Poll: should I have kept this "FREE" gift?

[Rigoletto]

OK I believe $3=£2.
I was in a high street consumer electrics store and saw some "manager's specials". What caught my eye was a PCTV for £20, like half what it should cost because it had no box or cables. Cables, what cables I thought. So I asked to have a look at it. I saw that there was a little super video cable with it and also some little box in a packet. I couldn't really see what it was but asked if that was anything to do with it. He said it was to do with the video editing and that the card was more for that kind of thing than TV. I thought "Is it really? Well what do I know about them anyway..."
Anyway, I got to the till and whilst waiting for the receipt decided to look at it. I saw it was an external modem. "!" and I had already used my credit card to pay! What should I do? What would you have done? Does it matter that a high street chain makes a mistake to them or anybody but me? Would you be afraid of getting found out? This modem was incomplete (it was that that was missing the cables, dummies...) and complete it would have been worth £55 on its own.

If anybody would like to contribute to the moral debate I'll tell them what I did and how I feel about it tomorrow...

 

[yakko]

Keep it. If they don't what they are selling how can you be ripping them off?

 

[Nutcase99]

Keep! If they don't want it you sure as hell do. If you don't give it to me

 

[Tominator]

They were most likely happy to see 'it' go! You'd cause more trouble for them by returning it imho.

 

[cmv]

I agree with the keeping it side. I didn't realize how inefficient retail selling was at first - all those returns need to be sold off and many of the bigger corporate stores don't have any standard procedures in place. Most employees just want to get rid of the crap so they can get back to selling the good stuff.

Just keep it!

 

[Rigoletto]

Well I'll tell you what I did then.
They had all these cards on the shelf and not the items. So ya had to pick up the card and take it to the desk.
After I bought the stuff without saying anything, I checked to see if the modem was on one of those cards, to discard it... but it wasn't there anyway. Looked like I'd got away with it.
It's not like taking from somebody personally so I'm not bothered about it.

 

[DABANSHEE]

Back in the days when they had nossles on either end of petrol pumps (instead of like they do now where the nozzles are at the front & back), I accidently grabed the wrong one & put $10 worth of unleaded in my car, well I thought 'ah heck' I just add $10 worth of super to it & that'd bring the octane up, then I wondered in & gave the bloke $20 without saying anything (I was reading some magazine on the counter) & he gave me $10 change, so I thought 'beauty' & walked out. From that time on whenever I was a bit short of cash & pulled into a servo that was busy I would do that trick & 9 times out of 10 they'd give me $10 change. On the other occasions they just thought I had accidently put the unleaded in & thus had to bring the octane up with the Super, in which case they didn't give me $10 change.

Really its the perfect crime - if you are sussed out you gave the bloke $20 to cover both hoseloads anyway, so what can they do, nothing, unles of course you open your mouth & say you only took petrol from one pump, which is 'false pretences' in the eye of the law. So as long as all you do when they ask which pump number is to vaguely point to your car & says its the 'white Holden' or something one can't be charged with nothing, as long as you gave them enough money to cover both hoses. However it can't be done these days as the petrol pumps are the new type with the nozzles at the front & back, with both the Super, Unleaded & Premium Unleaded Nozzles working off the same meter, which thus has to be cleared by the bloke on the cash register before getting anything out of another nozzle.

 

[Josh]

Keep it! DUH! Free Modem for you, if not send it my way