Q: A store is selling a coat for $500, and it allows customers to return items for up to three months for a full refund. This store holds annual sales later in the fall. I would like to buy the coat now at the full price and start wearing it. When it goes on sale, perhaps for $100 less, I’ll purchase another one at the sale price and then use the first receipt to return the second, brand-new coat. I’ll benefit by enjoying the coat in the interim but paying the sale price instead of the full price.
Is this permissible?
A: This shtick clearly isn’t ethical or mentchlich and perhaps shouldn’t even be addressed in this column, but due to the volume of this type of question, we will address it nonetheless. And, as we will see, it is not merely an issue of mentchlichkeit — it is categorically prohibited as well.
You obviously cannot return the first coat in a few weeks, because return policies generally don’t cover used items. When returning the new coat, even if the store permits returns on sale items, you certainly wouldn’t be allowed to accept a refund for more than you paid for it, so you could get back only the sale price. Even if you were to wait until after the sale ends and then return the second coat when the price is once again $500, it would still be prohibited.
A store doesn’t buy items at the retail price, which is the price at which you want to “sell” the coat back to them. They allow returns only as a service to customers, to allow them to try on the item a bit more at home and make sure they want it, but the store has no intention of buying it back for more than the customer paid. By presenting the first receipt, you would be deceiving the store owner into thinking that he is obligated to buy the coat back for $500, when he had no intention of paying more than you paid.
Now, one might argue that a return is considered as though the store purchases the item back from the customer, and because the item is being returned at the store’s own prices, it wouldn’t be considered gezel. This would still be problematic, however, because the prohibitions of both chamas (coercing someone to part with something he owns) and lo sachmod (coveting) would apply when taking the money back under these pretenses (Pischei Choshen, Geneivah 1:26; Erech Shai, Even Ha’ezer 42:1).
There are Poskim who rule that if someone ultimately agrees to part with something he owns, even if he has been coerced into agreeing, there is no chamas. Regarding lo sachmod, there is an opinion that it applies only to possessions, not money (see Imrei Yaakov, Gezeilah 5; see Gan Yitzchak ch. 19-20). According to these Poskim, because you are taking money that the store owner agreed to give you, it would appear that chamas (and lo shachmod) would not be an issue.
Ultimately, however, even these lenient opinions apply only to situations in which both parties are aware of the terms of the transaction, in which case it is still considered valid even if one of the two was coerced. But in your case, the store owner is being forced to engage in this transaction without his knowledge, because he thinks that he is obligated to buy the coat back at the original price. In such a case, the sale of the coat back to him is invalid (see Nesivos 205:1), and all Poskim agree that it is chamas (see Rema C. M. 205:12, with Pis’chei Teshuvah).
We have assumed until now that a return is viewed as the customer selling the item back to the store. In reality, however, this is probably incorrect. Rather, a return is viewed as the first sale being voided (see Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Dei’ah 174:1), as though that sale had been made with a stipulation that the buyer is entitled to renege if the item doesn’t meet his expectations (C.M. 207:1). Therefore, when returning the second coat, you may only void the purchase of that coat, and retrieve the amount you paid for it, not the amount you paid for the first coat. If you do take the refund for the original sale price, the difference between the two prices would be considered stolen, and you would be obligated to return it.
Asides from all these issues, the prohibition of geneivas daas (misrepresentation; see ibid. 228:6) also applies, because it likely never dawned on the store owner that you paid the sale price for the coat you are returning at full price, and had he thought that this was the case, he would not have agreed to take it back.
Furthermore, there might be an issue with buying the second coat to begin with, because the prohibition of ona’as devarim proscribes deluding a seller into thinking that one is planning to buy something when he have no intention of doing so (ibid. 228:4).
