Customer Repeatedly Tells Store Mower Isn’t His, But Ends Up With A Brand New One Anyway

Honesty doesn’t always pay, at least, not the way you’d expect. When one shopper tried to do the right thing and clear up a store’s mistake, the employees just wouldn’t listen. Call after call, they kept insisting he had an order waiting, even though he repeatedly told them it wasn’t his.

After weeks of confusion and good-faith explanations, he finally decided that maybe, just maybe, fate (and corporate incompetence) were on his side. What started as a routine purchase turned into one of the most unintentionally satisfying customer service sagas you’ll ever read.

A customer repeatedly explains to a big box store that a mower isn’t his, but after weeks of calls, he decides to take the free one offered to him

There are few things more upsetting than a loved one being unfairly blamed or dismissed. In this story, the original poster (OP) repeatedly tried to tell a big-box hardware store that an order for a lawn mower wasn’t his but the store insisted it was and finally gave him the mower anyway. He accepted it.

What began as confusion turned into a win. Yet this raises a question: when is accepting a “gift” really just capitalizing on someone else’s mistake?

Psychologically, the situation touches on the principle of commitment and consistency. Robert Cialdini explains that once people or organizations make a decision, they feel pressure to remain consistent with it, even when new information contradicts the original decision.

For example, a company may keep insisting an item is yours because the system flagged it, so they keep following the queue rather than re-evaluating.

In this case, the store had committed to the order, so even though OP said it wasn’t his, the bureaucracy kept pushing it.

Meanwhile, the OP’s reaction can be viewed as adaptive boundary-setting rather than malicious intent. When the store failed to correct its error after multiple notices, his acceptance of the mower became less about greed and more about acknowledging the mistake was theirs.

From a behavioral ethics standpoint, research shows people are more likely to take advantage of an unintended benefit when the error is clearly on the company’s side, not theirs.

On the flip side, this raises an ethical grey area: just because something is “given” doesn’t automatically make it “given”. The store’s failure to fix the mistake doesn’t live in a vacuum.

It invites reflection on whether accepting the mower undermined the relationship of trust between consumer and business. Trust in commerce depends not just on transactions, but integrity in how mistakes are treated.

Ultimately, this story isn’t just about a lawn mower, it’s a mirror. When institutions don’t listen, people find ways to reclaim control. When companies don’t honour a correction, someone else may quietly benefit.

The balance between savvy consumer and ethical actor may tilt depending on which side you stand on but the reminder stays clear: accountability matters, especially when mistakes become opportunities.

Here’s what people had to say to OP:

This group laughed about unexpected freebies, sharing stories of mistakes or oversights leading to unintentional windfalls

These commenters highlighted more serious missteps

This group discussed retail mishaps, including mischarged items and forgotten transactions

This group discussed retail errors, from mistaken pricing to random subscriptions

These commenters focused on customer service confusion

This commenter found humor in the mistake of receiving the wrong item for the price paid

Does this qualify as a win or just an unintended consequence of a mistake? How would you have handled it? Share your thoughts and your best “accidental gain” stories below!