| | I wanted to add my voice to the fraud and immoral side of this little debate.
Immoral seems easier. First, the customer is "buying" it under false pretenses. He has no intention at all to keep it. The store is there to sell the product, not to rent it out. Even if you claim he hasn't explicitly lied, do you think he has something to fear from telling the truth? Would they be willing to "rent" it to him for free, losing value by the camera going from new to used as Rick pointed out in post 3? If he can only make the deal by keeping his intentions secret, it's not a proper trade. It's not a value for value. At minimum it violates the trader principle, which I think Eric is getting at in post 17. It's also dishonest, as the customer is concealing his real intentions and acting as if he is really intending to purchase the product. And it's an attempt to gain the unearned. It doesn't matter if the system the store sets up technically allows for abuse. It still is abuse.
I also don't think it's reasonable to assume the store would be okay with it, even getting "interest" for a short period of time. If they were, then let the customer offer that trade openly. He wouldn't because he wouldn't expect them to agree. But I want to argue against that whole methodology. If you want to trade with someone, you do so openly and with their consent. It's not proper to do something without their consent, and then try to show afterwards that they benefitted. If that were the case, government could justify their taxation by claiming you use public roads! Even if they did manage to gain financially, you took the choice out of their hands. As actual owners of the property, they may have decided that they'd rather not make the financial gain in order to prevent you from using the camera. They can even decide to be irrational! You have no right to complain! As owners, they get to set the terms of use or transferal, not you!
Does it amount to fraud? I think so. They aren't in the business of "renting" their products. They're in the business of selling them. They have a generous policy of allowing returns to help them promote sales. My guess is that they can get you to buy the product now, knowing you could return it, and hoping you'll decide to keep it instead of going through the hassle of coming back. This is in contrast to deciding later that you might like it, but can't be hassled to come back in. But whatever their motivation, it's for the purpose of selling the product, not loaning it to you with collateral. If you go in and borrow it, you're violating their intention. You're getting away with it because you're keeping your true purpose secret. You're not really offering value for value. You're not even offering the value of taking it home and thinking about whether you want to keep it. If you have no intention to keep it, you're tricking them into a transaction based on faulty information.
Can you be prosecuted? Probably not, because it would be hard to prove, and because their policy is so relaxed. The context of the policy should be admissible into court, but I'm doubtful it actually is, given the American approach to law that is technical and literal. And it may be that it isn't a big enough problem for the stores to attempt to prosecute, as that might undermine the benefits of the policy for others. But I would still argue that it was fraud. It is a violation of their property rights, through deceit.
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