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I had bought myself a little Christmas present of a kitchen device that was a little pricy at about £160 but which I knew I’d get good use out of. It arrived this morning and I excitedly opened the box to discover there were two identical devices. I checked my bank account and invoice to confirm I had paid for only one. It seemed that I had accidentally been sent two. Which certainly made the purchase a lot more economically viable. Not that I really need two of them.
What should I do? It’s a Christmas moral maze.
When a friend accidentally sent about £500 of clothes to our old house, addressed to Catie, and then received another package when she’d reported them missing, I went into London, picked up the package from the people in the house and took them to Marks and Spencer. I queued for a good few minutes and the woman who took the clothes off me obviously couldn’t believe that I’d been so honest when I could have just kept the “lost” delivery. If I thought I might get a reward for my honesty I was wrong. I just got a pitying look.
So my choices seem to be to
a) repackage the bonus device, go to the Post Office and post it back to the multinational, slightly evil company that makes them
b) keep the device so I have two in case one breaks down after the warranty is over
c) regift the device to someone who might like it - it would be a pretty awesome present
d) sell the device on Ebay.
d) return the bonus device saying it is not what I expected and get a full refund and thus have a free device
All of the options (apart from a) seem pretty good). I am not sure the company themselves would be that bothered. It probably costs them more to take the thing back than it would to let me keep it.
Is it stealing to keep a bonus item that has been sent out by mistake? Is it immoral? Or amoral?
Why should I go to the effort for someone else’s mistake? And my experience of doing the “right" thing with the clothes has put me off being a selfless hero.
Then again I don’t need two.
Then again the company that makes them has lots of money, is a bit evil and overcharged a bit for the device in my opinion.
I reckon that pretty much everyone in the world (apart from my parents) would keep this Christmas gift (or sell it or return it for the refund). The question is, what am I going to do? And will it be because I am immoral or just too lazy to go to the trouble of rectifying the error?
