Most People Would Not Do That

(Ridgeland, SC: 1 March 2010) Stealing is a sin right? Most people would not take something from a store without paying for it. That's stealing right? Is it stealing if the salesperson makes a mistake and charges you less for an item than it cost? Or what if they miss an item and don't charge you at all? Is that stealing? Is it wrong? Is it sin? If you were overcharged for an item and discovered it later would you go back to the store and point it out? What if you were undercharged? Or not charged?
On our way back from Florida in late February driving up I-95 somewhere north of Brunswick GA we had another tow-car incident. The locking pin on one side of the tow-bar that keeps the car hooked to the tow-bar hooked to the RV, somehow shook loose. The pin fell out and I was towing the car by only one bar...not good. I felt it immediately when I was driving and saw it in my rear camera. The car was slewing from side-to-side without the other bar to hold it solid. Traffic backed away and I was able to slow the rig down and stop without incident. We didn't have a replacement pin so we unhooked the car from the RV. Joy drove the car and I drove the RV. We got back on the road headed for Charlotte, NC to see our friends.
To tow the car again, I needed to find a dealer for Blue Ox, the brand of tow-bar we have, to get a pin replacement. This was the weekend of the snowstorm that hit as far south as Atlanta. About 20 miles south of Savannah we saw snow on the sides of the road. This day, there was no snow on the road and very safe, dry driving conditions, but we could see on the sides of the road evidence of what had been only a few hours before. About 20 miles into SC we found an RV dealer who was also a dealer for Blue Ox. We pulled off the highway, parked and walked into the store. People were there, but the inside was dark. We eventually found the parts man and got the explanation that a car had gone into a power pole and they were without power. They expected it to be restored soon. He had the part I needed though. We found it with a flashlight and he wrote up a ticket the old fashioned way, by hand, and took down our credit card number and I signed it. The new locking pins worked great.
Joy noticed some time later that the credit card had not gone through. The receipt didn't even have that name of the store and we couldn't remember the town where we stopped, so we were stuck. This past Monday morning we were driving down the same stretch of I-95 and we remembered to look for the store. We passed by before they were open, but we got their name and found a phone number. Joy called and explained what happened. She told the same story to three incredulous people before getting to the guy who helped us. He had tried to run it through but it didn't go through. He had written the number down wrong. Joy gave him the right numbers. He said he had written it off; that he was going to have to eat that one. He thanked Joy for calling back and settling the bill.
"Not many people would do that" he said.
Why not I ask?