To keep these clothes that weren't charged for?

[MinecraftWonder]

Yesterday I went shopping and picked up a new coat each for the dc (at Matalan if it's relevant)- total cost was £45.

I got to the till, went in my bag and didn't have my purse
So I apologised, said i'd nip home and the man on the till put them behind the counter for me.

Returned a couple of hours later and picked up some packs of pants by the till when I was queuing, which were a fiver. Handed them over and asked for the coats behind the till that had been put by for me (this was a woman). She put everything in a bag for me, I paid with my card and out I went.

Anyway, it's only tonight I've pulled them out of the bag along with the receipt - and I have a receipt for £5.05 (the pants and a 5p bag charge). The coats weren't charged for. I didn't even check the amount at the checkout, just stuck my card in and paid.

WWYD? I feel really guilty even though it wasn't my fault. I don't know if the second person who served me just made a mistake or thought maybe they were already paid for (but why would they be?!). They've not got security tags on so one of them must have taken them off.

So keep and look at it as good luck or be honest and go back and pay for them? Opinion is currently divided in my house!

Oh and they were both overcharges that the guests had no idea about until we brought it to their attention!

I going to defend the OP. and I'm one of the posters who have consistently said that I would definitely pay for the coats . I think the OP has been being purposely contentious (lol, is that a posh way of saying goady ) but I don't think she has been rude other than to posters who have been rude to her.

She has been insulted a lot and I don't blame her for being rude back.

There are lots of goady posts on this thread

I still think she should pay for the coats, they are not hers to keep

Have you decided what to do yet OP? I have to say, I think I'd take them back if I were you. You wanted the coats enough to decide that their price was reasonable, so go back and pay for them. I'd feel awful about the shop assistant who accidentally gave you them without realising, and I wouldn't want them to get into trouble.

When they stock take and realise the coats aren't there, it only takes one person to remember, check cc tv and check till receipts to know what has happened. And they will have all your details. Also can you really go back in that shop without feeling paranoid now everytime you do? Your morals on this are pretty fucked tbh

MinecraftWonder I totally agree the response of some posters is disproportionate and I also wonder if they are quite OK. It's why I don't spend much time on AIBU these days.

"just because you don't have any sense of wrong and right, don't assume the rest of the world doesnt."

PMSL at this. Matalan are a corporate entity and therefore immoral by nature, pretty much.

If big businesses were people, their actions would be seen as psychopathic, for the most part.

Is Matalan a moral company?.I doubt it. Let's see what Google gives us ...

Article in the Independent last year:

[[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/which-british-high-street-shops-do-not-pay-their-garment-workers-a-living-wage-9223733.htm Revealed: The high-street shops that do not pay their garment workers a living wage

Debenhams, Matalan and The North Face are among the worst]]

BHS, PEACOCKS, MATALAN 'SHAMED' ON SWEATSHOPS

www.waronwant.org/media/bhs-peacocks-matalan-shamed-sweatshops

So?

it's not the company getting into trouble it's the staff responsible. staff who have families to support and bills to pay. it's them who face diciplinary action. whether or not the company can afford it.

Big companies have workers.
What do you think happens when they lose too much money??
Those people don't matter though?

"UK clothing chain Matalan has bowed to pressure and made a donation to the UN-backed fund to compensate the victims of the Rana Plaza factory collapse – one day before the deadline for payments.

The retailer, however, refused to say how much money it had offered to the fund.

The announcement came after shadow international development secretary Jim Murphy and shadow international development minister Alison McGovern wrote to Matalan boss Jason Hargreaves, the son of the chain's billionaire founder John, asking him to reconsider the retailer's position and pay into the compensation fund, which is well short of its $40m (£24m) target.

The collapse of the Bangladeshi factory killed 1,129 people and injured 2,515 in April 2013.

Matalan was the only large British retailer not to have donated money according to the campaign group 38 Degrees.

The group's Susannah Compton said: "This week, tens of thousands of people emailed, called and tweeted Matalan to tell them they couldn't walk away from the devastating consequences of the Rana Plaza disaster.

"It looks like good news for people power that Matalan has said that it will pay into the official compensation fund.

"But it's worrying to see that Matalan has clammed up about how much money it's paying in. Until Matalan says exactly how much it has paid, its customers will still be waiting to see what kind of business it really is."

www.ethicalconsumer.org/corporatenews/storyoftheday/entryid/1644/matalan-pays-up.aspx

Ahh yes just post links.
Don't worry about people who actually work in these shops, they must be evil too

So what's your point?

if you go far enough back in many companies most are probably up to their necks in controversy. hell the politicians running the entire countries are as crooked as they come.

that doesn't mean that the honest peolel who work for them just trying to earn a living deserve to be tarred with the same brush. most of them.probabmy have no bloody idea about the truth behind the company.

Well the OP is the one who's had posts deleted which says it all really.

FWIW I agree with Sapele

Surely the obvious thing to say when you collected them was "I've two coats behind the till that I need to pay for"?

I simply find it hard to believe that you entered your Pin without even looking at the amount as well.

If you intended to pay you could have phoned or emailed by now.

I was responding to posters that were trying to make out that the OP was an immoral person in an otherwise moral world.

The morals of most large companies are terrifying and they directly and knowingly contribute to suffering around the world. Although I wouldn't deliberately steal from them, I'm.certainly not going to go out if my way to do a favour for an organisation with the morals of an alley cat.

The shop assistants won't get it trouble. In the industry this is called shrinkage and it is accounted for. The shops will not spend time trying to track down where £45 of stock went, it's simple not worth their while.

"SDTG - if I noticed they'd overcharged me £45, yes i'd go back. But I agree with the pp - I think it would be more accurate to ask whether Matalan would contact me if they'd overcharged and they were the ones better off."

No, Minecraft - I think it is absolutely accurate to ask if you would chase them to get the money back if they overcharged you - because it is YOUR moral compass that is at issue, for me.

If your moral compass says it is fine to keep the coats, knowing you haven't paid, but that you expect higher standards from the store, then that is a huge case of double standards.

I believe that, if you are going to demand decency from others (ie."You've overcharged me, I'd like the money back please", you should have similar standards of decency yourself ("I realised I hadn't been charged for these coats, so I want to pay for them now, please").

Also - as another poster says, if you keep these coats, how are you going to tell your children theft (keeping something you know you haven't paid for is theft) is wrong, without being a massive hypocrite?

"I simply find it hard to believe that you entered your Pin without even looking at the amount as well."

Really? It's that hard to imagine? Aliens landing in Wood Green Shopping City tomorrow and doing the Cha Cha on the high street, that might be hard to imagine.

But someone paying without checking the amount is hard to imagine?

I do it fairly often (and i'm not rich, .far from it!) lots of people do.

Wow, this thread is a real eye-opener! I can actually visualise a growling horde of commenters, pitchforks in hand, whipping themselves up in a frenzy because a lone woman won't kneel before them, weeping with remorse. "Shame! Shame!"

OP, people are seriously pissed off that you won't heed their "advice", aren't they? It's really getting people's backs up. It's quite funny to see.

The morality of keeping the coats aside, some of the stuff people have written is absurd. So much hand-wringing about employee 1 saying to employee 2 "did that lady come back and pick up the coats?". Let me spell this out - THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN. If it were a small owner-operated boutique, yes, the question would have been asked. But a bunch of teenagers on minimum wage aren't losing any sleep over a couple of coats that got put aside and forgotten about. Honestly, of all the possible reasons why the OP should take the coats back, this is definitely not it.

And just to be clear - the above has nothing to do with the big chain/small shop morality debate. I'm simply stating that the employees in this kind of large establishment will not be following up small issues like two small coats in a bag shoved by the register. Honestly.

japanese nice to see someone speaking sense. The PP posting links about matalan and sweat shop workers has gone off on the strangest tangent. I've worked in retail. No one will notice these jackets much less ask if they'd been purchased. I'm not debating whether or not the OP should pay - just to be clear to the posters who are keen to show that their moral compass always points in the right direction and never ever deviates from that setting

This is very interesting - seeing what people would do an why, morals etc.

Here's somethinv that happened to me a few years ago, I would love people's views about it:

DH and I went to Tesco, & picked up 2 folding camping chairs and a box of 6 creme eggs. Put them on the conveyor belt, where it turned out there were no labels on the chairs. The man behind the till looked a bit annoyed and said "oh, I just can't be bothered with this, it's my last day anyway. I'll just scan the creme eggs again instead." So he scanned the creme eggs again, we paid for 3 boxes of creme eggs but actually went away with one box of creme eggs and two chairs. (IIRC the chairs were about £12 each, the box of eggs about £2 each.)

What do people think of that? What do your morals say? What would you actually do?

(I hope the OP won't mind me posting this, I'm just finding it very interesting, as, I think, she's said she does!)

zebra get your tin hat on.....

The relevance of the sweatshop.links was in response to the holier-than-though posters who were berating the OP, reminding them that they were defending a company with very questionable morals itself.

Totally agree with you about this:

"I've worked in retail. No one will notice these jackets much less ask if they'd been purchased"

I've also worked in retail and the scenarios imagined above with CCTV and shop.staff simply wouldn't happen, not over 2 jackets.

Ah ok sleepy sorry if was mean there. I need popcorn for this thread. It's far more entertaining than my work today

Zebra, not an issue; the guy worked for the store and was aware of the fact he had undercharged you. You can't reasonably do anything about that. He is the agent of the store; it is for him to sort it out, not you.

Regarding people 'defending' Matalan - I don't think anyone is. It's not about Matalan. It's about personal integrity, and what's more, two wrongs don't make a right.

For me, if they had just scanned/missed a few items while processing everything and left them off, Id be in 2 minds about paying.

But with it being so blatant i.e. actually requesting/having said items put aide, shop assistant actually retrieving them and putting them in bag in good faith, I'd find this very hard to life with.