Theft or honest mistake? What would you do?

50 thoughts on “Theft or honest mistake? What would you do?”

1. There's an elephant here: Lack of fairness/reciprocity. If I've understood correctly, the receipt showed a different item. Suppose it was the other way round, and the customer had been charged for a more expensive item than the one they bought. They take the receipt back to shop a couple of weeks later, explain what happened, will the shop give them a refund? Unless it's a small shop or a very regular customer, no, they won't. They'll say: "The receipt shows that you bought item X which was correctly charged at £70. You're showing me item Y, which should have been £15. You want a £55 refund? You must be joking." I'm not saying this is the legal principle, but I think it's how most people regard it.

   And yes, in these circumstances I personally would go back to the shop – or email them – and offer to pay the difference. I've done this several times in the past. Pricing mistakes are quite common. But I can understand why some people wouldn't do it.

2. Isn't the contract complete already once you paid?

3. I would take it back and query the price. It just feels the right thing to do.

4. If the price discrepancy was not too great, a call to the supplier to point this out in a spirit of honest disclosure could easily result in the person contacted saying thank you for the customer’s honesty but for them not to worry about it as it is ‘our mistake’. This would be a win-win, as the customer remains both honest and legal and the company gets to bolster its reputation with the customer as a fair dealing organisation, whilst treating the discrepancy as part of its ‘cost of doing business’ – any large organisation will be bound to suffer a measure of loss due to staff errors which is built in to its financial strategy, and a really good organisation will have measures in place to learn from its mistakes so as to avoid them in the future, eg by tightening its systems to make it impossible (or at least very difficult) to pick an item from inventory whilst billing for a different item.

5. It's actually quite simple, you keep quiet about it and don't brag about it online. 🤦‍♂

6. Oh piss off, nobody's getting back in the car and going back to the store for $50.

7. What’s the difference between the mistake by the cashier and the mistake by the person placing price labels on the shelf? Both are employees. Both have made a mistake. Both mistakes led to the sake at an undersold price. If, in both cases, the purchaser becomes aware that the article was mistakenly underpriced and short time after leaving the shop (so, not decades later), my question is: “Why is it OK when the mistake is made on pricing the item on the shelf vs at the till?”. Consider, for exa,ple, the situation when the price is both incorrect on the shelf and the (for whatever reason) it is wrong (and the same) at the till — it could have been made by the same employee what’s more. I’m assuming that the error is made in the same way by manual input (so bar-code readers not involved, say) and that all parties are unaware of what’s happening until after the event. My point is that if the checkout person chooses to call the item something different and give it the wrong price, then that is what is happening (in principle) at the shelf (perhaps because it’s the same employee involved making the same error for whatever reason). In both cases, being employees, the company’s liability is that of an error by an employee. I know you will tell me they are different (and I know they are anyway). But I do not understand why they are different. Ta!

8. That is interesting and arguably a case of oversharing or honesty by social media leading to possible correction.

   I came across a related issue – one of an inkeeper's lien – where a traveller stayed in a hotel for a couple of weeks and left without paying but left behind camera equipment valued at more than the cost of his stay. The hotel exercised their right dating back a long way in case law to hold the goods against their amount out of pocket. However, on closer inspection they realised the camera equipment belonged to a hire company in Liverpool. The company sued for return of their goods but at the Magistrates Court the court held that at the time of the initial room booking the hotelier believed the camera equipment belonged to the traveller which was covered by the arcane common law and held to to be the deciding factor, regardless of the hotelier later discovering that the goods belonged to a third party.
   So, in this case the hotelier was allowed to keep the goods and gain legal title despite being later aware of the true ownership. The goods were sold to recover the hotelier's loss and the hire company lost title to equipment worth several thousand pounds.
   This goes against what you were saying, that the failure to correct the later discovery of a mistake is dishonest. There seems to a lacuna in law.
   Details of the case can be heard here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001w7zy?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

9. My first thought was that it is a mistake by CEX so it is on them. Morally and legally, she should take it back as the receipt clearly states a different title and it is documented in her video. If she returns it, it techcnically isn't theft as she isn't permanently depriving CEX of the item and is acting in good faith by carrying out the act of "restoration".

10. Over the years I have had several situations where I have been undercharged by between 90 & 100%, due to either damaged barcodes or issues with a large store entering the wrong price into their system; or in one case at Argos, bringing out a totally different item worth 15x what I had paid for.

    The Argos issue I noticed and reported at once; however most were part of a larger shop and I only noticed hours/days later when looking at the receipt.

    In these cases, my experience has been that the staff arent interested and shoo you away; the computer systems are too rigid for them to easily correct the error; they MIGHT get the correct price updated, if that was the issue, but for random glitches; they cant be bothered.

    "Deals" I can remember finding.

    Halfords tyre inflator scanned at £0.0 (part of a £150+ shop)

    Safeway leg of lamb scanned at £0.10; again, part of a much larger shop – I think the barcode tag was damaged.

    Safeway again, PC mag scanned at £0.10, no damage to the barcode, so issue with their system.

    Argos Expensive portable computer handed over for the price of a £10 calculator – handed back.
    Argos, £200 telescope handed over instead of £100 telescope – a model Argos doesnt even stock !
    Argos, £55 speaker stands instead of the £20 speaker stands paid for – again, the £55 ones arent in the catalogue !!

    In the last two cases, both were slightly different models in the same range, so not obviously the wrong item until unboxed.

    Lastly, my most infamous episode of trying to pay the right amount.

    A GUS outlet store, a £3.99 baby toy; I paid with a £5 and got given £2.01 in change; I said that that was wrong.
    The cashier took back the £2.01 went through the till again and gave me £7.01.
    "Noooo, the toy is £3.99, and I gave you £5"
    She took it back, went through the till again, and gave me £12.01.
    "No. No" that is wrong, I only gave you…"
    The cashier snatched back the change, rang it through the till and gave me £22.01 in change, slammed the till shut and said "We are closed now, go away".

    After that, I stopped trying to tell cashiers if I had spotted a mistake.

11. The majority of people are honest. But that is used against us a lot.

    The real question is, would the shop staff have chased her down the street to refund her if she had paid £70 for a £15 game or would it just have been a case of kerching.

    Here's one, a very well known retailer has a policy to only refund, discount etc to people that actually complain loudly when something has gone wrong. The majority of people don't want to cause a fuss and then there's nothing the retailer can do, or so they say…Always complain.
    Always complain on a Saturday if retail. Resolution is amazingly speedy when they are busy and other customers are listening.

    Having worked in retail I can understand all points of view. Personally, I would have gone back because you need a warranty on products which would be void on this particular game.

    Keep up the good work of keeping us informed. Really appreciated.

12. A few years ago I purchased a outdoor Christmas tree from John Lewis on line @ £99. Instead of send a single tree they sent me an outer with 5 trees in it. I called John Lewis and after some time managed to get through to a customer service rep. She wanted me to arrange return of the surplus trees at my expense which would be subsequently reimbursed. I refused to do that simply because I live in the Highlands of Scotland and finding a courier to collect the box is not as simple as it may be for those people living in an English city plus I wasn't inclined to spend more money correcting their mistake and suffer the delay and hassle getting the cost reimbursed.
    The agreed to commission a courier to collect the box on the next day (Saturday) I advised them they would not be able to arrange a collection at a weekend but they insisted. As you might expect we waited in all day and no courier arrived. They didn't arrive on the Monday or Tuesday either and so I rang them. They said they had arranged a courier and will chase them. I insisted on knowing when they would be collected. I was not prepared to leave the box outside for fear of being held liable if the box went missing. The courier was booked and never arrived. I called again, at this point I had spent over an hour on the phone and waited in for the courier for the best part of two days.
    Finally the box was collected, and John Lewis felt it sufficient to send me a £10 voucher for my trouble. Less than 10% of the cost of the tree I wanted. Having saved them the equivalent loss of £396 I felt somewhat aggrieved at this and told them so but they held to the £10.
    I have always been honest about these things but when the mistake is on the part of the retailer they should be prepared to make suitable restitution in recognition it was their mistake and recognition for my honesty, it is not part of the contract that I do their job for them. Had I purchased the tree from a shop and had the same situation as the subject of your video and purchased the item from the shop, I may have reported it but given the distances we have to travel here in the Highlands to shop directly I would not have returned it unless or until I travelled to the same city again.

13. The mistake was by the store. If there are any costs to make the return such as parking or travel costs then can these be claimed?

14. Did she buy all the other games on the shelf for 70 pounds !

15. Just go back and pay what you know what it is worth.

16. I would certainly go back and point out the mistake, just as would if the mistake had been to my detriment.
    My family once had a meal in a restaurant and when I got home I started thinking that it seemed too cheap. When I checked the bill I found they had failed to charge for a preliminary round of drinks. I phoned them and told them and they thanked me for my honesty and said no worries, no need to pay because it had been their mistake.
    Think how much better I felt than if I had just kept quiet, although many people said that's what I should have done.
    You should always treat others the way you would want them to treat you.
    I'm afraid morality and honestly in this country deteriorated from the way I was brought up.
    Unfortunately the evidence of the Post Office enquiry and other recent cases shows that the rot goes right to the top.

17. Does this work the other way around? I’m not sure if money counts as “property” in what you describe? But if it did, and a company accidentally overcharge you, and then realise, in their accounting, that they have done, even some time later….would they also be commuting criminal theft, having deprived you of your property, and then realising, but then not tracking you down and refunding you?

18. I think the majority of people know that it is dishonest to not try to rectify a mistake like this, but there is also a balance of effort to value of the mistake to the party who would take the loss. £50 to working class individuals is probably worth the effort to rectify the mistake. £50 to CEX is very little. So i believe many people would likely go back in to fix this if they noticed while still near the store, but few would bring it back another day to fix this.

19. Hands up anyone who's ever been contacted by a retailer to inform you that they have accidently over-charged you on a recent purchase, and are arranging a refund? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? No… I didn't think so.

    TBH, if I ask someone in the shop how much something is, and they give me an acceptable price, then somehow, for whatever reason, the price increases… Well I'd call that "bait and switch".

20. Civil society???

21. Well I am sure you are right in all you have said but as has been alluded to here it is one thing making this point about an individual who has rather unfortunately exposed herself as committed a criminal act and that of the Post Office/Fujitsu who also knew they were overcharging by deception and yet have and are taking so long admit this and have not been subject to criminal action. If any of the legal profession acting on behalf of Post Office were aware, and we now know they were, then they should have exposed this criminality and taken action as you suggest this Tic-Toc person does now. It is rich to expect the individual to respect and obey the law moral or legal when large corporations these days, particularly the utilities and even government are treating us their customers and tax payers in such a dispicable manner. Therefore I find for this Individual!

22. It has been known that an item has been printed with a wrong barcode but very rare. depending on weather she done self service she may have scanned a cheaper item herself knowingly ( not saying she did !) Or if taken to a manned till where we can only scan the barcode on the item but should ask another member of staff to check price if doesn't look right only way of knowing is cctv !! I work on tills if its the barcode printed incorrectly that item will be sold at that price only that once and head office informedof incorrect barcode . If something is miss priced by the store out of curtesy the shop may sell it at that price that once. but they don't have to the item has to be taken off the shelf for 72 hours then replaced with correct price ! Most customers seem to think its a given that it has to be sold at that wrong price we don't have to sell it !! And plus customers do put items back on a shelf in wrong places we have to get a member of staff to prove to customers its rightful place and price.

23. Call the retailer, tell them what happened and that you would love to pay the excess. Let them know that it will cost them a return train fare and two hours of your time at 30 pounds per hour. They will agree to write it off I'm sure.

24. In practise, retailers will overcharge if they can get away with it. Everything from mobile contract price increases to insurance. They will not tell you that you could have saved money. As a result, consumers have a very jaundiced view of the tactics employed by businesses to trapthe unwary or uneducated. If a shop made a mistake its their problem. Caveat venditor equally applies.

25. Watch the pick up video, it is under a £15 price label over it, on plastic. So it's just the example you said it wasn't like, offer, acceptance contract at that price.

26. Id keep ot. Its the shops problem for selling it cheaper.

27. I would go back into store if the item I got was sold to me as underpriced and told them this, and I will other them to pay the difference between the amount I paid such item to full price which it should be sold at. Mostly if it was company is independent and it was charity. As if you went back and be honest about it they would be great full you being honest with it and then might say don't worry about it because you are being honest to them.

28. If the lady was leaving the shop and security stopped her, the item wouldn't match the receipt so the security could think that she bought a cheaper item and then removed expensive item off the shelf, if you could look at cctv you would see the cashier has made the mistake. This whole thing wouldn't happened if the cashier hadn't have made the mistake to start with! As we all know two wrongs don't make right. And to make a video showing off that you have ripped off the shop is not great. I believe she knew what she was buying as she is clearly a collector of ganes.

29. I once got undercharged for a Scooby-Doo game luckily I had the Intelligence to keep that information to myself and to not post a video online 😂😂

30. Fine line between being honest and being stupid. It's their mistake so I'm my opinion even if you noticed at the time of purchase it was wrong you should zip it 🤐
    By taking all items to the checkout to pay for them, that is the honesty surely. You haven't left the shop without checking out, you owe the shop nothing.

31. I deliver shopping, part time, for a large supermarket. Quite often I see errors where customers are charged for things they didn't receive (maybe something fell out of a crate, for example).

    I highlight this to managers if I notice, and their attitude is to do nothing unless contacted by the customer. If the customer doesn't notice or complain, then there is no refund so they've been charged for items they didn't receive. This particular company (or their mangers, at least) are more than willing to overcharge and 'steal' from customers. Pretty disgusting in my opinion, just because they're too lazy to issue a refund. Feels like the same thing but in reverse – would be interesting to hear what the law thinks about that.

32. I've had my bill in a restaurant come to £15 but i was charged £50, but when i went and contacted the restaurant they apparently couldn't do anything, i had to dispute the amount with my card provider who could only dispute the whole amount. This took several weeks and the end result is that i didn't actually pay for the meal as i couldn't then go back and pay the proper amount.

33. I agree Daniel, in New Zealand in terms of the Crimes Act 1961 (s 219) she is guilty of theft because after becoming aware of the discrepancy, the AR and MR are now complete.

34. To give a view would like to know if a price was indicated on the game or near to where the game was on display? If no price then I think it is dishonest now that she knows if there was a price, even if it was a little ambiguous, then it was an offer to treat and not therefore dishonest.

35. She should go to the shop and fix it up … some unfortunate employee is probably going to bear the brunt.

36. Personally, I would settle the difference the next time I visit the store. I firmly believe in the principles of karma and the rule of law. However, I acknowledge that my perspective may seem naive in the current era, given the prevalence of dishonesty, especially among high-ranking government officials.

37. I think you need to justify why there's an obligation to make restoration in this situation. Does it really void a contract if objectively you make an agreement to sell for £15 but really privately intended to charge £65 but didn't communicate this in any way?

38. Query : 'Where a person gets [?] property by another's [?] mistake, and is under an obligation to make restoration…' Couple of issues with this .
    1) Language seems extremely informal – is this the actual statute or someone else's interpretation posted on some random website?
    2) Grammar is informal – using contractions etc. See question 1.
    3) '…and is under an obligation' It doesn't say here that obtaining property by the mistake of the vendor automatically puts an obligation to make restoration on the person gaining the property. A literal translation is that both clauses must be true (obtained property by other person their mistake AND there is an obligation to make restoration THEN the ownership of the property resides with the person who made the mistake. It doesn't say that there is automatically and obligation to make restoration just because the person losing the property made a mistake. Simply it says : IF condition a AND condition b Then obligation C. NOT IF condition a THEN condition b and Obligation C.

39. If a shop short changes you but you do not realise until you have left and then go back in they will not correct their mistake as they will say sorry you should have checked it before you left. They should have checked it before she left.

40. It depends, if that was and indepedent shop or even big retailer that I had no problems with I would return the game and try to correct the issue. But, we talking about CEX! They send you games with inserts printed on normal paper. Advertise one thing and send another. Sod them!

41. In the last few years I've had shop assistants give me back too much change. Each time I returned the money: if I had kept it, that would have been theft.

42. Completely off topic..
    Would you pay a tradesperson 'cash in hand'? Also when is it acceptable to do so, and to what value?
    I personally had such an encounter and felt uneasy.. should I have reported this and to who?

43. Does cex have a standard?. So many games that never worked over the years in my experience. I had this in the 80's where two game titles were so similar. They gave me the wrong cassette. Ironically the right cassette was the better game. Good these videos exist. I feel different if it was an independent.

44. In the video the sticker on the box says £15 so does that go back to the agreement to buy it at that price?
    I think that technically it's theft, but once most people have got home they aren't going back to the shop to pay the extra money!

45. So, if I buy an painting at a yard sale/car boot sale for £20 and I subsequently find out it is in fact a very rare and valuable painting, I am under an obligation to find the seller and give them money?

46. I suppose if you keep quiet about it and not broadcast it on TikTok then no one’s going to know.

47. Just had another thought in addition to comment below. How far could you take this honest citizen, do the right thing? Lets say you are speeding, the flash went off on the roadside or motorway camera, you agonizingly wait and nothing. After a long while, you remember this You Tube video and contact the police traffic department and I ask them, where is my 3 pts or speed awareness course option? To which they reply, yep, you're right, our admin failed so here's what you requested!

48. Why is the government getting away with their dishonesty it's one rule for us and they get way with stealing billions it's a joke to hold people to the law when the government are not geld to any law . Love your channel

49. People are just following the government's example

50. Terrible story on Youtube i just watched. I wonder if you would be interest Black Belt Barrister? …… SHOCKING Injustice: Farm Seized by Council.

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