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Insights on money, career and trading

Would you own up if undercharged?

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Daniel at 2:29 am

grocery

Honesty, we seem to have concluded, is not always the best policy.

If undercharged in a big high street store or supermarket most of us would pocket the cash, according to new research.

Nearly three out of four (72 per cent) would take the miscalculated money if the shop was a big chain such as supermarket, found consumer website moneysavingexpert.com when it polled 3,813 people.

But a sense of propriety means that almost the same proportion, 74 per cent, said they would own up if they spotted the mistake in an independent store such as a newsagent.

Martin Lewis, editor of moneysavingexpert, said that it highlights an antipathy towards the bigger chains and what are seen “somewhat rightly as faceless conglomerates”. The results of the poll come in the wake of recent controversy over tax avoidance involving multi-national companies such as Starbucks and Apple.

He added that the poll is representative of “classic British sentiment that it’s fine to get one up on the big institution but not so if you can see the whites of the eyes of the person who will be in pain on the back of it.”

People see the independent store as one run by “someone like themselves” and are therefore more likely to be honest. However, he added that often in a large company it is the hard working individual cashier who is punished if their till is short.

“Personally, I’m not quite sure the differences are stark. It’s still an individual who will suffer if you are given the wrong change and don’t give the money back”, he said.

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Insights on money, career and trading