What about back at home? Are you morally incumbent to drive back to resolve it? There was no intention for dishonesty on your part; the expectation of you to inconvenience yourself for something you did not intend, for such a small imbalance, strikes me as an unreasonable one. If you noticed it there in the store that they gave you incorrect change and said nothing, yes, I'd agree it was dishonest to say nothing. But when you notice after the fact, the decision to do nothing says more about the level of effort involved rather than morality.
It's also why I don't expect Home Depot to find and pay me should they shortchange me; the level of effort is too large. Is Home Depot morally guilty of theft because the clerk shortchanged me? How would that even work, that the -company- is morally guilty?
> What about back at home? Are you morally incumbent to drive back to resolve it?
I mean... Abraham "Honest Abe" Lincoln ostensibly did just that, so I guess it just depends on the value you place on your own integrity.
As for me... if I discovered they had given me a few extra cents in change I probably wouldn't drive back (I probably wouldn't even discover it because I hardly ever count change). But if I realized I hadn't paid for something or that I got more than I paid for (i.e. bought a can of spray paint online and they shipped me 3) I probably would at least contact their customer service and ask if they wanted me to send the two additional cans back.
> It's also why I don't expect Home Depot to find and pay me should they shortchange me; the level of effort is too large.
Ok, what if it happened not because of a negligent clerk but a negligent programmer? You buy a non-existant product on homedepot.com that was there because of a bug and your money just goes into a home depot's pocket and the product is never shipped to you (because it doesn't exist). If home depot discovers this you would expect them to track down and refund anyone who bought the non-existent product, am I wrong? And if they discover the bug and decide to do nothing (because it's too much effort to refund everyone) and just keep the money, wouldn't that be stealing?
You actually make my point; you're describing something much easier to track, a website purchase. The effort is much lower, you can literally just refund the money, which is a normal part of business operations, so yes, of course i would expect them to.
Would I expect them to find someone who was erroneously charged too much in person, who paid in cash? No, because the effort would be so large.
In terms of contacting customer service, sure. If there's a nice easy way to do so via the internet. If it's, for instance, a phone tree, that after 5 minutes I still haven't gotten a human? Nope. Or if they ask me to do literally anything beyond hand it over to a courier (for, again, the "they shipped me too much"? Nope.
It's also why I don't expect Home Depot to find and pay me should they shortchange me; the level of effort is too large. Is Home Depot morally guilty of theft because the clerk shortchanged me? How would that even work, that the -company- is morally guilty?