Member Avatar for sk8ndestroy14

Okay, so here's an idea of mine but I don't know how legal it is. Someone gets a job at a place like Best Buy. They buy a product or products with their employee discount. They take it home then sell it on eBay to make a profit. Here's the question. Is that legal? Because after you own it how can anyone regulate what you do with your product, it belongs to you, no longer Best Buy. It just seems to easy if it is legal.

  • 7 Contributors
  • 9 Replies
  • 114 Views
  • 1 Day Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by sk8ndestroy14

Recommended Answers

All 9 Replies

Member Avatar for hbk619

i don't see why not. it'd be the same as buying something in a sale and selling it on ebay

Member Avatar for Infarction

I'd expect it to be illegal. I know it is for Microsoft employees to do that. I'd be surprised for it to be different elsewhere.

Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon

Illegal -- probably not. But it depends on the policy of the company (Best Buy in your example). I'm pretty certain they will put a stop to that real quick if and when they find out about it. Its not worth it to lose your job over a few quick bucks. And you will also tarnish your reputation so that other similar companies will probably not hire you for the same reason you got fired from Best Buy. It may be legal but its a stupid thing to do.

Member Avatar for sk8ndestroy14

Yeah, that makes sense. I can't see how it would be illegal, but I do understand to company policy. The thing is, how can they enforce a "company policy" that can legally tell you what you can and cannot do with your private property? A company has to have a reason to fire you and it doesn't seem right to make it be because of something you did with your private property. But I guess there's no way around it.

Member Avatar for ~s.o.s~

Yes, please don't listen to others and start this already. Keep notifying us of your progress from time to time. After all, we wouldn't mind a fair bargain. ;-)

commented: Alright +2
Member Avatar for sk8ndestroy14

lol, I'll apply at Best Buy this week.

Member Avatar for joshSCH

Well, I don't know about Best Buy.. but at the store I work, you have to sign a contract with the company in order to receive the employee discounts. Basically, you say that you will not resale the items, sale them to your friends, etc.. b/c if you did this, you could just buy the Best Buy products cheap and then resale therefore increasing competition with Best Buy (which is also your employer). If you violate terms of the contract you will no longer receive employee discounts and you could be fired.

Member Avatar for lasher511

To be honest i think it is quite stupid the way companies do regulate those kinds of things because usually even with the Discount they are making the same amount of money for the item as they would if they were selling the things to a large company. Not sure if this works the same with bestbuy as they have already paid wholesale prices for these things and naturally they would be making more from customers.

I think it should be different if you are working for the company making the product however because they are not losing any money erither way if u resell it although companies like microshaft still regulate it mainly because they are tight.

I was actually thinking the same thing the other day as i know someone who works at fuji who i am buying a camera through (finepix 5700). I was going to buy the same camera through the shops until i found out that he could get it cheaper and it would have cost me $400AU where as directly from fuji more like $240AU. You could easily make a rather large profit through ebay doing this if they did not regulate it however i suppose then if people can buy the same camera for $350 on ebay as they could for $400 in the shops people are more likely to go with the ebay option and the more people who do this the less people buy from the resellers who buy less of the cameras from fuji because either they have to reduce their profit margin or buy less from fuji. Im sure that the big companies like this go have a good reason for it though.

I think its the same with OEM software especially through microshaft there is no reason to charge more for the regular version of windows Vista then the OEM apart from microshaft trying to make more and more money but in turn that just makes people want to rip microshaft off more and either pirate their software or simply buy OEM and install it on an older machine anyway. Especially when the difference is like $500AU for ULtimate

Member Avatar for sk8ndestroy14

Yeah, contracts. I guess that's where they get you.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.