How good a neighbor does a neighbor need to be?
A friend of R.H. "gleefully" posted to her that
she saved $169 on a pork roast special price of 69 cents a pound, only spending
$36 for several roasts that at full price would have cost her more than $200.
"Lucky you," R.H. told her friend, but then
pointed out that the circular she had seen for the same grocer's special
specified a limit of two pork roasts per customer at the 69 cent per pound sale
price.
The neighbor told R.H. that she hadn't noticed that limit
until R.H. pointed it out.
R.H. told her neighbor that she got a great deal because
neither the clerk nor the "fancy computerized cash register"
point-of-sale (POS) system caught the error.
But R.H. writes that her conscience tells her she should
contact the local supermarket chain about the programming error in its POS
register.
While the supermarket chain has stores in two states,
R.H. observes that its slogan is something along the lines of "your
neighborhood store."
"I try to be a good neighbor," writes R.H. So
she wonders if she should contact the store so it can correct its error.
Since the sales change week to week, it's likely that the
sales price will no longer be in effect by the time R.H. contacts the store.
But her intentions are good.
If she believes there is an error, then she has a few
choices. One would be to rush to the store and load up on pork roast at the
special price. She might stock up on enough at 69 cents a pound to last her a
year.
But that would be wrong.
The right thing would be for R.H. to notify the store of
the error and hope that the managers would work to correct it. In
pre-computerized-sales-register days, an alert cashier might have caught the
error and only rung up two at the special price, or might have pointed out to
R.H.'s friend that there was a limit on the sale.
Now, that most supermarket chains use POS systems, the
prices ring up automatically when scanned at the register.
If R.H.'s friend knew about the limit of two pork roasts
per customer at the special price and had said nothing that would have been
wrong. Some stores, however, have a policy that if a lower price is charged
after an item is scanned; the store will honor that price.
It's the responsibility of the store to make sure it is
charging its customers the right advertised prices for the items they buy.
R.H.'s friend can rest with a clear conscience if she
didn't know she was being offered something beyond what was advertised. She
needn't rush to the store and return all but two of her pork roasts. (And
needn't the other customers who might have unknowingly received the pork deal
of the decade.)
While it's not R.H.'s business to tattle on one
particular neighbor, her desire to do right by her neighborhood market is well
placed. But ultimately, the right thing is for the supermarket management to
make sure that it has taken the time to properly code its items and neither
over- or undercharge its customers.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School.
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
