Thread: To pay or not to pay, that is the question...

This falls into the area of "Your faith is what you do when no one is watching."

When you go through the till at a store, pay, go home and realize they forgot to charge you for something you brought home with you, what do you do? Go back and pay or shrug and say that it's their mistake and keep the item anyways?




Just FYI, I go back and pay.

depends.. if it's lots of time/miles, I'll try to remember next time I'm there. If it's parking lot, I go back.

Depends on the situation. Sometimes I have been over charged and not done anything about it, so if I get home, 8 miles, and it isn't a large amount, I let it balance out. This would always be WM purchases, as we do most of out shopping there. We have been checking out our own groceries for quite a while so we no longer have those sorts of problems. We bring our reusable bags and few checkers know how to pack them efficiently.

Just a few days ago I bought groceries at a do it yourself checkout and then walked out and drove home without paying.

When I arrived home I realised I hadn't payed and drove back but it wasn't far and spoke to the lady who tried to find me when she looked at the register and saw I hadn't paid.
It was embarrassing but she understood.

I have gone back over small amounts of non charged or wrongly charged and the counter person doesn't want to know as it is more of a drama for them to fix the error as everything is electronic and the system doesn't allow for it. They have told me to keep the money but acknowledge my honesty.

Different stores seem to deal with these things differently.

I've always payed the correct amount since before I became a Christian. The self service at the grocery stores demands that you show the machine the receipt before you are allowed to leave so leaving without paying is impossible. Sometimes people will start registering groceries at the self service counter then cancel and go elsewhere and the counter doesn't automatically reset (makes me think that it is part of their business model) and the next customer may end up paying for those groceries in addition to his own if he doesn't pay attention. That happened to me once and I didn't bother to return to complain about the $5 difference. An other time it was like $30 but I noticed before it was too late. So I reckon they actually owe me money.

There have been a couple of times when the cashier gave me too much money back when making change, and I've called it to their attention...

Recently, I was at a CVS, and for some reason, the cashier put the cash I gave her in the bag with my items - I found it when I got home, and went back (only 5 minutes away) and gave her the money - She was shocked that I returned....But I can honestly say that if it had been a store across town, I don't know if I would have driven all the way back.

As the saying goes... "Integrity is what you do, when nobody is watching"

I always laugh at their response.. it's shock!

but, I think that's a sad commentary on our society.

"Your faith is what you do when no one is watching."

This is called integrity. It is shocking the excuses people make to get something free. I say pay the bill. Be honest.

I had a clerk get mad at me once for saying the price that rang in wasn't the correct price - it was on a very large, expensive Lego set for my son, and it rang in way under what the tag had said. I suppose that since the error was in the system, I could have just left it, but my conscience wouldn't let me.

I had a very surprised customer service lady one time when I went back to pay for a bag of flour that was in the undercarriage of my grocery cart that I had forgotten to pay for.

I always give back extra change.

Sometimes, if I had been charged too much and not noticed till I got home and haven't bothered to go back, the next time I'm not charged enough, I don't go back for that either... feeling that it evens itself out, usually.

Last night at Financial Peace University (the Dave Ramsey course) integrity was a big part of the discussion. If we do our best to walk in integrity in ALL we do, there is a great sense of peace.

Because I believe I represent Jesus and the gospel. I would go back and pay.
God sees all our actions .
Integrity is who we are regardless of who is watching.