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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 3 Mar 2011 11:11 pm |
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Yesterday I bought a carpet in a shop in Wellington. I have bought carpets there before, but I think it improbable in the light of subsequent events that they remembered this.
The list price of the carpet was $1199. I offered $1000, which was in fact more than I wanted to pay. I said I also wanted free delivery to my apartment, 200 metres distant.
They dithered a bit but eventually agreed to my offer, so I paid the money. I also took away another, much smaller carpet for my shop, and agreed to pay for the second carpet by cheque today.
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David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 3 Mar 2011 11:47 pm |
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When I arrived at my shop this morning I found a message on the answerphone from the carpet shop.
They said that after I had left they had decided that the least they were prepared to take for the larger carpet was $1100. I would accordingly need to pay them another $100.
I took the smaller carpet back this morning, and retrieved my $1000. The woman in shop was very surprised that I had decided not to proceed with the purchases.
She made no apology for her behaviour.
None.
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David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 3 Mar 2011 11:47 pm |
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The carpet I'd selected would have been fine for my apartment, and the carpet for the shop suited its intended purpose, so there was a real element of cutting off my nose to spite my own face in this situation.
If $1100 had been the best price they could have agreed to originally, I think I would have been prepared to pay another $100. But this wasn’t the price agreed to.
I thought about the matter for an hour or so before deciding that I wasn't prepared to let these people have a cent of my money. We had agreed on a deal. They had my money, and I had a signed receipt for it. (In law, it seems to me, they wouldn't have had a leg to stand on, but who in her or his right mind is going to go to law over $100? Certainly not me.)
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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 3 Mar 2011 11:50 pm |
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Afterwards, I reflected on the fact that my moral rigour – or rigidity, if you will – is such that there's absolutely nothing I would do for $100, or $1000, or $100,000 if I felt that what I was being invited to do was wrong. And I was reminded of a story about George Bernard Shaw.
Shaw was at a cocktail party in the 1920s or 1930s where discussion turned to the topic du jour: the behaviour of a woman in society who was known to have slept with someone for a cash payment of 500 pounds. This was then a colossal sum of money; the equivalent of perhaps $500,000 today.
"I wonder whether she would have slept with him for sixpence," mused Shaw.
"Good gracious," said another party to the conversation, "of course she wouldn't have. What on earth do you think she is?"
"Oh, I think we've already clearly established that," said Shaw. "I was merely interested in finding out her minimum price."
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