Posts Tagged ‘art’
Selling Rare Coins
Monday, September 5th, 2011
If a cashier at a store noticed that he received a very Rare Coin from a customer…?
… could he exchange the rare coin with his own, so as to not steal from the store, then sell the rare coin at a pawn shop and keep the money?
Legally? Yes. No crime has been committed. Can the customer sue for recovery? Not really. Can the store sue the clerk for conversion? Again, not really. The clerk did not deprive the store of anything that was EXPECTED.
We’ve covered criminal law and civil law. Now that the law is done, what about ethical considerations? Everyone has their own set of ethics. Me, I can’t really see someone giving up something of value when they don’t realize it. Seriously. I watched someone drop a $100 bill out of his wallet on the walkway outside my apartment. (No, it wasn’t a sting, there were no massive incidents of money-dropping and losses going on.) I know that losing $100 would be a crimp in my financial comfort so I’d hate to see someone else suffer like that. So I called him back to pick it up, for which he was profusely grateful.
So, I think I’d let the customer know that it was a valuable coin before dropping it in the drawer. I’ve had people actually pay me in old silve dollars. The real silver ones. They had them in a drawer for years, they really just don’t care.
If I exchange the coin wth a current coin, then I’ve also satisfied my ethics with the store, not to mention my legal obligation. And if the coin netted me $50, I’d be happy. If it got me like a few thousand dollars, I think I’d give a couple hundred to the store, just for the opportunity to work there and have the chance to get that coin.
But ethical choices are spiritual issues and there are no right or wrong decisions except to oneself.
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