Recently I needed a single box of 22ammo. Since I was in a hurry,i dropped into k-mart in the closest town. I asked the young clerk for a box of federal 22 #510. He pulls out this whole brick of 22. I thought, oh well. When I asked the price he said 99 cents.I politely informed him that is the single box prive and the brick should be around 8or9 bucks. Well this snot nosed kid informed me he had worked the sporting goods before and knew his prices.So I told him to look it up because I didn't want him to get in trouble.WEll, you guessed it, he did notlook it up.So I pulls out my wallet and spied a 20 bill.Yep, I bought 5 bricks (all he had) for around 6 bucks. I made sure I had the bill whenI went through the front door to leave. NO I DO NOT FEEL GUILTY.......I tried numerous times to correct him......my 02 worth....[sex]

So you ripped off K-mart cause the kid was an idiot. But then he is an employee of the store so it is their responsibility. But then you knew better and did it anyway. But then you tried to tell him. But then you bought extra bricks cause of the price.

Yep, you had me almost ready to support you right up till you bought the extra bricks. That's when you tipped the scales toward dishonesty. Well, I tried to be on your side. Sorry.

When I first started reloading I went into a local gun store and asked for one box of primers (100 primers).
New guy behind the counter hands me a box of 1,000 primers and figure what the hell I might as well buy the whole box. I ask the price and he tells me they are $1.67.
I thought, Wow, these things are really cheap!
Couple of weeks later I went in to another gun store to buy another box the price was suddenly $16.00/1,000. I thought they were trying to rip me off.

What an excellent deal.  Obviously you are the idiot here that didn't know what you were talking about and the young clerk knew much more than you.  You probably should have appologized for questioning him as he was ringing up the sale.

It's not your fault he is stupid and you did try to correct him.  I wouldn't feel guilty about it either.  Especially since it's K-Mart.  What were you doing in that store to begin with?

I wouldn't feel guilty either.

You tried to correct him.
After he gets a bitchin' from his manager I bet he won't do it again[;)]

And you didn't buy up every piece of ammo by the case that they had?  Imagine getting a case of 9mm for $10.00...a case of 45acp for $14.00

Go to town.

Hehe, considering K-Mart's attitude toward guns, I wouldn't feel guilty either.

He went there to buy ammo and ended up buying more than he needed because it was cheap.  Like that hasn't happened to everyone at sometime.  He thought the price was in error because it was so low, so he tried to correct the clerk.  It's not his fault if the employee won't hear it.  Wasn't kmart the one who was talking about not selling ammo anymore a while back?  Perhaps this is a closeout price.  With prices like that, they're sure to empty those shelves and make room for new stuff.  Pigshooter just did his part to help them clean out their unwanted inventory.  The kid was probably wrong, but what could he do?  He tried to be helpful.

HA...yeah, the KMart sporting goods guys think they are commandos...KMART NINJAS!!!

I went in to see what their price was for Winchester .223 was because I needed a couple boxes of fodder to shoot through my new AR to break in the barrel (not chrome lined) before using handloads.  ANYWAY, the clerk asked if I was shooting an AR-15 so I said "yes."

Bad mistake.

He proceeds to tell me that he has ALL SORTS OF EXPERIENCE with machine guns and rifles because he's a former Army guy and that he was the EXPERT in his company.  Then he goes into bashing the living daylights out of ARs (better used as a club than a rifle) and how the AK-47 is far better rifle and round.  He gives some ridiculous Rambo scenario like shooting an AK under water then packing the barrel full of sand...it was incoherent.  THEN he says his personal favorite is the M60 which he used to carry to mow down college students in Grenada or something.

So, I am thinking to myself:  If you are so knowledgeable and experienced with these fine weapons...WHY ARE YOU WORKING AT KMART SELLING FISHING LINE AND KOREAN POCKETKNIVES!!!

All I said the entire time was, "Hmmmmm" until I could run away (their price sucked on Ammo too!).

That Kmart story comes as a HUGE surprise. They've always been known to be the best and the brightest in the retail business.

Guilt? Please. Feeling guilty about someone elses stupidity? Not part of my thinking....ever.

Remeinds me of when I paid $400.00 for a brand new SIG 229. The shop was having a sale on [i]some[/i] of their guns. The SIG's weren't part of the sale, but the know-it-all behind the counter rang up the SIG including the sale percentage. The strange thing was, is that guilt wasn't part of my emotions that day. I some how felt strangely excited.

Not only you should buy all the 22s, you should have asked to buy the .223, 308 and 9mm. Opportunity like that, is hard to come by. [:)]

Thats hard to do when they have electronic checkouts.  Swipe the box and it reads the barcode.

Why am I never that lucky.

Hey guys, you read my logical breakdown. I tried to support him. Quigibo brings up the only good point about it possibly being a clearence item. I hadn't thought of that angle, however unlikely it is, and I can at least admit the possibility even though he used it to jump all over my ass.

Some of the rest of you are just rationalizing. Doesn't matter how much you try to justify it, that is the definition of rationalizing.

This is the problem with ethics, if you don't have them then you just don't get it. If you had an ethical code that you were true to then all this stuff about the idiot behind the counter and the big evil K-Mart chain and blah blah blah wouldn't matter. But then that wouldn't satisfy your personal greed and the "I'll show them" mentality.

Some times you guys are little better than a bunch of liberals. At least they don't preach ethics.

What you should do is simple. It's called honesty. And when the other guy doesn't know any better, you do it anyway. I'm done preaching now.

I've worked retail for many years. I try to take it easy on sales clerks because they can catch so much hell from people.

But if I try to correct, repeatably, a clerk in this type of situation I am not going to get into a knock-down dragout arguement with the idiot. I'll give in and accept his stupidity. And smile as I lug as much as I can carry out the front door. [:D]

A few days ago I dropped by my local Wal-Mart and figured I'd check out the ammo aisle anyway.  Saw a tag for #2 steel shot, box of 25, CAN$6.00.  They're more like $20 up here.  While the clerk was unable to locate any $6 #2 steel shot, he managed to dig out some Winchester #4 steel shot for the same price.  I only bought three boxes because the girlfriend was present... "NO!  NOOO!!  NO!  YOU HAVE ENOUGHHH! AMMO!!  You DO NOT need that!  I get a ring if you buy ANY more ammo!" etc. There isn't much meat on a duck so spending a few cents less on the rounds is nice. Dunno whether that was a pricing error or not - the clerk insisted that it was not - but man that was a happy price.  I should ditch the girlfriend for a few hours and go back for surreptitious seconds...

I don't see an ethical problem.  It's retail.  How much do you want for that?  You pay the price, they give you the product.

It's not an ethical problem, it's an intelligence problem.  If you fail to try and correct it, that could be an ethical issue, but if the price is verified, that's the price they'll accept.  What's the consumer to do?  I wanted to buy it but you're asking too little for it so I can't buy it?  

Give me a break, no more preaching.

Come on guys...I'm the only one that agrees with Retrodog on this???? It is unethical to steal from anyone...doesn't matter if it is Kmart or your mother...there were times when I've seen people selling something that was way below actual street value, and not being stolen (had sales receipt on pre-ban,nib) and just wanted to jump at the deal, but couldn't do it. I'd feel slimy!!! I informed them on what it was worth and offered 200 less..they took it because they felt they had a windfall profit and I got a great gun at a very fair price.
what's the saying..."character what you do when you think no one is looking" Your soul is always "looking"...

Hey Kassnar, thanks for the backup. And from an Okie nonetheless, but then I'm an Okie too. Or as they say down here, "Oklahoma, oh you just mean North Texas". :)

Bah humbug!  If it was a pro 2nd store I'd worry about it.  K-mart?  F 'em.  It's not your job to correct their stupidity.

Retrodog you need to go to the middle east or India and get a lesson in negotiation.  Kmart needs to hire smarter employees or have better pricing policies.

Geez, I would have bought every box they had!

Most stores have a policy that if the price on the receipt isn't correct you get one of that item free. You need to go back to that store and demand your free brick of ammo.

"Retrodog you need to go to the middle east or India and get a lesson in negotiation. Kmart needs to hire smarter employees or have better pricing policies." POSTED BY TYCONDEROGA

Well I've been to the middle east a couple of times and it's call "haggle". I understand the concept but your analogy is irrelevent. WE are talking about the U.S. here so don't try confusing the issue with your foriegn affairs.

The funny part about it was when one of the Israelis that I was working with came to the states. He actually went to a K-Mart to get some shampoo. When he got to the counter he offered the guy half of what the ticketed price was. The guy just looked at him like he was retarded. He didn't know what the problem was cause they do this everywhere in his home country.

So yeah, go ahead and try this in a K-Mart sometime,,, if it will make you feel better.'

Blah blah blah, all this stuff you guys come up with is just rationalization. Try as you will it all comes down to the basics. You just don't have ethics in this area. That's it pure and simple.

The only reason you are argueing with me now is to keep from having to confront yourself with this personal issue. That would be difficult huh. Yeah, I see your point, it's easier just to deny it. Well, whatever gets you through the day is okay I guess. Ignorance is bliss.

I don't expect you guys to live by the same ethical code that I do. I wouldn't be so special if you did. But now I'm being a pompus ass and that violates my humbleness mandate. Good God it's tough being me. ROTFLMAO at you, me and everybody else...

Now get the hell outta here and go for a drive or something. :)

I'm sure my ethics are higher than yours.  I'm just not stupid.  If you try twice to correct them and they insist, you take it.  Otherwise is stupid.

Gee, you probably think it's immoral to lie to a car salesman by telling him you were offered another price down the road when you really weren't.

First of all the only thing you did wrong was to go to K-Mart. I refuse to even enter one of their stores for anything. I hope they go the way of Rosie and all her dike friends, down the tube. Your local gun dealer deserves your money!!!

"I'm sure my ethics are higher than yours. I'm just not stupid. If you try twice to correct them and they insist, you take it. Otherwise is stupid.

                       Gee, you probably think it's immoral to lie to a car salesman by telling him you were offered another price down the road when you really weren't." POSTED BY TYCONDEROGA

Wow, you got me there. I didn't rationalize screwing some retail company so I'm stupid. Man I have do defense to that. You then claim to be more ethical than me when we have only been discussing one scenario and you promoting the dishonest side. What is more embarrasing, your double digit IQ or assuming that everyone reading your post is as limited as you. You're preaching something that is boarderline criminal one moment and then proclaiming your ethical supremecy the next. Okay, I give up. You got me. I'm convinced. You should be the head of a tobacco company. You could easily get me to believe that nicotine isn't addictive.

(Oh yeah, I guess I need to explain to you that I was being sarcastic in the preceding paragraph, you obviously need someone to explain that to you before you get all "wow, I won the argument" and all) Sorry to break it to you like this.

And the analogy to the car salesman is ridiculous. There is no correlation. K-Mart sets their prices based on cost and whatever else fits into the equation. The car dealership salesmen are trained to take advantage of you. You are back into confusing the fixed price retailers with the "Hagglers". Don't cha really hate it when you get all bogged down with that douple digit IQ and who your talking to doesn't. That's gotta suck.

So many times people get ethics and intelligence confused. You're like "Yeah, it's kind of wrong but if I do it then I get more so it's smart and if you don't then you are dumb". I really fear that you are just too simple minded to differntiate the two categories. I'm sorry that someone else, who you felt you could trust, didn't take the time earlier in your life to explain the differnece. Things like this really are much more difficult to absorb as you get older. I'm truly sorry for the pain you would have to suffer to sucessfully achieve this paradigm shift.

I'll let you go back to eating Pork Rinds, drinking beer and watching Jerry Springer. Hell, that's what I'm doing. hehehehehe.

Well, it wasn't stealing.  Sure the price was very favorable, but the customers don't set the price of merchandise (directly).

If I had expressed shock over the cheapness of an item, and asked for a price check, then I have done all I am ethically required to do.  Perhaps the price really WAS that cheap!  Who knows.  

Say I walk into a car dealership and the salesman offered me a car for $2,000.
I would say, "Don't you mean $20,000?"

"No, $2,000".

"Why $2,000?"

"Because thats the price we are selling them at!"

"Is there anything wrong with them?"

"No we just want to sell 'em."

"OK, I'll take two."

Now, this guy may be stupid, but he had every opportunity to check the price.  It was honest dealing.  The price just turned out to be much cheaper than the buyer expected.

Hell, I would have done the same thing.  If the guy is going to insist the price in .99 then the price is .99.  If K-Mart wants to sell it at a loss that is not your problem.  I would have bought up as much as I could carry at that price.

GOOD POINT...Rosie is quite "in" with KMart.  I guess she is just trying to rid the stores of those evil firearms and ammo!

But seriously...

IT WAS NOT UNETHICAL.  Our Founding Fathers were God-Fearing Christians who wanted to uphold the highest moral and ethical standards--and they wanted Laissez Faire economics.  You know, "BUYER BEWARE."  That means as a buyer, you better be sure you're getting the best deal...but it also means as a seller you better make sure you are pricing properly TO THE MARKET.

Don't forget, prices are not fixed.  A person or store can decide to price out of the market...either high or low.  In this case, the clerk was a moron most likely, but it is up to him and his manager to make sure to price properly.

Giving him the second or third chance was ethical.  Now you have to take his word that he knows what he is talking about and buy as much of it as you want!

KMart is the crappiest store.  I don't know why they bother to have shelves; everything is on the floor and trampled.

You were lucky to actually have someone at the sporting goods section.  My Kmart has like 2 employees.  I go back to the SG section, ring to customer service bell, and wait for 45 minutes.  Pitiful!  Everything is old and crappy, and the store is just in overall deplorable shape.

"IT WAS NOT UNETHICAL. Our Founding Fathers were God-Fearing Christians who wanted to uphold the highest moral and ethical standards--and they wanted Laissez Faire economics. You know, "BUYER BEWARE." That means as a buyer, you better be sure you're getting the best deal...but it also means as a seller you better make sure you are pricing properly TO THE MARKET." POSTED BY TAILGATE


And right now the only thing our founding fathers are doing is violently rolling over in their graves from your horrendous misuse of their goal. You could have at least done a better job of twisting their words around. No instead you just jumped right from one distortion to something absolutley preposterous (your agenda). Do you really believe that statement or was it just a test to see if the rest of us are?

Blah blah blah, you're just rationalizing again. It might be a good deal, it might be financially smart to take advantage of it, hell it might even be an obscure way to get even with Rosie,,, that doesn't make it ethical. You can talk till you are blue in the face (no offense intended to any blue people) but that won't change anything. You are just an "oppertunist".

I do agree that it isn't technically ethical to knowingly "take someone" for incorrect prices.  With that said. . . I'd have bought everything he had too, because ethics only get you so far in life.  

Ethics only matter if you let em.  No one is gonna sue you over ethics, least not in this case.

I know what ethics are....just don't always choose to follow proper ethics.

Steven L.

just my .00002 cents

well guys, I didnotmean to get every one upset.Everyone has a good point. Retrodog, I reread your replies numerous times. I kinda agree, I was a little greedy, what I should of done was had him check the other 22ammo bricks.Maybe Icould have made him see his error. I should have been more descriptive on describing the transaction. The clerk was totally rude, arrogant and probably stoned. I was at his counter over 40 minutes trying to sort this out.It had been so long since I had been atkmart, I did not even know it was a super k.I usually buy from my ffl buddy, but it was late at night and my nephew was coming up sat to shoot.
By the way, my nephew andI had fun  weekend, I hate to admit,he outshoots me!We need to close this string.....you guys have a good weekend!!!
[beer]

I feel that since they want to get rid of them anyway it was your duty to take them off their hands. Maybe this was a going out of ammo sale.
My point being  back up the truck load it all up and go home smileing. You played the customer is always right and he won. F**K Kmart [sniper]

Hell I am going to K-mart tomorrow to see if I can get in on the damn good deal on ammo. I said F-them but if they want to give the ammo away well I will step up and take all I can get so we won't have another school shooting.

Hey I'm doing it for the kids!

I will sleep just fine too. I hope it's Kmart that tosses and turns all night!

Doing it for the kids

And when it comes right down to it, that is really all that matters.

Rosie will be so proud.

retrodog, what you have is called integrity. It is very rare these days and I admire your honesty.

I just got back from KMART and the sporting goods' chump was arguing with me that a box of 550 .22s is not 0.99 cents, but $8.99. How dare those SOB's try to rip me off...!
;)

Thanks arex,

but did they tell you it was for the kids???

I don't know much about ethics, but I know it wasn't right.  

I understand that it was an opportunity to get 90% off the ammo, [u]and[/u] screw a shitty anti company (as if they'll notice) at the same time. But I know the previous sentence is an attempt at rationalization.

Would I do it? I don't [i]think[/i] so, but I honestly don't know.

Was it one of those blue light specials.



Moose  

Having worked retail (as sales) and in retail in support (repairs) and my wife having worked in retail sales her entire career so far (15 years), and having what I consider a rather higher "integrity factor" than most people I know...I agree with the purchase he made at Kmart. I regularly correct cashiers when they give me too much change, but let me say this...I look for the mismarked items. Reach in the back of the food cans for the ones that weren't marked up at the last repricing or remarked after the sale ended. Michigan Law says it has to be marked and you pay what is marked. I recently went to a sporting goods store and as we were looking around, my wife found a pair of $9 ear plugs marked $1.99 with a bunch of $3 plugs on sale. We took them to the cashier, she scanned them, it came up at $9. she got a manager to override the price and out we went. The manager was on the phone as ewe left calling the department we found them in telling the person on the other end to look for more "mismarked" plugs. I felt great, it was a bargain. theft? hardly. oportunistic? definately. had there been more of them we would have bought them.
no apologies, no guilt.

Amendment to last, according to my wife, the Michigan Law also has provisions to protect the store in cases of "gross error", $2500 widget marked $25.00. could have been unscrupulous employee, dishonest customer, but in most cases of minor dollar amounts (not percentage of price mismark) are going to give it to the customer vs having a fight.

"Amendment to last, according to my wife, the Michigan Law also has provisions to protect the store in cases of "gross error", $2500 widget marked $25.00. could have been unscrupulous employee, dishonest customer, but in most cases of minor dollar amounts (not percentage of price mismark) are going to give it to the customer vs having a fight." POSTED BY NO_EXPERT


We all have our opinions and I was never really talking about the legality of the issue but this response from no_expert reminded me of an interesting story:

An old guy comes up to a young pretty girl and says, "Can I do you for $100,000?" The girl looks at him and says, "Sure!" Well then the old guy says, "How about for $20?" The girl, now feeling insulted, responds with, "MISTER, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM???" The old guy just smiles and says, "We established that a little while ago. Now we're just negotiating".

Well it was funny the first time I heard it. The point is that the legal aspect of it was never really a concern or topic of mine. Ethical conduct is something that doesn't know a price tag. It is either wrong or right. Pennies or thousands of dollars is irrelevant.

Strangely enough, for the purposes of comparison in this case, ethics and legalities are virtually inverse to each other.

Legally speaking, a few cents or dollars are hardly worth worrying about so it isn't considered worth the effort, hence the theoritical "trivial" statute applies.

On the other side, and this will be difficult for some to wrap their mind around, the smaller the amount,,, the more pathetic and ironic that a person's ethics are put aside. This is very debatable but in its pure form, the case. Someone actually violated their ethical code for a few dollars. What a waste. "It would take a lot more than a few dollars to get me to" is what you'd ethically want people to think, or actually never. But alas, this is not the case most times

So this is the irony, people for the most part are only worried about the legal aspect of what they have done, and think that there is no ethical violation if the amount is small enough and the victim is big enough.

It just doesn't matter. Your code of ethics is what you live with on a day to day basis and its your perogative to violate it for whatever reason you can come up with. I'm not your conscience but just got dragged into this after responding to all the support that the original post got.

Sorry for all the preaching and I don't mean to sound like I don't approve of anything that was done. I was just pointing out a philosophical flaw in what I saw.

Don't argue with me anymore, I am growing tired of this. Instead, print out the full content of this thread and take it to church this Sunday. Let your favorite preacher read it. See what he has to say, cause he is really who should be preaching to you about ethics, at least he is the most probable for you to actually listen to anyway.

GOOD! I hope you helped put them out of buisiness. I wrote a letter to them a few months ago stating that they will be Chapter 11 in 7 years.  I hope my prediction holds true.  Wally world will bury them.

ethics, like morality and religion, are all personally set and abided by. certain beliefs may be held by a group or majority, but does not make them equal for all persons.
as for retrodog's ethics, he is commendable for his devotion to _HIS_ standards. My "integrity factor" I know is higher than most I personally know, but there can be ( and most likely are) those even higher. that does not make me lacking or them better, just different. that is why we are judged by twelve. (and only carried by six.)

retrodog do you have stock at kmart you seem to take this to serious

serves k-mart right for their anti-gun stance