[triton]

I'll admit to doing similar at the self checkouts at my local supermarket. Quite happily put pink lady apples through as cheap ones.

I started doing this after I watched a whole tray of pink lady apples go in a skip because they brought new produce out.

The same is true of a lt of retail establishments. Old stock is destroyed to keep prices up.

[nabeards]

I'll admit to being amazed that people like you exist. No sense of integrity or honor? Just selfish I guess?

[triton]

Hardly. Here's my perspective which will hopefully make you understand.

I live in a poverty stricken area. The supermarkets shove the following distribution of fruit out (I know this because my wife works in one as well):

- 20 bags of 5x apples for £1.89 each. 20% go in the bin.

- 100 pink lady apple at £0.75 each. 80% go in the bin.

- 20 cheap apples (one tray) at around £0.12 each. 0% go in the bin.

Now, why should I take the last single cheap apple which instantly prices out the poorer people which is clearly the intention of the supermarket which is to upsell to the pink ladies or bags of apples?

Fuck 'em to hell. There is no honour or integrity in capitalism. Trample over everyone to make profit.

I'm not selfish.

I'm not lacking integrity.

I'm not lacking honour.

Perhaps lacking in faith and respect for rules but that is my only crime.

[DougN7]

Stealing is stealing despite your best attempt to rationalize it. If you don't like their offerings, don't shop there. THAT would be integrity.

[nabeards]

Agreed. Shop/move elsewhere, especially if you are not a fan of capitalism. I, too, am not a fan of capitalism so it is my plan to remove myself from its constraints. But I don't steal and then try to justify the action because I'm against what they stand for.

[WalterBright]

I suggest the honorable way for you to deal with this is to find the wholesale supplier of those 0.12 apples, buy a box, and sell them yourself as a street vendor.

[chad_oliver]

You refer to prices in pounds, which seems to indicate that you live in the UK. Your area is not poverty stricken, it is simply poorer than average for your country. Go live in Uganda to see what 'poverty stricken' really means.

[eCa]

If you spill your coke at McDonald's you get a new one for free.

If you don't spill it you pay for it.

Do you go back to the register and say you spilled it?

[seanmcdirmid]

Aren't free refills common outside of America also? Maybe not.

[iends]

In the 6-7 countries I've been to outside the USA, nope.

[hobolobo]

There's a lot of righteous indignation coming out. Just to let you know, I upvoted you for your honesty.

[_pmf_]

In some countries, this is fraud as opposed to theft, leading to significantly higher penalties.

[triton]

Yes I know. So throwing out tonnes of food is ok then to protect the value of it?

[masklinn]

Your parents may have told you two wrongs don't make a right.

[triton]

How do you explain capitalism and politics then?

My parents taught me to be wary of both.

[chad_oliver]

Capitalism is a system which aligns incentives so, if people want to get rich, they will do so in a way which also helps other people. Competition in the free market should drives prices down, which is equivalent to spreading profits among all the customers. (Of course, this only applies when the free market works well, which often requires regulation and pesky things like human rights). Capitalism is a system which works very well, and it takes a distorted view of the world to see this as 'two wrongs make a right'.

To be clear: there are many businessmen who are greedy selfish exploiters. However, the purpose of capitalism is to take these natural human tendencies and make them into a force for good.

You could say the same thing about democracy. It's a game whereby people can seek power and influence without having to kill each other or their subjects. If you doubt that democracy is an effective solution, just read up about all the Wars of Succession that Europe has witnessed when those countries were monarchies. Elections are practically love-fests in comparison.

[Dramatize]

Then steal the food they have thrown out.

[Theodores]

I am amazed at how many people do this (or put fruit through as 'onion' on self checkout). It isn't just completely stupid people that do it either, people with jobs to lose, a criminal record that doesn't need to be added to, posh people with a sense of entitlement - all kinds.

On learning of such a trait in someone I ask 'what if you get caught?', but actually it is not them getting caught that matters. Think of the people that work in that shop and the position they get put in having to deal with petty cheats. Also, would you really want to be banned from the store you get your groceries from? That would be a big inconvenience.

[triton]

Actually people don't give a shit who work there (a big chunk of the staff steal produce or write it off and take it home as well), there are plenty of other shops to choose from, the police don't care (in the UK they send you a letter if you get mugged apologising for not coming out) and the business find it costly to deal with the people. It's only significant if it's more than a few pounds/dollars which is why high value retail tend to have competent security.

When capitalism pushes profit margins, some losses are insignificant not to invest in otherwise they will hurt the margins they are trying to protect.

Also if they gave a shit, they'd have staff on all checkouts and not use self-service checkouts. Staff are more expensive.

They know; they just don't care.

[Amadou]

Also if they gave a shit, they'd have staff on all checkouts and not use self-service checkouts. Staff are more expensive.

They know; they just don't care.

While I agree that the stores "deserve" the amount of the theft through fraud that comes with replacing human checkers with automated checkout systems, that doesn't make your behavior in explicitly taking committing that fraud any more ethical.

Scan something wrong by accident, that's the store's fault for setting up the system to allow such accidents. But to intentionally exploit their system, that's on you.

I personally make it a rule to never go through automated check-outs because I think the stores that use them are not holding up their end of the social contract. I've even abandoned a few carts when I got to the check-out and found they had no human checkers (I found out the hard way that some grocery stores around here go 100% automated after 10pm).

[benmmurphy]

you are effectively stealing from everyone else who is being honest. unless the store is incompetent compared to their competitors at controlling loss the cost is passed on to the other consumers who shop there.

[Kim_Bruning]

Self service checkouts are there because they trust you. :-)