The Blog-Ethicist: Bank Error In Your Favor
Am I ethically obligated to return products to a company that were accidentally/erroneously included in my shipment? Anonymous, Portland, OR.
posted by d l wright at 11/02/2009 09:14:00 PM
6 Comments:
depends on the company and product(s)
Let's say a company like Amazon.
Let's also say the product is valued at $19.99.
But, I am sure anonymous means generally speaking as well.
ethically i'd say it's a wash, it'd probably cost you some money to ship it back to them, they made the mistake etc.
does anonymous want the product? if so i say keep it, if not then email amazon and ask them what they want anonymous to do with it.
keep it
It is ethical for the guy to keep it-- he is a guy, they are a huge corporation with thousands of times the resources that he has. The relationship is so asymmetric that any responsibility should lie with them, not you. Companies take advantage of this all the time, knowing that they have full time employees who deal with paperwork and bullshit, whereas you have a limited amount of time and quickly see diminishing returns. Insurance claims are the absolute worst (they have just been throwing away whatever my dad mails them unless he sends it certified mail), but mail in rebates and warranty fulfillment can be just as bad. I suspect that this is the tip of a libertarian-smashing iceberg!
Back to the original problem, I know from personal experience that Amazon will keep money to which it is not entitled unless you specifically ask for it--they owed me a $70.00 credit for a cell phone promotion. I called to ask for it a few months later, and the call center employee admitted that they would not have followed through had I not asked.
The law, having sympathy that scales with size, seems to disagree with individuals most of the time, as it will believe that a large organization makes honest mistakes but the burden of proof for an individual is a lot higher.
I remember seeing this story last week:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_odd_money_for_nothing
The situation is different, but it is pretty harsh that the guy is going to prison.
I'm with Brad. E-mail them, and if they want to send you a postpaid box that you can easily drop off to return it.
I wouldn't be surprised if they just say something along the lines of "Thanks for letting us know; go ahead and keep it."
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