Update: Announced Shoplifting

Wow. My “friend” who I will not name, but is the writer of the wildly popular blog http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/ did a favor recently by linking to one of my posts from a couple weeks ago: Announced Shoplifting.

I thought is was a mildly humorous story about my sometimes flaring temper and what I did when I had horrible customer service at a beach store in Ft. Walton Beach FL.

Apparently some of my “friends” readers did not. Had a few comments that were less than complimentary about my behavior. Well, at first I just laughed about them. Then I started thinking more about a few of them. I think the breaking point was when my daughter spoke up for me and defended me saying that I wouldn’t do anything dishonest or wrong.
The fact is, what I did was wrong- even though the way I was treated (or rather ignored) by the store staff that day was incredibly bad. It just does not justify taking merchandise without paying for it. The more I thought about it the more I remembered about that day. While I was in a typical rush to get back to the beach and my family, I had no real deadline. No event at the beach required me to get back at an exact time with a boogie board and sand toys in hand. I was on vacation. And there are 2 or more other beach stores a short drive away. I could have just dropped the merchandise on the floor and driven to another store to buy the stuff.

So there it is. It was wrong, and I’m glad the issue came up. Its always a good thing to right the wrongs.

I mailed a check today to Wings for $60. That should cover the $50 worth of toys plus $10 in interest for the last 46 months.

I also included a print out of my original blog post so they will know why they are getting $60. Didn’t feel like writing a letter to go along with the check.