Hello Rabbi,
I have a question about money…
On October 28, I placed an order for a tripod from Amazon, for about $123. On October 30, it was listed as “arrived” at my house, but I didn’t have it yet. On November 3, I still did not have it yet and I checked outside my neighbors’ houses and they didn’t have it either, so I reached out to Amazon and they gave me a full refund for the item.
At the end of November, around 20 or more days later, the box showed up at my house, wet and faded, with a sticky note on the outside, where someone wrote to the postal service that it was delivered to the wrong house. It was sitting outside their house for many weeks while they were out of town.
I had already been refunded for the item by Amazon. I would have loved to keep it for free, but I felt like I didn’t have a right to keep it without paying for it, even though it was not my fault the delivery people dropped it to the wrong place and that it got to me almost a month late.
People around me told me that I should just keep it and enjoy it as a free gift from G-d. But I wasn’t sure if that was right.
I called Amazon and told them what happened. And they said they will have to re-charge my credit card for the full amount! I asked if I could have some discount because it came so late. They gave me a $10 coupon to their website. I asked if it could be more than that, because the item is very expensive, and the man said, no, $10 is all they could give, usually they only give $5. I do admit that I was shocked, I thought I would be rewarded in some way for being honest with them, and they are such a big company, it hardly would have been a loss to them… but they didn’t seem to care.
Anyway, afterwards, people around me were a bit upset at me. They said that Gd gave me a gift by sending me the item after I was already refunded the price for it, and I was “ungrateful” to g-d by throwing it back in His face and telling the company so they could recharge me. They said I should have accepted it as a gift from Gd.
Now I feel like a fool. How should I look at things like this? I figured it was not mine to keep, and if Gd meant to send me a gift, Amazon could have said, “don’t worry, keep it and we won’t re-charge you”. But everyone else is saying that I looked at it in the wrong way, and it was Amazon’s fault and I threw Gd’s gift back in His face. So now I wonder if I did the wrong thing, and what halachah requires in such a case.
Thank you for your guidance!!