Honesty
 

I had a moral exercise on Friday at our local Giant. At the supermarket, I was in the self-checkout lane and requested $20 cash back. The dispenser looked empty. When the dispenser deposited my cash I did a count since instead of a single $20 bill it dispensed $5 bills. The total came to $27 dollars.

I turned the $7 over the the cashier supervising the self-checkout. She took note of the time. I asked her what would happen to the money. She said that the money would be held if a customer came back for it, otherwise the store would get the money.

Now I liked the idea of them giving back the money to the customer. I must admit that if the money was unclaimed and did not belong to the store, I would have liked to get it.

The only thing I knew for sure is that I was not entitled to the money, so I returned it.

You did your part. Good for you. What the company does is well ... up to them. Not really sure what other options they have. They know it isn't yours and they may or may not be able to figure out whose it really is.

Perhaps the machine had a glitch, and the money was legitimately the store's.

Good call, Rich; if you are going to sell your integrity, honesty and self respect, make sure you get a lot more than $7 for it.

Had a client tell me a story the other day about his wife - she went to the bank, made a withdrawal, he teller gave her $200 too much. As soon as she realized the mistake, she approached the teller, who claimed loudly "I did not make a mistake." The sweet little old lady is trying to give the teller the money, and she gets all pissy and tells the lady, "Well you'll have to get back in line." So this sweet little old lady gets back in line, waits her turn, gets back to the same teller, who again tells her "I did not make a mistake." A manager comes over to see what the problem is, little old lady explains she's trying to give back the extra 200 bucks. The manager insists that her tellers don't make mistakes, so the poor flustered lady goes home with the extra cash, and tells her hubby about it.

I don't know about you, but the first time the teller tried to save face by yelling at me, I would have said FINE and skedaddled, leaving her to realize her drawer was short at the end of the day.

Meh... I bet admitting any kind of counting mistake in front of a line of customers is a firing offense anyway. They figure it's better to lose the $200 than have a loss of trust in the tellers.

I once went to an ATM to withdraw $60.00. I typed it in correctly and the receipt was correct but the money dispensed was 2 $20.00 bills and 1 $100.00 bill. When I tried to call the bank to ask where I should bring the money, they just kep transferring my call around and I got disconnected twice. I just kept the money.




I exercise my morals all the time. That's why they're so flexible. :D

A friend told me a similar story about getting too much from an ATM, few days later when the bank found it's numbers didn't add up they tracked the transactions, and just debited the extra money from his account. Same thing could happen to the little old lady.

I once deposited a large amount of small change and was surprised they took my word for how much was there and didn't count it, they just put it seperateley and counted it later and debited my account by the difference.

This method of checking and "correcting" deposits drive me fucking nuts.

.....depending how close in the month to PayDay you are...:P

if you'd turned the money over to the police and not the store, they wld have returned it to you if they failed to find the owner.

the store had no right to it, and you could have challenged them on that.

Morality question:
You are a partner in a law firm and your client insists on paying cash for a service your firm rendered. He hands you cash for a $500 invoice and as you count it out you realize that one of the hundreds is actually two hundreds that are stuck together.

Q: Do you tell your partner?

of course, and you either return the money promptly, or advise the client and negotiate a credit to his account

I realized yesterday that I sorta stiffed the rental car agency their $90 fee when I dropped the car off. The dealership had made the arrangements, and I told them to add it to my bill there. But they didn't. I was in a hurry to get my car (and in a horrible bad temper) and I just wanted out of there, so I left without mentioning it.

Although I was tempted just to see if anybody would notice, I decided I might need these folks' help again someday. I called them today and told them I was sending them the dough, anyway. Really don't need any negative energy coming back to me!

I'd keep the extra and give it to the poor, as your cash distributing client is obviously operating under the radar of the IRS...

ASS-umption there sean.

:lol: @ foot's post

Yeah! he made an ass out of umption!....no, wait...that ain't right...

no Dana, YOU ain't right! :P

Honey, I is all wrong.

Heh, well, thats how it works where I live. :)

I knew I could count on you to get the joke.

the joke, for those of you that missed it completely, lies in the not mentioning the option of giving the client the money back at all. ...the assumption that a lawyer would just keep it and then have to decide whether to tell his partner about the ill gotten goods....that's the joke. because....it WAS a joke......and we know that because foot posted it.

Thats really funny.

But it's not a joke, it's reality. :haha:

Thats reali-funny.

I didn't miss it. But just because it's meant to be a joke, doesn't mean it's funny. (sorry footfoot--remember I work for lawyers)

I got the wrong change from a local store years ago, and knew I was getting the wrong change, but didn't react quickly enough - I followed my usual pattern of behaviour while thinking it through, and left the store. I felt it would be ridiculous to go back afterwards - I got change for £10 instead of £5 so it would hardly have beggared them.

I have felt guilty ever since. Seriously, it was over ten years ago now and I still feel rotten. The extra money was exciting and welcome at the time (I probably spent it on pizza and beer!), but my perception of myself as an immoral person was tested by the experience. Turns out I might not be able to murder someone just for getting in my way after all.

I think 5 pounds is a fair cost to that shop for the lesson you gained from it. They'd probably be glad to know their mistake made you a better person. I think you can let it go now, or go give them a fiver if it will resolve the issue for you.

You would have done well in this experiment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9c2l4oD5AY Watch all five parts.

Depends...

If the cashier has nice boobs and is displaying lots of cleavage... damn straight I'm showing my honestly, integrity, big white teeth and all the charm I can muster.

If the cashier is just some fat, ugly dude with half his shirt hanging out. I'm stealing the ATM. :devil: