Did this 'Star Wars' action figure collector commit retail fraud?

What exactly is retail fraud? Outright shoplifting is a clear example of retail fraud, but sometimes it's not so clear cut.

After a long break, I recently got back into collecting Star Wars action figures. Because of this, I joined a few Facebook groups dedicated to the hobby.

In one of these groups, a member posted a story about buying four Vintage Collection Speeder Bike figure sets at Target for the ridiculously low price of $2.50. For comparison purposes, this same set is currently on the Target website for $44.99.

How was this person able to buy this set for so cheap? Was it on clearance? Not really. Items that are on clearance at Target have a yellow clearance price tag attached to them.

Regular, non-clearance items at Target do not have price stickers.

From Facebook:

Got a good deal today at Target with the VC speeder bike Figure set. I saw 4 on the peg, but there was no price. I grabbed one and took it to the scanner, but it read something like "Price not available."
 
So I took it to the CS desk and asked the nice lady to scan it. She did, and it rang up as $0.00. I said "Well, I'll pay that." She started typing some keys and said, "Hmmm...$2.50?" I said to hold on, while I ran back and grabbed the other 3.
 
So with my Red Card, I got all 4 of them for a bit over $10. See receipt pic. She said it was a good deal, and saved them from having to send them back. And, I saved 50 cents with my Red Card!
 
Note: Targets do not price match other Targets on clearance items, only Target.com. I checked the next closest store in my area, and it rang up as $23. So, I got some friends who are gonna be happy this Christmas with their speeder bikes.

In case anyone didn't believe that he defrauded Target, he posted the receipt:

I am not impressed by people who engage in retail fraud

I think he took advantage of a customer service associate who did not know how to do her job correctly. My local Target is always hiring new people. I regularly see people working there that I've never seen before. It's not hard for me to imagine the customer service associate was new to the job and didn't realize just how expensive these Hasbro Star Wars action figures actually are.

If the person on Facebook knew the figure set was going to only cost $2.50, why did he need to run back to the toy section and grab the other three? If he honestly thought they were that cheap, he would have taken all four of the figure sets up to the customer service desk. I think it never occurred to him that the customer service associate would price the figure sets so drastically low. Once he realized he had someone at the customer service desk who didn't know what they were doing, he pounced at the opportunity to defraud Target.

I left a comment on Facebook telling him he should take them back to Target. The associate at the customer service desk obviously made a mistake. He replied, "The lady at the CS desk said she was a manager."

Sure she did. I'm also sure that fact just naturally came up in their conversation. If she were the manager, he would have referred to her as the manager to begin with and not the "nice lady."

In conclusion

I try to be an honest person. It bothers me when I see people steal from a retail store. A few weeks ago, we were at a store when a guy with his arms full of jackets just marched right out of the store without paying for them. What the collector did might not rise to the level of outright theft, but I don't believe what he did was completely honest either. If he thought what he did was okay, why not return them to the store and find out if they should have been priced so low?

Personally, I would feel guilty if I pulled something like that.

Update

I was at my local Target on October 27 and saw these same Vintage Collection Speeder Bike figure sets sitting on the shelf. There were four of them. They had not been there before. I go to Target a lot.

I took one of the sets to a scanner and it too didn't have a price in the system.

I did not try to buy one.