Should customer be held responsible for something he didn't want?

In late January, a reader we’re calling Liam called his television cable provider to cancel his television service because it was far more expensive than the streaming service many friends and family were using. Liam wanted to keep his landline phone and internet service. The provider’s agent understood and told Liam he could shift to a promotional package for those services that included a free cellphone, which Liam declined.

Liam has never needed a cellphone and, he wrote me: “My wife of 50 years already had one.” The agent seemed “incredulous” since Liam had nothing to lose. Nevertheless, Liam continued to decline the offer because he suspected there might be a “catch.”

“His insistence that it would cost me nothing beyond a $10.71 startup fee convinced me it would be good to have in an emergency,” Liam wrote.

Two weeks later Liam and his wife were flabbergasted after reading an emailed statement from the provider that they owed $4 for the phone and would be billed that amount every month for the next two years, as well as a $30 monthly service charge starting the next January.

“We immediately called to say we wanted to return the phone, but were told that the two-week return period had passed,” wrote Liam.

“From an ethical standpoint, I agree with the company that I should pay for what I agreed to, but neither my money-savvy wife nor I remember ever having heard anything other than that the phone was free – over and over again,” Liam wrote.

Liam is right that we should pay for things we agree to pay for, but it’s clear there was a miscommunication here between the agent and Liam – and his wife, who was listening in to the call. If the agent deliberately misled Liam after he first told him he didn’t want the phone and then followed up by trying to ensure it was free, that is shameful and unethical. (I suspect that deliberate deception also crosses legal lines.)

Liam wonders whether people have an ethical obligation to pay for things even though, like him, they were “schmoozed into making a commitment.” While schmoozing isn’t typically illegal, it can lead to misunderstandings, as it did in Liam’s case. While the company might have been able to dig in and hold Liam responsible, I believe the right thing for the company was to cancel the obligation after Liam received his first bill showing the cost he hadn’t anticipated since he believed he was told there would be no cost to the phone. Initially holding him to a two-week return policy when Liam had no reason to suspect he was being charged for something he understood to be free may be legal but it smacks of being unfair.

While Liam’s initial appeal went nowhere, he wrote to someone “higher up” who eventually agreed to render the phone useless and make an adjustment to future bills. But that higher-up felt the need to tell Liam that after listening to recordings of his conversation with the agent, he determined that while the agent told Liam the “service” was free for a year, he never said the phone itself was free. Nevertheless, the company did the right thing by canceling the obligation, and Liam should feel no obligation to pay up for something he never wanted in the first place.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should reader be honest in unsolicited mail request?

Is it OK to use a gift offered to you in a direct mail campaign to do something if you have no intention of ever doing that thing?

Organizations regularly will mail potential donors appeal letters with a small gift as an encouragement to donate or take some other action. A nonprofit organization might, for example, send customized address labels or an inexpensive tote bag along with a letter requesting a donation.

In the distant past, some organizations would include a nickel or quarter along with the solicitation, though a query from a reader we’re calling Danica suggests that such incentives may have jumped in value.

Last November, Danica purchased a new car. In late February, she received a letter from a research company asking her to go online and respond to a survey about the new car she had purchased. A $1 bill was enclosed with the solicitation as a show of gratitude for taking the time to complete the online survey. In addition, the letter also indicated that she would be entered into a sweepstakes with others who completed the survey to win $100,000. The letter made clear that the “online survey should be completed by the primary driver” of the new vehicle.

Danica had two questions she didn’t find answered by responses to the frequently asked questions printed on the back of the letter she received. Rather than use the email provided on the letter to ask her questions, she decided to ask me.

Danica’s first question was whether it would be OK if she used the $1 even if she had no intention of taking the online survey. Given there was no mechanism provided to return the $1 bill if she didn’t take the survey and that Danica hadn’t requested the solicitation, I see no reason Danica should feel any guilt about using that $1 regardless of whether she completed the survey. If the company only wanted to pay $1 to those completing the survey, the right thing would have been to send the money after a survey had been completed.

The same is true of other gifts offered as a token of appreciation regardless of whether the recipient did what the sender requested of them. Better, I believe, to use those tote bags than to add them to a landfill.

The second question is whether she as the primary driver is really obligated to be the one to fill out the survey. If she plans to complete the survey, the honest and right thing would be to honor that request. If there are specific questions about the vehicle or the driving experience and Danica wants to consult with others who also drive it, that’s fair game. But if she indicates on the survey that she is the primary driver, then that should be the truth.

Danica didn’t lie to receive the $1 bill. She also shouldn’t lie to be entered into the $100,000 sweepstakes by misrepresenting herself on the survey. Not lying is generally the right thing to do.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should we know what our colleagues earn?

“We all got raises,” a former colleague recently told a reader we’re calling Maddie. The two of them had worked together at a business that had frozen salaries for many years. My reader had left the company but stayed in touch with many of her former colleagues.

“We all got raises, but they told us not to discuss how much the raises were with one another,” the former colleague told Maddie. Maddie told her former colleague that she thought this directive was inappropriate.

None of the salaries at her former place of employment were ever public, Maddie writes. As a result, employees never knew if what they made was comparable to what others made for similar work completed. They all did know, however, that salaries had been frozen and no raises were forthcoming for several years. That announcement was made to all employees at the company.

Maddie congratulated her former colleague on the long overdue salary raise, but told her that by not knowing what one another makes, none of them have any idea whether they are being compensated fairly in comparison to one another. That lack of transparency about salaries, Maddie argued, leaves everyone with a tinge of doubt that they are being paid less than the colleague in the cubicle next to them. “It hardly breeds goodwill,” Maddie wrote.

Maddie asked whether she was wrong to advise her former colleague that she and others would be wise to share their salary information. She also asked whether I believe her belief that sharing financial information crosses any ethical lines.

Maddie has every right to offer whatever opinion she wants to offer to former colleagues when it comes to how they share salary information. Her colleague has every right to embrace Maddie’s view or to disagree with her. Does sharing financial information cross ethical lines? As long as no one illegally snoops into someone else’s finances, if they want to share how much they earn, that should be up to them.

The challenge with the sharing being voluntary is that it is random. If only a handful of employees share information, Maddie’s former colleagues won’t likely end up with a complete picture of how salaries compare throughout the organization. She also will be relying on colleagues to be honest about how much they make rather than having an accurate source of such information.

If Maddie’s belief is that salaries at her former employer will only be fair if everyone knows how they stack up against one another, the right thing would be for Maddie to encourage her former colleagues to push back on their employer and ask for a full disclosure of salaries. That would be the only way for employees to gain a complete picture. While many government salaries are already made public and available to search on public databases, private and non-government operations don’t face the same obligation for full disclosure.

If Maddie’s former colleagues decide to go this route and their company complies with the request, they should be prepared to discover that they might actually make more than someone who does the same job as they do with the same level of experience. If that’s the case and their goal is for salaries to be equitable, the right thing would be to be as outraged as if they had discovered they made far less that the other person.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.