Re: Gloating ethics
- From: "bob" <bobthebuilderyeshecan@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 22:27:03 -0600
What you did is called STEALING. The $80 rebate was for orders of $420 or
more. Even if the code did work for an $89 item, it was WRONG to do what
you did.
"brianlanning" <brianlanning@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1140191284.657116.127520@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
At what point does a gloat become unethical or otherwise wrong?
Over on woodnet, someone posted that they were able to make an $80 off
coupon code work on a delta benchtop disk/belt sander. I headed over
to amazon and tried it out. Sure enough, I got the $89 tool with free
shipping and $80 off. The total was $9.94.
This didn't work for the vast majority of tools. There seemed to be no
sense as to why it worked for this tool and not others. Someone else
discovered that this code also worked for a $160 3.25 horse hitachi
plunge router. So many people placed an order for that, but I didn't.
A lot of people received emails saying that their orders were canceled.
Mine shipped. A lot of people were quiet which leads me to believe
that other orders shipped also. Someone posted that they got the
router.
Anyway, I feel sort of bad about it. On one hand, it wasn't really a
mispriced item. And I've seen online places unload things at silly
prices many times before. One time, I ordered some server backup
software for $9. I know this was the intended price since they were
liquidating a lot of other software at really low prices. When I
received it, I was surprised to learn that it normally sold for close
to $1000. The real kicker was that it had a $200 rebate, which worked.
So I actually made money on the software.
In hind-sight, I know that since they were cancelling orders that they
didn't mean for this to work. Or did they just run out of the stock
they were liquidating and only meant to sell the ones they had on hand?
By the time I heard about this, mine had already shipped. Had I
known, I probably would have canceled the order myself.
If this were a brick and mortar store, this wouldn't happen, since
there's a human clearing every sale. But if it did anyway, I would
take it back if I didn't catch it at checkout myself. This is
different though. It's a faceless megacorporation and everything is
done through the mail with computers. This wasn't a little old lady
not knowing the value of the powermatic saw she's trying to sell. The
scenario was plausible when I placed the order.
I'm not the kind of person who gets angry and expects a retailer to
honor a stupid price that was a mistake. And I always correct cashiers
that accidently give me too much change. But I've caught mistakes (in
my favor and not) in the past after I got home and not bothered to go
back to fix them.
So should I take the gloat and feel good about obtaining a good deal,
or should I hide and repent?
brian
.
- References:
- Gloating ethics
- From: brianlanning
- Gloating ethics
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