19-Aug-2010 15:46

Should I or shouldn’t I?

This morning amongst the pile of letters kindly delivered by our long-suffering and ever-complaining postie was a package with seven 2nd class stamps haphazardly attached..

Nothing out of the ordinary you may ask?

Well, the seven 2nd class stamps had been missed (by about two inches) by the computerised franking system & were thus still 'mint'.

My quandary: do/may I re-use them or not?

On the one hand they had been purchased and used in good faith & thus re-using them could possibly be deemed stealing, but on the other hand, I figured the postal service wouldn't miss a few little stamps, I could save a few bob and so……

Has this dilemma ever worried you?
Re-using the stamps would, in practice, be little different to spending the banks' money that may have in error found its way into your account or keeping the extra £5 in wrongly issued change at the supermarket…

You know it's wrong, but…

I'm afraid that my decision was probably the correct choice.

I did not use them but instead of simply tearing them up (as ethically perhaps I should have done) I stuck them into my favoured charity (to help the less fortunate) box sitting forlornly on my desk.

What would you have done?