Charity boxes of sweets in shops.

Sinister Kid

Most places you go into now have a charity box of sweets, bars & crisps on the counter, I have one in the shop I run. Every week when the chap comes in to restock the sweets, the honesty box is always short a few euro. A couple of weeks ago I caught one of the regular customers robbing a bar. He tried to say he took the bar out of his pocket but eventually admitted to pinching it & paid his euro. His excuse was it was only a charity box, it wasn't like he was robbing from the shop.

So I'm asking, do you agree with his logic? Is it OK because it's a charity box?Or is he even worse robbing from the Make a Wish foundation? Is he robbing the dreams of some poor sick child?

Sheep Lover

He was right to rob the chocolate in my opinion

Mesrine65

Theft is theft...

maudgonner

Worse. Much worse, IMO. He should be made go to the nearest children's hospital and spend the day with the seriously ill kids he stole from.

RoyalMarine

Depends on the charity. Big salaries paid out to management who run them.

Sinister Kid

RoyalMarine wrote: »

Depends on the charity. Big salaries paid out to management who run them.

It was Make a Wish.

super_furry

Maybe he wished for a free bar of chocolate?

salamanca22

Is there a price advertised on the box or is it a pay what you can job? If it is the latter I would say it is not stealing albeit morally wrong.

Ciaran_B

Are those boxes pay what you want?


Edit. Snap

uch

I'm Morally superior here because I don't like Chocolate,

I'd rob the fruit pastilles though !

kjl

Of course he was wrong.

No justification for that at all.

JustShon

salamanca22 wrote: »

Is there a price advertised on the box or is it a pay what you can job? If it is the latter I would say it is not stealing albeit morally wrong.

The ones I have seen generally have a price on them.

maudgonner

salamanca22 wrote: »

Is there a price advertised on the box or is it a pay what you can job? If it is the latter I would say it is not stealing albeit morally wrong.

Any of the boxes I've seen in shops have a payment amount printed on them, rather than saying 'Pay what you can'.

Samaris

Er...theft is theft, yes. What on earth would make people think that "because it's only a charity box" makes it any less theft? O.o

salamanca22

JustShon wrote: »

The ones I have seen generally have a price on them.

maudgonner wrote: »

Any of the boxes I've seen in shops have a payment amount printed on them, rather than saying 'Pay what you can'.

In that case it would definitely be stealing. I have however seen them with a pay what you can tag as well in the past. Perhaps this is no longer the case as they would be regularly down from people taking without giving?

JustShon

Samaris wrote: »

Er...theft is theft, yes. What on earth would make people think that "because it's only a charity box" makes it any less theft? O.o

I think the thief was questioning why the shopkeeper should care. A sort of "Sure it's not your stuff, why do you care if I steal it?"

mansize

Ireland is full of stingy people that feel aggrieved paying for anything.

Carlos Orange

RoyalMarine wrote: »

Depends on the charity. Big salaries paid out to management who run them.

I'm sure they take the cost of stolen produce out of the CEO salary. :rolleyes:

Miaireland

Yup he was wrong. Theft is theft doesn't matter if it from you the shop owner or the charity. Fair dues on calling him out on it.

New Home

Sinister Kid wrote: »

Is it OK because it's a charity box?Or is he even worse robbing from the Make a Wish foundation? Is he robbing the dreams of some poor sick child?

Mesrine65 wrote: »

Theft is theft...

Exactly. Theft is theft. If you take something that isn't yours and you don't pay for it, that's stealing. Even if you think a charity 'wastes' the money collected, that does not justify taking something - just donate it to someone else, and stop stealing.

Sinister Kid

Honesty box €1 is printed in red letters on the front, very clearly visible.


He stole the bar to go with his free cup of tea. We have a complimentary tea & coffee station for our regulars... I sarcastically asked him if he wanted me to bring him in a sandwich for his lunch the next day.

gramar

Sinister Kid wrote: »

Honesty box €1 is printed in red letters on the front, very clearly visible.


He stole the bar to go with his free cup of tea. We have a complimentary tea & coffee station for our regulars... I sarcastically asked him if he wanted me to bring him in a sandwich for his lunch the next day.

Proper order, apart from being theft it's a downright stingy thing to do.

maudgonner

salamanca22 wrote: »

In that case it would definitely be stealing. I have however seen them with a pay what you can tag as well in the past. Perhaps this is no longer the case as they would be regularly down from people taking without giving?

Yeah, and with something like chocolate bars they would have to make sure that they at least cover the cost of manufacturing the bars, and the overheads for placing them in shops.

It sounds to me like the guy was embarrassed to be caught and fired back a 'sure it's no skin off your nose' type of reply. But to even think of doing it in the first place is not something that I can imagine - that it may choke him, as my mam would say!

Chijj

Lets be honest OP you don't run the shop.

freshpopcorn

Sinister Kid wrote: »

Most places you go into now have a charity box of sweets, bars & crisps on the counter,

Do most shops have one of these?
I've seen barely a handful of these in my life!

January

Mostly pharmacies and hardware stores, those types of places I've seen them in.

Op, stealing is stealing and he was wrong to do it. Eejit.

Mousewar

We had one in my place. I work in a Science Research Building. It was down funds every single week and they just took it away. Some people just blatantly stole from it. Others took a bar with the "intention" of popping a euro in when they had it but they mostly forgot. It's a shame because 1 euro for a bar is actually a great price nowadays.
I don't like these boxes as it just reminds me what a bunch of stingy fooks so many people are.

buck65

I own a shop with a sweet machine by the counter dispatching a few chocolate balls for a €1. I hate the fecking thing, parents are always haunted by the kids looking for a euro - we are not a sweet/grocery shop.
It's for charity but as said half it goes to the Angelas Kerrins's of this world - I am going to move it.

Tordelback

buck65 wrote: »

It's for charity but as said half it goes to the Angelas Kerrins's of this world - I am going to move it.

That's pure bollocks - even at the peak level of excess of Kerrins' salary, it was still less than 0.25% of the turnover of Rehab. So every fourth harrassed parent would have been contributing 1c to this putative Kerrinsalike. This holier-than-thou attitude to charities is awful to see - these are services the state should be providing in full from general taxation, but don't. In that scenario, similar figures would be flowing to the senior civil servants involved. (when pensions and perks are factored in). The only person you're hurting with your moral indignation are the people depending on services the state has washed its hands of.

Summer wind

In all fairness that's a disgusting thing to do. What grown man can't afford a bar of chocolate.

magentis

Summer wind wrote: »

In all fairness that's a disgusting thing to do. What grown man can't afford a bar of chocolate.

Sounds like it was second nature to him too,any chance of reviewing cctv of his previous visits op?

mahoganygas

There's a story told in management studies books about a famous millionaire who owns a chain of coffee shops. His name escapes me.

He started out with a small coffee and Danish cart. He'd go around a business park, calling into offices. He'd sell a couple of pastries then move on.

One day he decided to leave a box of danishes along with an honesty box at offices.

At the end of the week he estimated that about 5% of danishes were stolen by the office workers. (White collar crime anyone?)

What he lost in stolen stock he more than made up for in increased sales because he could get around to hundreds of offices in less time.

JustShon

mahoganygas wrote: »

There's a story told in management studies books about a famous millionaire who owns a chain of coffee shops. His name escapes me.

He started out with a small coffee and Danish cart. He'd go around a business park, calling into offices. He'd sell a couple of pastries then move on.

One day he decided to leave a box of danishes along with an honesty box at offices.

At the end of the week he estimated that about 5% of danishes were stolen by the office workers. (White collar crime anyone?)

What he lost in stolen stock he more than made up for in increased sales because he could get around to hundreds of offices in less time.

I don't doubt the charities are making money on those boxes despite the occasional fecker who steals from them.

I'd imagine that most people would throw in around the value of the sweets while some outliers would either throw in more than the value of the sweets or steal the sweets entirely and those two kinds of outliers would broadly (if not exactly) balance each other out.

Badly Drunk Boy

I've never seen these. Is it that I'm not observation or are they in a particular type of shop that I don't use?

Laneyh

If he took something without paying anything towards it then that is theft.

Some people probably shortchange the charity box / throw in foreign coins etc. Some people probably overpay or if you don't have another collection box would throw their small change into it.

That still doesn't give your customer the right to help himself to chocolate.

People can choose not to support the charity or maybe even disagree with this method of fundraising but he knew the chocolate was not free to take
and took it anyway.

poa

I volunteer for a hospice. In my town I put out 15 collection boxes in local shops, petrol stations, cafes. Then every 2-3 months when they are filling up I collect them and bank the donations. Typically there will be around 70 Euro in a collection box when full. Since the rounding came in, there is now more 1 and 2 Cent coins so they fill up quicker.
Sometimes the boxes are stolen, or dipped into by staff. They have a tamper proof seal on the bottom so one always can tell.
Personally I think anyone that steals from a charity, money, sweets, anything; is pure scum.
Anyone caught stealing one of the hospice boxes should have to spend a day volunteering in the hospice and see who they are robbing from. Shoplifting from Tesco is one thing, but from a charity is something else. If you want to rob sweets then do it from Tesco not a charity.
What the thieves don't see, or think about; is one day their child or parent may be the one in need from that charity they robbed.
I don't care if its 1 Euro or 100 Euro they rob, they are scum.

murpho999

mansize wrote: »

Ireland is full of stingy people that feel aggrieved paying for anything.

Yes, of course, it would only happen in Ireland and is absolutely nothing to with human nature at all.

Elemonator

Theft is theft, he did something worse than rob the shop (robbing from a charity for his own enjoyment) and then had the audacity to lie about it.