 

Edited July 17, 2023 by saevel25

[SEMI_Duffer]

Years ago my wife and I were shopping for auto-inflating PFDs (Personal Floatation Devices, aka: "life preservers").  We noticed a pair of a top-rated brand that would normally cost double or more what the economical brands/models would cost that had obviously been mis-priced to a price more reflective of the more economical choices.  (There were others on the rack that were appropriately priced.)

We bought them for the price listed.

That was questionably ethical, in my mind.  My wife had no problem with it at all.  I wanted to bring what I felt to be an obvious mistake on the part of the store to the cashier's attention.  My wife told me I was too honest for my own good and to keep mum.

But doing as you claim you're doing is clearly unethical and clearly stealing in my opinion.  That would be like my wife and I deciding "It can't possibly be twice as expensive to make these as to make those, so we'll just swap them in the packaging."

[Big C]

Yes - also unethical. 

@saevel25 notes, the grocery store sets their prices based on the amount they have to pay the distributor. The higher priced apples cost them more. 

By keying in the code for the lower priced apples, you are eliminating their profit margin and potentially causing them financial loss. 

[snapfade]

I can't wait for "Is it ethical 3.0?" I would say even though you are feeling as if you are sticking it to the man, it is technically stealing. Back in the day, as they say, it was the same as peeling off a price tag and sticking it on something else. I would argue that if someone felt the need to change a price to a lower one then they are probably not good with money in the first place. If a ghetto looking dude got caught scanning a PS5 as a tomato we would all likely look at him as a criminal. The dollar value is irrelevant from a moral standpoint. 

 

[iacas]

I took the OP as facetious or sarcastic.

[ChetlovesMer]

9 minutes ago, iacas said:

I took the OP as facetious or sarcastic.

I assumed the same. 

[StuM]

I've not read the posts since changed from "Is this ethical" and will do so in a moment.  My vote is "Yes" it is stealing.  If you look at the following defination of stealing is say to "take the property of another wrongfully".  It does not mention "By Force" or "Because you felt they were asking too much money for what you feel it is worht.  The key word to me is "wrongfully".  In your example on this poll you intentionally entered the incorrect product code to get a price you know was lower than the stated price.  That is clear intent to pay less than the agreed upon price.

I do not care if it cost the same to grow one type of apple over another.  Pricing is not just "Cost" there is also "Supply and Demand" and if one apple is preferred over another then it may command a higer price.  There is a stated price and if you do not like that price do not buy that item!  Buy intentionally entreing the incorrect code you are cheating the seller and I would consider that theft.  You were intentionally getting a different product that what you were paying for.  The fact that you were at a self-checkout which does involve the "Honor System" does not entitle you to arbitrarily change the price of a product.

 

 

Definition of STEAL

---

to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice… See the full definition

 

 

[SEMI_Duffer]

15 minutes ago, iacas said:

I took the OP as facetious or sarcastic.

As did I, but, I voted and answered, anyway 

[Big C]

25 minutes ago, iacas said:

I took the OP as facetious or sarcastic.

Makes sense but it was too early in the morning for me to pick up on sarcasm.

[SEMI_Duffer]

50 minutes ago, snapfade said:

I can't wait for "Is it ethical 3.0?"

I almost posted my PFD story as that 

[ChetlovesMer]

32 minutes ago, StuM said:

I've not read the posts since changed from "Is this ethical" and will do so in a moment.  My vote is "Yes" it is stealing.  If you look at the following defination of stealing is say to "take the property of another wrongfully".  It does not mention "By Force" or "Because you felt they were asking too much money for what you feel it is worht.  The key word to me is "wrongfully".  In your example on this poll you intentionally entered the incorrect product code to get a price you know was lower than the stated price.  That is clear intent to pay less than the agreed upon price.

I do not care if it cost the same to grow one type of apple over another.  Pricing is not just "Cost" there is also "Supply and Demand" and if one apple is preferred over another then it may command a higer price.  There is a stated price and if you do not like that price do not buy that item!  Buy intentionally entreing the incorrect code you are cheating the seller and I would consider that theft.  You were intentionally getting a different product that what you were paying for.  The fact that you were at a self-checkout which does involve the "Honor System" does not entitle you to arbitrarily change the price of a product.

 

 

Definition of STEAL

---

to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice… See the full definition

 

 

You are of course correct, Stu. 

Unfortunately, I think people are losing their moral compass. 

It happens all the time now. I find it very very sad. 

• My son bought boxing gloves recently. (He likes to hit the heavy bag in the basement.) Somebody had put the cheap boxing gloves in the expensive boxing gloves box. Undoubtably putting the expensive ones in the cheap ones box and then buying the cheaper box. My son and I found 3 boxes that way at the store. We had to hunt through the expensive gloves to find a box that actually had expensive gloves inside. 
• The local Meijer sells Taylormade golf balls. There are always several boxes of expensive balls, with the sleeves of cheaper balls inside. Somebody switched them to buy the expensive balls at the cheaper price. 
• My local Home Depot will no longer let you pick out and pay for your own copper wire. People have been taking two spools of wire to the front check out. Scanning the cheap one, bagging the expensive one, and then leaving the cheap one in the "I decided against this" bin. You now have to ask for copper wire and be escorted to the register to pay for it. 
• I was talking with a CVS employee about their gift cards. You can no longer self check those. People were taking them, loading them up and then cancelling them off their order. The gift card would still be loaded but they didn't have to pay for them. The CVS employee told me that CVS probably lost $100,000 to the gift card scam until the realized the number of gift cards that were being scanned and then "decided against" and removed from the order before paying. 
• I don't know if any of you remember Toys R Us? But when it went out of business it published stats that stated 11% of the cost of any single item at Toys R Us went to offset "theft and product damaged" from the store. 

People think its a victimless crime and/or they are sticking it to the man. But it's the rest of us that have to cover the costs for their asinine behavior. 

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by ChetlovesMer
type-o

[mcanadiens]

25 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

People think its a victimless crime and/or they are sticking it to the man. But it's the rest of us that have to cover the costs for their asinine behavior. 

 

Undoubtedly this is the biggest problem with nearly any business property-related crime. It all, eventually, gets rolled into the price we all pay. 

It was estimated at one time that the mafia's various schemes drove up construction costs in Manhattan by 20%. That surely didn't help those famously expensive rent rates. 

 

 

[colin007]

2 hours ago, saevel25 said:

You are missing the point that when you purchase something from a store, they are not turning around and giving that money to the apple producers. The store has already agreed upon a price to buy the product, then price it to get a rate or return. 

Let's say the store got HC apples at $1.00 per apple. They were able to get M Apples for $0.50 per apple. Economic principles at play here for how the apples are priced to the grocery store. That means, the grocery store may sell an HC apple for $1.25, and an M Apple for $0.75. 

When you go and claim you bought M when you really are taking HC. You are costing the grocery store $0.50 of value. Also, the grocery store is not even making their money back on the apple they bought because the $0.75 for the M apple is less than the $1.00 for the HC apple. 

Yea, not a good thing to do if you want your grocery store to stay in business. 

I voted yes. You are stealing the potential value that the grocery store would have if you actually paid for what you bought. 

Even if you want to a farmer's market, where you are getting direct from the producer. Maybe the seeds for the apples cost different. You are probably not getting away with this sort of thing there due to the one on one interaction with the producer and the buyer of the apples. 

A lot of stuff goes into pricing. Don't assume you are getting ripped off. When comparing apples to apples, they are not all the same apple. 😛 

For those who have questioned it, I'm being completely "cetious" (opposite of facetious)

 

Yeah, I'm aware of how pricing goes in a retail store like a supermarket. I would hazard a guess that the cheap apples cost the store $1.00 while the expensive ones might cost them $1.10, so not nearly the price difference others have suggested, which makes the cheap Macintosh bag at $3.99 vs the honeycrisp bag at $5.99 price gouging in my book

Anyways, good points all!

[boogielicious]

1 hour ago, Big C said:

Makes sense but it was too early in the morning for me to pick up on sarcasm.

It’s by @colin007. He minored in sarcasm in college. 

[SEMI_Duffer]

32 minutes ago, colin007 said:

For those who have questioned it, I'm being completely "cetious" (opposite of facetious)

Wait... what?

Are you saying you actually do this?  It wasn't a made-up scenario to make a point?

[StuM]

3 hours ago, ChetlovesMer said:

You are of course correct, Stu. 

Unfortunately, I think people are losing their moral compass. 

It happens all the time now. I find it very very sad. 

• My son bought boxing gloves recently. (He likes to hit the heavy bag in the basement.) Somebody had put the cheap boxing gloves in the expensive boxing gloves box. Undoubtably putting the expensive ones in the cheap ones box and then buying the cheaper box. My son and I found 3 boxes that way at the store. We had to hunt through the expensive gloves to find a box that actually had expensive gloves inside. 
• The local Meijer sells Taylormade golf balls. There are always several boxes of expensive balls, with the sleeves of cheaper balls inside. Somebody switched them to buy the expensive balls at the cheaper price. 
• My local Home Depot will no longer let you pick out and pay for your own copper wire. People have been taking two spools of wire to the front check out. Scanning the cheap one, bagging the expensive one, and then leaving the cheap one in the "I decided against this" bin. You now have to ask for copper wire and be escorted to the register to pay for it. 
• I was talking with a CVS employee about their gift cards. You can no longer self check those. People were taking them, loading them up and then cancelling them off their order. The gift card would still be loaded but they didn't have to pay for them. The CVS employee told me that CVS probably lost $100,000 to the gift card scam until the realized the number of gift cards that were being scanned and then "decided against" and removed from the order before paying. 
• I don't know if any of you remember Toys R Us? But when it went out of business it published stats that stated 11% of the cost of any single item at Toys R Us went to offset "theft and product damaged" from the store. 

People think its a victimless crime and/or they are sticking it to the man. But it's the rest of us that have to cover the costs for their asinine behavior. 

 

I've never seen anyone swap out golf balls but it must be a thing since anytime you buy golf balls at Golf Galaxy they open the box to confirm what balls are inside.  Stores will also check the shoes inside a shoe box for the same reason.  All too often the view is "As long as you do not get caught....." 

 

[colin007]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

It’s by @colin007. He minored in sarcasm in college. 

 

1 hour ago, SEMI_Duffer said:

Wait... what?

Are you saying you actually do this?  It wasn't a made-up scenario to make a point?

Not made up at all. I go thru the self scanner and type in the code for whatever cheap ass gross mealy gritty grainy apples they're trying to sell.

You better believe I'm bringing them back for a refund also if they're not crispy