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Ethics: Is this stealing?

Ethics: Is this stealing?

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radcen

radcen

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Ethics: Is this stealing?

Scenario: My wife works for a large big box retailer. A long-time cashier, 10+/- years, at her store got fired earlier this week for stealing.

The chain has a rebate program where you can get a certain percentage of your purchase back to you in the form of a store gift card, good only at that chain. When a customer would check out she would ask if they wanted their receipt. If they said yes she'd give them their receipt. If they said no, she'd pocket the receipt and cash in the rebate and get the gift cards for herself. Then spend them in her store, which seems incredibly dumb, but I digress. Anyway, is that stealing? (In YOUR opinion, absent opinions or conclusions from others.)

The company feels it's stealing, as is their right. She does not feel it is because the customer was offered their receipt and chose of their own free will to decline. She sees it as no different than finding a dollar bill on the sidewalk.

What say you? Who's right?

1) Yes, this is stealing.
2) This is kind of a gray area.
3) No, this is not stealing.
4) Undecided/Other.

Side note: I believe she was just fired, and no charges were pressed. I don't know if this would be technically illegal, but the legal aspect is not part of the question anyway. Ethics is the question.

ETA: No, it was not my wife that was fired.
 
radcen said:
Ethics: Is this stealing?

Scenario: My wife works for a large big box retailer. A long-time cashier, 10+/- years, at her store got fired earlier this week for stealing.

The chain has a rebate program where you can get a certain percentage of your purchase back to you in the form of a store gift card, good only at that chain. When a customer would check out she would ask if they wanted their receipt. If they said yes she'd give them their receipt. If they said no, she'd pocket the receipt and cash in the rebate and get the gift cards for herself. Then spend them in her store, which seems incredibly dumb, but I digress. Anyway, is that stealing? (In YOUR opinion, absent opinions or conclusions from others.)

The company feels it's stealing, as is their right. She does not feel it is because the customer was offered their receipt and chose of their own free will to decline. She sees it as no different than finding a dollar bill on the sidewalk.

What say you? Who's right?

1) Yes, this is stealing.
2) This is kind of a gray area.
3) No, this is not stealing.
4) Undecided/Other.

Side note: I believe she was just fired, and no charges were pressed. I don't know if this would be technically illegal, but the legal aspect is not part of the question anyway. Ethics is the question.

ETA: No, it was not my wife that was fired.
Click to expand...

In my opinion, it’s fraud. At any rate, she got what she deserved.
 
Is the customer made aware of the rebate? If not, perhaps pointing it out, or at least having a sign hinting at it might help.
 
radcen said:
Ethics: Is this stealing?

Scenario: My wife works for a large big box retailer. A long-time cashier, 10+/- years, at her store got fired earlier this week for stealing.

The chain has a rebate program where you can get a certain percentage of your purchase back to you in the form of a store gift card, good only at that chain. When a customer would check out she would ask if they wanted their receipt. If they said yes she'd give them their receipt. If they said no, she'd pocket the receipt and cash in the rebate and get the gift cards for herself. Then spend them in her store, which seems incredibly dumb, but I digress. Anyway, is that stealing? (In YOUR opinion, absent opinions or conclusions from others.)

The company feels it's stealing, as is their right. She does not feel it is because the customer was offered their receipt and chose of their own free will to decline. She sees it as no different than finding a dollar bill on the sidewalk.

What say you? Who's right?

1) Yes, this is stealing.
2) This is kind of a gray area.
3) No, this is not stealing.
4) Undecided/Other.

Side note: I believe she was just fired, and no charges were pressed. I don't know if this would be technically illegal, but the legal aspect is not part of the question anyway. Ethics is the question.

ETA: No, it was not my wife that was fired.
Click to expand...

I actually work for a large Swiss retailer in internal surveillance. We have these kinds of frauds all the time.
The cashier is using her position to obtain stuff from the store basically "for free". It's no different than swiping your fidelity card after the client leaves in order to "cash in" extra bonus points without purchasing anything.
 
It's stealing. It's a perk the company offers to PAYING customers.
 
Yes, that is stealing. The receipt belongs to the company. If the company offers it to the customer but the customer rejects it, it still belongs to the company. It’d be no different to a company having a “buy one, get one free” offer and every time a customer only buys one of the items, the cashier takes the “free” one for themselves.
 
Some have said it's stealing, and some have said it's fraud - it's both.

It's stealing from the paying customers because it is their percentage of their purchase which has a monetary value that the customer has the sole right to possess and benefit from, and it's fraud in that the employee was defrauding the employer out of money by claiming financial rewards that are not rightfully the employee's and are not the duty or responsibility of the employer to pay to the employee.

The employee should not only have been fired, but should be charged with embezzlement, or at least charged with acquiring property under false pretenses. It's an actual crime.
 
Both stealing and fraud.
 
I think if she disclosed the rebate program to the customers and then asked for their receipt with their permission to use it for herself if they didn't want to use it and they gave it to her out of their free will, it wouldn't be an issue to me.

The problem is you can't stand over the cashier and make sure she discloses that to everyone so I would be with the company in not allowing it.
 
Yes, it's stealing. If the customer chooses to not use the rewards, it doesn't mean that the cashier gets to keep them. The cashier is not the paying customer that the rewards are designed for.

My daughter used to work for a large grocery store chain that offered these kids of perks, but it was gas perks. For every $100 you spent in the store, you got like 5 cents off a gallon of gas. Now if you don't have your own rewards card, or you forgot it, the store has a card there that you can swipe for the customer to get the discounts in the store, but you don't get the gas rewards points. Well what she did was use her own rewards card, so when a customer forgot his card, she swiped hers, looking like a hero to the customer because they still got the discounts, without realizing that she was banking a fortune in gas credits.

When they found out what was going on, they found out that she hadn't paid for gas in months. She had so many rewards that she could get 20 gallons of gas per visit, at 0.00 per gallon, several times a month.
 
Cisero said:
I actually work for a large Swiss retailer in internal surveillance. We have these kinds of frauds all the time.
The cashier is using her position to obtain stuff from the store basically "for free". It's no different than swiping your fidelity card after the client leaves in order to "cash in" extra bonus points without purchasing anything.
Click to expand...

Worked in Security for a number of years after retiring. It is amazing what people will steal, and how often they get nabbed on Air Miles and other loyalty programs.
And yes it is theft/fraud.
 
I voted gray area. I certainly think it is a fireable offense, but the reason I am hesitant to call it stealing, in the legal sense, is that I can't imagine a DA prosecuting for it. I'm not convinced what she did was technically illegal and thus I hesitate to apply the "stealing" label. I could easily be wrong about that, though.

Would people consider it theft if she asked the customer if she could have it before keeping it?

Would it be theft if the customer payed with cash and then told the cashier to "keep the change"?
 
I don't know if it was stealing, although I voted yes. It was certainly fraud. She got something to which she was not personally entitled. She didn't deserve the rebates because she didn't spend the money. So she deserved to get fired, although as she didn't break any law, there wasn't anything else the company could do.
 
I think I would have reprimanded her first, and then fired her if she continued. She might not have felt it was stealing at all. So I would have made sure she understood company policy.

However, stealing is a strong term; how about these examples. Is this stealing?

You bid on a construction job.
You bought 25 lbs of nails, but only used 20 lbs.
15 gallons of paint but only used 13 gallons.
24 2X4's but only used 22.
Who do these left over materials belong to? Typically, the contractor will use these materials on another job, but they won't reduce the estimate for that future job. So part of the materials for the next job are essentially free to the contractor. But he won't reduce the estimate for the next job because of it. Is this stealing?

You run a body shop.
You repair a car, and use a small amount of finish putty squeezed from a tube, but charge for the whole tube. On the next repair, you also use a small amount but charge for the whole tube again. Repeat this until the tube is empty. Is this stealing?

Both of these examples are common practice.

If you charge for "tire disposal" even though the customer is keeping the old tires because they are still good stealing?

This list could go on and on.
 
No its not stealing unless the company says that the rebate is non-transferable. Your wife is essentially being a white collar dumpster diver.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk
 
radcen said:
Ethics: Is this stealing?

Scenario: My wife works for a large big box retailer. A long-time cashier, 10+/- years, at her store got fired earlier this week for stealing.

The chain has a rebate program where you can get a certain percentage of your purchase back to you in the form of a store gift card, good only at that chain. When a customer would check out she would ask if they wanted their receipt. If they said yes she'd give them their receipt. If they said no, she'd pocket the receipt and cash in the rebate and get the gift cards for herself. Then spend them in her store, which seems incredibly dumb, but I digress. Anyway, is that stealing? (In YOUR opinion, absent opinions or conclusions from others.)

The company feels it's stealing, as is their right. She does not feel it is because the customer was offered their receipt and chose of their own free will to decline. She sees it as no different than finding a dollar bill on the sidewalk.

What say you? Who's right?

1) Yes, this is stealing.
2) This is kind of a gray area.
3) No, this is not stealing.
4) Undecided/Other.

Side note: I believe she was just fired, and no charges were pressed. I don't know if this would be technically illegal, but the legal aspect is not part of the question anyway. Ethics is the question.

ETA: No, it was not my wife that was fired.
Click to expand...

She was scamming. BUT, if there is nothing in the company policy book, she was a case for wrongful firing. The policy book needs to be read by an employment lawyer, and if her offense is not covered, she can pitch for an out of court settlement in exchange for not splashing a new scheme on the internet headlines!
 
Skeptic Bob said:
Would people consider it theft if she asked the customer if she could have it before keeping it?

Would it be theft if the customer payed with cash and then told the cashier to "keep the change"?
Click to expand...

No, but neither of those things is what happened. She took something she's not entitled to, with no one's permission.
 
Harshaw said:
No, but neither of those things is what happened. She took something she's not entitled to, with no one's permission.
Click to expand...

But it is trash at that point, isn't it?

I'm not exactly clear myself. What if the customer had taken the receipt, threw it away in the public trash outside, and THEN the cashier took it and used it? Would that be theft?
 
Skeptic Bob said:
But it is trash at that point, isn't it?

I'm not exactly clear myself. What if the customer had taken the receipt, threw it away in the public trash outside, and THEN the cashier took it and used it? Would that be theft?
Click to expand...

It's not pocketing the receipt that's the problem. It's using the receipt to get gift cards she wasn't entitled to.
 
Harshaw said:
It's not pocketing the receipt that's the problem. It's using the receipt to get gift cards she wasn't entitled to.
Click to expand...

I know. Sorry if my hypothetical wasn't clear. I am asking would it be theft if the cashier recovered the receipt from the public trash outside and used it to get the gift cards?
 
Skeptic Bob said:
I know. Sorry if my hypothetical wasn't clear. I am asking would it be theft if the cashier recovered the receipt from the public trash outside and used it to get the gift cards?
Click to expand...

Yes, because she isn't entitled to them.

Keep in mind, she used to receipt to ring up the gift card rebate herself. Had she shown the receipts to managers and asked for the gift cards, she likely would have been told no, right?
 
radcen said:
Ethics: Is this stealing?

Scenario: My wife works for a large big box retailer. A long-time cashier, 10+/- years, at her store got fired earlier this week for stealing.

The chain has a rebate program where you can get a certain percentage of your purchase back to you in the form of a store gift card, good only at that chain. When a customer would check out she would ask if they wanted their receipt. If they said yes she'd give them their receipt. If they said no, she'd pocket the receipt and cash in the rebate and get the gift cards for herself. Then spend them in her store, which seems incredibly dumb, but I digress. Anyway, is that stealing? (In YOUR opinion, absent opinions or conclusions from others.)

The company feels it's stealing, as is their right. She does not feel it is because the customer was offered their receipt and chose of their own free will to decline. She sees it as no different than finding a dollar bill on the sidewalk.

What say you? Who's right?

1) Yes, this is stealing.
2) This is kind of a gray area.
3) No, this is not stealing.
4) Undecided/Other.

Side note: I believe she was just fired, and no charges were pressed. I don't know if this would be technically illegal, but the legal aspect is not part of the question anyway. Ethics is the question.

ETA: No, it was not my wife that was fired.
Click to expand...

I would suspect there is something, somewhere in some employee manual prohibiting this behavior. Probably most of the employees aren't even aware of it.

What do you think of a pizza delivery driver who carries a bunch of $2 off a large pizza coupons and when someone pays cash for a pizza with no coupon, substitute a coupon in and take $2? I don't really see that as much different than said cashier.
 
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