Minor Moral Delimma
ThinkGeek is doing 12 travel coffee mugs for the Doctor Who 50th, releasing one mug each month with one mug for each Doctor thus far with the 12th mug being the TARDIS since we aren't actually at 12 Doctors yet. I have them all so far. When my 10th Doctor mug arrived this month, the lid was broken. I contacted ThinkGeek and they said they'd send me a new mug and lid and to just trash the old mug and lid. I'm going to have 12 of these things and while I definitely want all 12 mugs, I don't need 12 lids. Plus, the broken lid was fixable with super glue. End result was going to be that I'd have 2 perfectly fine 10th Doctor mugs, one with a repaired workable lid and one with a perfectly fine lid. Since I'd have at least 11 perfectly fine lids either way, I told a friend I'd be fine keeping the good mug with the busted lid and she could have the brand new mug and lid they were sending me for free. I feel perfectly fine about all this as I paid for a non-broken item and deserved to receive that and it was ThinkGeek's decision to tell me to trash the perfectly fine mug with the broken lid rather than return it to them as I expected them to say.
Before ThinkGeek could send me the replacement, they ran out of 10th Doctor mugs. They said they were expecting more but since they didn't know when that would be, they would cancel my replacement order and give me a refund for the cost of the mug plus $10 for shipping and handling and general inconvenience. They sent me the electronic gift card a couple of days ago. I just got an email with a tracking number for the 10th Doctor mug they're sending me because it apparently is back in stock and they forgot to cancel that replacement order. Except the website still lists it as out of stock. I'm obviously going to wait until I have the second 10th Doctor mug in my hands before doing anything, but if it actually has shipped, I will have paid for one mug and shipping, which was less than $10, in order to end up with one perfect mug and perfect lid, one perfect mug and totally workable but technically broken lid, and a gift certificate for the cost of one mug plus $10. I didn't do anything wrong in here, but I still feel like I'd be cheating them to use the gift certificate. Should I email them and tell them about the mistake, just let the gift certificate expire without ever using it, or accept that I did nothing wrong and just got lucky and use the gift certificate anyway?
Before ThinkGeek could send me the replacement, they ran out of 10th Doctor mugs. They said they were expecting more but since they didn't know when that would be, they would cancel my replacement order and give me a refund for the cost of the mug plus $10 for shipping and handling and general inconvenience. They sent me the electronic gift card a couple of days ago. I just got an email with a tracking number for the 10th Doctor mug they're sending me because it apparently is back in stock and they forgot to cancel that replacement order. Except the website still lists it as out of stock. I'm obviously going to wait until I have the second 10th Doctor mug in my hands before doing anything, but if it actually has shipped, I will have paid for one mug and shipping, which was less than $10, in order to end up with one perfect mug and perfect lid, one perfect mug and totally workable but technically broken lid, and a gift certificate for the cost of one mug plus $10. I didn't do anything wrong in here, but I still feel like I'd be cheating them to use the gift certificate. Should I email them and tell them about the mistake, just let the gift certificate expire without ever using it, or accept that I did nothing wrong and just got lucky and use the gift certificate anyway?