When I was working minimum wage at a gas station many eons ago, we would have ‘2 for $x’ specials where x is less than 2 times the individual price of whatever item.
People would often not want to buy 2, but I would ring up 2 in the till for the special price and charge them for the single. Then when the next person did the same, I would charge them for the other single.
So over the day, I would sell 10 energy drinks at say $4, but ring them up as 5 ‘2 for $6’ specials. This would put the till up by $10, and then I would use that $10 to have a free meal.
Anyone else do anything like that?
Is it?? I get it might be bending the rules slightly, but I can hardly believe it counts as theft
Yeah, the $2 for X deal is a gimmic to increase sales. It’s the company saying “I am willing to sell these cheaper if it gives me an extra sale.” But by applying that sale price to customers it didn’t apply to, essentially you just stole a dollar from your employer every time you sold an energy drink.
I’m personally pretty forgiving of something this petty when done by someone making an unlivable wage, but it’s still theft.
Those deals are usually at the manufacturer-level, so the employer would likely be getting the same amount of money. The manufacturer would still be selling the same amount of the product, but would get less than if the items were rang up correctly.
So, for me at least, I give even less of a shit. Oh no, OP cost Nestle or whomever literally nothing but non-existent “opportunity cost”… how will they ever recover?
It’s still theft, even if you dislike the victim.
I didn’t say it wasn’t. I just said I don’t really care.
It’s a very valid reason to fire you. You’ll most likely get caught when the inventory starts to be way off.
Why would the inventory be off?
Maybe OP didn’t explain it well, but I would imagine that:
For the purposes of inventory, 1 drink per person is the same as 2 for every other person.
You’re correct on all counts.
It won’t be off though. Every bottle is accounted for. I sold 10 bottles for $40 but they are added to the till as 10 bottles for $30 at the special price.
Still illegal, at the absolute least it’s tax fraud.
Not saying I care, just speaking as a matter of fact
What if you pay income tax on it?
If you never mess up, they’ll probably never catch you. But you are committing a felony and if you do get caught, there are consequences. I wish you the best, truly. But you are taking a risk.
A risk 20 years ago when I was a stoner on minimum wage. It’s all in the past now.
Felony? I think it’s more of a misdemeanor.
Depends on how much money they take over the long term I assume.
It probably totaled less than $100.
Personally I don’t care and I don’t really think it’s THAT unethical, but it is definitely theft. So be aware if you pull little tricks like that in the future. If you get caught, you’ll DEFINITELY get fired and your employer MIGHT press charges (and they would win).
It might be more obvious if you increase the volume.
Immagine that your employer has instructed you to sell 1 bottle for $3, but you can sell a whole pallet containing 500 bottles for $1000 (coming out at $2 per bottle). So you ring up the whole pallet and pay it off over the next few days by adding $2 to the cash register and keep $1 for each sale. Over those days, you have made one single sale of a pallet, while pocketing $500.
The work hours which was meant for you to generate sales of $3 bottles has been reduced to effectively selling $2 bottles, while the remaining expected value ended in your pocket.
As others have said, I don’t really care about big corporations losing out on some money, but you are 100% stealing when you reduce the expected sales value and pocket the difference during your work hours.
Per https://solink.com/resources/top-types-employee-theft/ it’s basically “Skimming”:
Your implementation sounds pretty close to the coupon version.
Are your bosses ever going to notice? Unlikely. And if they did they’d probably fire you at worst, rather than press charges.
Now, that said, if your manager or employee handbook or any other source of authority at your job says it’s okay, then it is (excepting, of course, if they explicitly tell you it isn’t) - but that’s because it’s a benefit your employer has given you rather than one you’ve taken.
Hmm similar yes. I wouldn’t get fired, I would get a warning at most. We have employee protection laws here.