So many things and I'm still at it... this one was a washing machine
Over the years there have been so many things, from silly petty fun like the newspapers at the chinese takeaway - which escalated each week until they caught me with about 15 papers stuffed into my bomber jacket! (I was of course very very drunk!)

On occasion something a little more determined, possibly even for profit or greed, given that I am still prone to such opportunism I'd best keep quiet about those.

Anyway, this take is about the time I stole a washing machine. I didn't mean to, it just happened to turn out that way...

I'd moved into a new home, and after a couple of months of using the launderette 15 mins down the road I'd got enough funds for a top class machine of my own. One of those Samsung direct drive, large drum silver ones that was new on the market.

They weren't too easy to get hold of so when I spotted an online retailer with a great price and promising delivery within 3 days I paid up nearly £700.

On day 3 I'd neither heard nor received anything so I picked up the phone to chase things up. "We don't have any stock of that item, it will be 6-8 weeks" I was informed by the nonchalant phone monkey.

This simply wouldn't do. 6-8 weeks!? Sod that, I'll shop elsewhere. (Apparantly they don't carry any stock and the item actually comes straight from the manufacturer). So I asked for a refund of my money so I could order elsewhere. "We need 5 days to issue a refund", "WHAT!?!" How could that be. I wasn't having that, I worked in online retail at the time and knew 2 important facts:
1 - The distance selling regulations say you must not draw payment, only secure the credit card charge, until you are ready to despatch the goods.
2 - It doesn't take 5 days to refund a card. Using either the PDQ or the online terminal you can cancel and reverse a charge immediately making the funds available to the card holder.

SO I dug my heels in and eventually spoke to a manager who agreed to refund my purchase straight away.

Happy with my victory we ended the call and I sat down with a sigh, where was I going to get my washing machine from now.

Then the phone rang... "Hello, this is Samsung domestic, we'd like to arrange the delivery of your washing machine. Is tomorrow morning any good for you?"..... "Errr, ok".

SO the following morning my shiny new machine arrived, I made tea and provided biscuits while they even plumbed it in for me. 8 years later I've never been billed for it. :-)
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Fri 8 Nov 2013, 10:58, 2 replies)

When companies are so incompetent that they don't notice a £700 discrepancy, it is your duty to keep it.

(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 8 Nov 2013, 11:48, closed)

Daft thing is
if they had either failed to issue a refund or recharged the card I wouldn't have minded as of course I actually wanted to purchase the washing machine in the first place.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Fri 8 Nov 2013, 15:35, closed)