In a state with the common law definition of theft, can you force a store to take cash by &quot;pretending&quot; to steal? If I understand correctly, (a) under common law, theft requires an intent to permanently deprive the owner, and (b) legal tender only applies to debts, not purchases. B is the reason why stores do not have to accept cash. However, if I take goods out of the store without paying, but with the intent to pay later, I have not stolen the goods. By taking them, however, I now owe their value to the store. At this point, it is a debt; can I now insist on paying in cash even if the store does not want to take it?
This is a good example of the life of the law being experience and not reason. While there is a logical argument that this isn't theft, in reality, this conduct would universally be considered an open and shut case of shoplifting and anyone who tried this would surely be convicted of a crime with consequences far more severe than creating a tort debt for conversion of the property. Also, you do intend to permanently deprive the store of its property. The fact that you intend to remedy that by paying for it doesn't change that. You aren't borrowing the property with an intent of returning it.
To me this seems analogous to failing to report a bank error in your favour, which amounts to theft in england-and-wales. I wrote an answer about that here. See that answer for the details but briefly there are five elements to establish under section 1(1) the Theft Act 1968: Dishonesty (section 2) Appropriation (section 3) Property (section 4) Belonging to another (section 5) Intention to permenantly deprive (section 6) As pointed out in the comments, there is a separate offence of abstraction of electricty in section 13 which only has the following elements: dishonesty, use of electricity, and lack of due authority. The courts have also held that electricity cannot be considered &quot;property&quot; for the purposes of the Theft Act (Low v Blease [1975] 1 WLUK 325). Arguably this offence is not commited here as you had due authority (permission from the supplier) to consume the electricity, however I will have a look later to see if I can find some case law on this point and edit it in if I find anything. With that said, &quot;property&quot; includes choses in action (section 4(1)). Choses in action are intangible property which can only be recovered by enforcing a right rather than by taking possession. In the case of a bank error, the resulting bank balance is a chose in action and the crime of theft is committed on that basis. In your scenario, the right to be paid for electricity you consume is a chose in action belonging to the supplier. Although I'm not aware of any case law specifically on this point, it seems to me that depriving the supplier from its right to be paid could satisfy the requirement of appropriation of property. The other elements of theft, as in the case of bank errors, are easily established here. Note that you won't be saved by &quot;if and when the company does discover its error, I have no problem with paying the arrears&quot;. This is because of section 6(1) of the Act which states: A person appropriating property belonging to another without meaning the other permanently to lose the thing itself is nevertheless to be regarded as having the intention of permanently depriving the other of it if his intention is to treat the thing as his own to dispose of regardless of the other’s rights; and a borrowing or lending of it may amount to so treating it if, but only if, the borrowing or lending is for a period and in circumstances making it equivalent to an outright taking or disposal. Even if you eventually pay for the electrity, your intention was not to do so if they didn't notice. Note also that it is not necessary that there is a contractual requirement to notify the supplier of their mistake. Such a requirement can arise under common law (e.g. A-G's Reference (No 1 of 1983) [1984] 3 All ER 369, elaborated in my other answer). You didn't specify which part of the UK and this answer may not be applicable in Scotland or Northern Ireland.
Well ... the crime of fraud and the tort of deception. If you say you will do X and enter a contract on that basis knowing that you won't then that is fraud and it carries gaol time. Your bank could also revoke your contract and sue for damages.
I think Dale M is essentially correct. Let me give more detail by quoting the Theft Act 1968: 1 Basic definition of theft (1) A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and “thief” and “steal” shall be construed accordingly. (2) It is immaterial whether the appropriation is made with a view to gain, or is made for the thief’s own benefit. 3 “Appropriates”. (1) Any assumption by a person of the rights of an owner amounts to an appropriation, and this includes, where he has come by the property (innocently or not) without stealing it, any later assumption of a right to it by keeping or dealing with it as owner. (2) Where property or a right or interest in property is or purports to be transferred for value to a person acting in good faith, no later assumption by him of rights which he believed himself to be acquiring shall, by reason of any defect in the transferor’s title, amount to theft of the property. You assume the rights of an owner by placing a notice offering it to other people. Therefore it is theft. I presume similar laws exist in other juristictions.
The person getting the item by fraud didn't get any ownership. Therefore when you bought it, you didn't get ownership either. It's still the company's property, and they can do with it what they like (within reason, they wouldn't be allowed to make it blow up in your face). If you sent back the item, good on you, because the item is now with its rightful owner. If you don't like it, you can sue the person who sold the item to you.
The question does not say what reasons the other party gives for not paying, and so one cannot judge whether such reason is covered by the terms quoted in the question. In general a contract need not be highly specific if the intent is clear. However, any ambiguity will usually be resolved against the party who wrote the contract, so it is in that party's interest to be as clear and specific as possible. It is not clear from the quoted terms that they form a contract at all. No consideration is stated. Contractual provisions which deny all recourse are not always enforceable. They may be overruled by law or regulation, or by prior court decision or by an equitable decision. If there is a serious problem with the service provided, particularly in a consumer transaction, a court might reject a provision denying all refunds even if it is quite specific and clear. The question does not list the jurisdiction (country and, for federal countries, state or province). Laws on contracts and enforceable terms vary significantly in different jurisdictions. Without this a specific answer is not possible.
For the offense of receiving stolen goods, "tracing" does not usually apply. It must be the actual good stolen and not proceeds of illegal activity. Tracing could come up in an effort to impose a "constructive trust" (usually by a private party) or "civil forfeiture" (usually by law enforcement) on the proceeds of embezzlement or fraud, for example. Tracing in this circumstance is governed by broad considerations of equity law and are highly fact specific. The methods are fairly ad hoc and mostly come down to rules of reason. For example, a court might find that anything clearly purchased with clean assets that were not comingled with dirty assets are not subject to forfeiture or a constructive trust, but that the entire amount of comingled assets might be subject to forfeiture or a constructive trust up to the total amount less the amount of clean assets which were comingled. This issue came up in the U.S. Supreme Court of Luis v. United States in 2014 over whether clean funds of someone subject to fraud liability could be frozen to protect the solvency of someone who may have already squandered the dirty funds when the defendant wants to use the clean funds for an expensive legal defense of the case (SCOTUS said that assets purely traceable to clean sources can't be tied up so as to prevent them from being used in a legal defense of the case.) Tracing generally does not extend to a bona fide purchaser for value (i.e. someone with no knowledge of wrongdoing is paid fair market value for something or pays fair market value for an asset) of something from the person engaged in misconduct because there was no economic benefit from the transaction to either party's net worth. What if Bob offers a smaller sum of money to many people, small enough that Bob could easily afford to give such a gift to one person, but the combined cost of so many small gifts adds up to an amount bob couldn't/wouldn't have been able to afford without his supplementary income? Could someone argue that the gift they received from Bob came from his legal income, but the other gifts Bob made to others was due to Bob's illegal activities, by claiming Bob was likely to give a gift to them without the extra illegal income but not to the others etc? In this situation, the gifts would be a "fraudulent transfer" because absent his illegal assets, Bob would probably be insolvent (i.e. have debts in excess of his assets), and transfers made without receiving substantially equivalent value in exchange can be unwound by his creditors if he is insolvent himself within a certain number of years. His solvency at the time of the gift rather than tracing from legal or illegal income respectively, would be the relevant legal issue. Of course, if the amounts of the gifts were small, it might not be economic to sue for their return.
The precise details (and citations) will vary with jurisdiction, so this answer deals only with principles. If you pick up and "take possession of" property belonging to somebody else, you are a thief. [Note that 'taking possession' rather than picking up to restore to the owner/correct place is what makes the difference, which is why in real life nobody who cannot prove your intention will take action; but your question explicitly concedes the point.] If the property does not belong to the supermarket, you are not stealing from them, but from the currently unidentified owner: this makes no legal difference. You might conceivably have a defence if you can prove that the owner has abandoned the property, whatever the definition of "abandoned" is in your jurisdiction (note that it is up to you to show this, and possibly that you knew it before you picked up the property). If it belongs to the supermarket, this cannot be true; if a box of matches has fallen out of someone's pocket, it might possibly be (whatever the laws are, it is very unlikely that they have ever been applied in such a trivial case, so there may be some uncertainty). in any case, the shop is undoubtedly allowed to throw you out, ban you from returning to their premises, and inform other shops and the police that they believe you to be a petty thief, based on their experience.