I recently read about a scam people are running at hardware stores. They purchase a pressure washer, then take it home and do whatever they needed to do--clean their driveway, their house, or anything else they needed done. When they are finished, they put the machine back in the box, take it back to the store, and claim it didn't work. They return the item for a full refund, and by the time manufacturer realizes there is nothing wrong with it, it's too late. The manufacturer and the store have lost a sale, and the money they spent sending back a perfectly good product.
Apparently these kinds of scams are common, with people even returning half eaten food to grocery stores. Our economy is a trust-based system where we long assumed people would do the right thing. Con artists were the rare exception to the rule, so that our system still worked. Maybe the store loses the occasional sale, but everything still ended up in their favor. But they are not the rare exception any longer. There is a terrifying rise in these incidences.
Now we are all paying the price for these crooks. Toothpaste is kept under lock and key in some stores. The cost of everything on the shelves has gone up, in part due to rising costs from the insurance companies that cover the stores that are seeing theft, and in part to make up for the loss stores are seeing at the exchange counter.
Solomon addressed this with his son when he wrote, in Proverbs 20:14 “'Bad, bad,' says the buyer, but when he goes away, then he boasts."
The buyer claims the merchandise is bad when it isn't. You expect me to pay full price for this? He negotiates a discount after claiming the product is bad. Or maybe after the meal he complains to the manager that the service was terrible and they got his order wrong--after he ate it all--then demands a free meal and refuses to leave a tip.
After calling the experience "Bad, bad," the thief goes home and brags about what he has pulled off. Don't be that person. The few bucks you save aren't worth the damage you do to innocent people who are just trying to earn a living the honest way. This is no way for a child of God to ever act.
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