I saw something this week that was very disturbing. Well, two things, really. First, the lady in front of me at Wal-Mart had this more expensive shampoo (like $15 per small bottle). But she unloaded her cart and then had her toddler sit on top of the shampoo in the basket to hide it. She didn’t seem to care that I was watching. I tattled on her to the clerk when it was my turn, but she had high-tailed it out of there.

Second incident took place last night. I’m at Wal-Mart in the parking lot waiting for my two sons. They had run in to get a bandana for his campout. So I see this guy with a large plasma screen TV in a cart whoosh past my car (he was riding the cart like the bag boys do sometimes), but FAST! A woman with him was walking really fast trying to keep up. They were two cars over.

The guy jumps off the cart, literally THROWS the TV in his backseat and they both hop in. They back up, running over the cart completely (it goes flying), and they peel off. It happened so fast I didn’t realize it was a theft until I saw the Wal-Mart employees come running out. There was no license plate and they were gone in a split second.

This pissed me off. Why are product prices so high? Because these two instances of theft happen ALL the time. The manufacturers and retailers have to cover their asses. But it made me think about ME industry.

I get really mad whenever someone emails me and says, “Tiff – someone is letting people download your eBook for free.” Those people who think it’s “just information” and it isn’t a big deal should know that they’re stealing money from me, period. They’re stealing from my 3 kids, from my husband. They don’t know me, so they don’t care.

It’s NO different if you buy a product intending ahead of time to refund it through ClickBank. You’re a thief if you have refund intentions before you even see the product because you know it will be on your hard drive from that point on.

So the next time you think, “Well I really want that but I don’t have the money, so I’ll just refund it,” consider yourself no better than the guy whooshing past me on the Wal-Mart cart who took a flat-screen TV without paying for it.

Just because ClickBank makes it legal doesn’t mean it’s ethical or moral.

Tiff

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