Has this ever happened to you in a retail setting, or have you seen it happen to another?


I did see it happen to somebody when I was at a gift shop in Wisconsin Dells. This lady broke something by knocking it off a shelf and it cost $38. Police came when she said she would not pay.

I would have been happy as a clam to see how it turned out, as she even refused to pay when the po po arrived, but the ladies I was with wanted to go.

I think I would have hung around to see the end of that soap too.

That would be interesting to see!

I don't think that I have ever seen it happen, and with cheap things, there have been a few times when my kids have broken something AFTER we paid for it and before we left the store, and the people were nice enough to give them another one for free. Of course I'd never ask for it, but it is really good to see things like that happen!

Chris, I SO wanted to...We were there for a banquet and a district meeting. I was vice pres. with the pres' wife and the treasurer. I couldn't pull rank.

Even if the store had one of those "You break it - you bought it" signs I don't think there are legal grounds where she can be held liable under the circumstances you described, ie. she knocked the item off the shelf rather than picking it up and dropping it. If it went to court, the store would have to prove she was negligent

http://web.archive.org/web/20061207233337/http://www.craftsreport.com/april05/break_not_buy.html

PS - Apparently Pottery Barn doesn’t have any such law. They write breakage off as the cost of doing business.

I've never seen it happen in a retail setting other than a jar of pickles at the grocery store. But did see it once in a garage sale & actually had the person holding it try to pull me into it. I saw it happen & was about 3 feet from it. China hit the garage floor & shattered. She told me "you're going to pay for that." Told her to guess again. It was actually a small child who bumped it & there was no way I was gonna rat this kid out. If the woman was stupid enough to put china on a flimsy board between two sawhorses that was her own fault.

I would have liked to have seen the police show up at the gift shop too.

I can see why stores have those policies, but most times it really is an accident. I remember accidentally breaking something in a store when I was REALLY little and I was in tears because I thought they were going to make me pay for it and I didn't have any money. My Mom offered to, but the store owner was really nice. She said it was okay and not to worry. It was some little trinkety thing, anyway, but to a 5 year old, it was worth a fortune.

I've seen people drop things - esp. in the grocery store - but it's always accidental and sometimes the way things are piled, it's asking for an accident - like this one poor girl who was reaching to get a bag of popcorn and the bags are piled so high that they all started sliding as soon as she took her bag. One fell on the floor and burst open but they'd piled them as high as they could, so it was poor planning on their part.

Sort of like my cousin who is a taxi driver. When the passenger tries to not pay, legally they can lock them in and drive them to the police station and the ride downtown is added to the fare. If I can't pay for it, I try to not touch it.

I've never actually seen this happen to someone else and I probably wouldn't stick around to see the consequences, as I don't give a shit, but when I was a child, my Mom and I went into a "Spencer's" store and I saw this long, torpedo-shaped glass thing - it was a thing to tell the temperature and it was $70 or so. Well, I was curious about it and it broke - then my Mom and I fled the scene!