Question on ethics

Yesterday, I was in Lucky's Supermarket, and I saw that white peaches were on sale for $1.99 a pound. Normally, they're $2.99 a pound. So I put several in my shopping cart and went to the checkout stand. The clerk said that her computer had them at $2.99, not $1.99. So I went back to check on the price, because I was sure that I had seen the price as $1.99, and discovered that the sign under the peaches, which said $1.99, was for the nectarines, even though they were in a different place. I simply hadn't noticed, since the sign was underneath the peaches. The stock person had evidently put the price signs in the wrong place.

At any rate, I decided that I didn't want to pay the regular $2.99 price and exchanged the peaches for a refund. Then I was informed that the organic peaches were on sale for $1.99, so I decided to buy those instead. I'm not a big organic person. I'll buy whichever is cheapest. After I got home, I discovered that a Lucky's flyer had the regular peaches on sale for $0.57 a pound (believe it of not!), even though there were no price signs at the store indicating this, nor, as I say, had the sale price been entered into the computer. The store had screwed up again. Nowhere had the $.57/pound price been posted.

So I returned to the store to take advantage of the sale, as I really like peaches! While there, I realized that the organic peaches were riper and looked a little better, so I bought a few more of those in addition to the regular peaches, and put both in my shopping cart. After I checked out, I discovered that the clerk had undercharged me for the $1.99 organic variety, giving me the $0.57 price for those as well as for the regular peaches.

So now I was thinking, should I go back and tell the clerk that he had undercharged me, and offer to pay the difference? Wouldn't that be the fair thing to do? Well, I thought about the inconvenience the store had put me through by mislabeling the peaches and about the fact that once again the clerk had made a mistake, this time in my favor, and decided to leave the store without taking the time to correct it.

Was I wrong?

Post 1

Thursday, July 7, 2011 - 8:26am

The mistake was Lucky's. You might tell them as a matter of noblesse oblige, but it's not a matter of honesty.

If they accept your offer, backing the error out and correcting it would quite likely cost them more than letting it go.

Post 2

Thursday, July 7, 2011 - 10:25am

I second Peter's answer.

Ed

Post 3

Thursday, July 7, 2011 - 11:27am

When the amount of money involved is so small, and as Peter mentioned, the cost of correcting the error would be more than the amount involved, and then the only reason for going back would be to satisfy any question that you had regarding the morality - that is, just to satisfy your sense of well-being.

In that kind of transaction, any difference in your sense of well-being, however small, becomes the larger value and out-weighs the other considerations. In other words, the ultimate value involved in that transaction was that your integrity not take even the tiniest of hits. If you still have any questions, calculate the amount and take it in next time, dump it on a cashier, telling her you were under charged and let her worry about how to handle entering it in their system.

I got out to my car one day after grocery shopping and saw that there was a can of soup in my cart that I hadn't purchased (I didn't put it there, and looking at my receipt I could see I hadn't paid for it). I realized that it must belong to a customer that went through the line before me, and was probably gone by now, and returning it to the store was in fact enriching them for shorting some other customer and it was a soup I'd enjoy. But I took it back for just one reason.... a doubt arose as to whether or not I should keep it. If I ever suffer some moral failing, it won't be for something as trivial as a can of soup.

Sometimes the question isn't just about the moral choice of A versus B, but the moral choice of A plus the psychological consequences of A versus B plus the psychological consequences of B.

Post 4

Thursday, July 7, 2011 - 6:26pm

Thanks to all for your thoughtful comments.

I think the psychological issue hinges on the ethical one. My question concerned the ethics of not going back to pay the difference. If it was ethical not to go back, because of the added inconvenience that the store had caused me, then not going back should have no psychological price. The only psychological price would be if I felt obligated to do it, and didn't go back simply because it was inconvenient. Then I would pay a psychological price. But that was the very point at issue. Was it unethical to begin with?

My conclusion is that it was not, because I didn't owe the store my time and effort to correct a mistake that was their responsibility, not mine -- especially since they had caused me additional inconvenience by mis-pricing their produce.

Post 5

Thursday, July 7, 2011 - 7:20pm

Bill,

Sometimes things are just a mess. Lucky Supermarkets had confusing pricing indications to start with and they were clumsy in handling their side of the transaction.

But ignoring all of that, it can be said that they intended to offer regular peaches at .57/lb and to offer organic peaches at $1.99. You ended up intending to pay .57/lb. for regular peaches and $1.99 for the organic. By the time you arrived at the cash register for the last time, you had a meeting of the minds.

When they miscalculated and sold you some of the organic peaches at the price of regular you should not have taken advantage of that error. Remember that you have chosen to deal with this supermarket despite their less than efficient service, and the service wasn't so odious as to be some kind of travesty. Further, there was no pre-existing understanding between you and Lucky Supermarkets that you get to take what amounts to a discount that you unilaterally decide upon, a discount that you don't announce to them, or get their agreement on, and that you alone make the 'calculation' on as a compensation for your estimate of your inconvenience.

Those are the principle facts as I would understand them from the perspective of contract law's basic elements.

Peter's observation is true, but it doesn't change those facts. The smallness of the amount doesn't alter the principles, but only the importance of their application in this case.

You had a question about the morality of keeping unearned pennies and wondered if you could justify this wind-fall by pointing out that they inconvenienced you. It was for this reason, that I say that your integrity was the primary issue. You raised this as a question indicating that you had at least a tiny concern.

You should have taken advantage of the fact that you could resolve that psychological issue for pennies. You wrote, "I think the psychological issue hinges on the ethical one." There isn't some little guy that will come out and ring a bell when you come up with the correct ethical answer. In the absence of that ringing bell, you should be happy that you can stay on the right side of the issue for only pennies.

Someone could say that it isn't fair that you have to keep going out of your way to fix their errors and expending your time to make up for their inefficiencies - but that isn't relevant. There are many ways in which the world we live in is not utopian. Integrity is a virtue that is of value and is directly related to psychological values. It is the third player in this issue.

Post 6

Thursday, July 7, 2011 - 11:54pm

Well, Steve, I don't agree with you that I did anything even the slightest bit immoral. I was interested in how others might view this, which is why I posted the question. But I didn't think that I had done anything immoral when I walked out of the store without going back and correcting the error. Doing so would have required an extra expense on my part, one of time and energy.

You can say that it was a small expense, but it was an expense nonetheless, and one that I was simply not responsible for rectifying on my own dime. Now if, at the time I was at the cash register I noticed the undercharge, I would definitely have corrected it then and there, but once I had left the checkout, I had no further moral obligation to take extra time to go back and correct the store's own mistake -- especially given the aggravation they had put me through initially.

You can say that it wasn't intentional on the store's part, but it was irresponsible behavior by one of the store's own employees and it occurred at my expense. The employee wasn't paying attention to his job when he posted the wrong signs. That's the store fault, not mine.

Post 7

Friday, July 8, 2011 - 7:42am

Bill with so many pricing errors at that point I wouldn't even be sure anymore what price was correct. I'd be turned off to shopping at that place all together.

Post 8

Friday, July 8, 2011 - 8:40am