[Avodah] How much for the mayo?

[David W. Eisen]

I had a similar incident involving my recent trip to the States. I went shopping in a certain outlet mall that had a store of a particular brand that my son's friend had asked if we could purchase there a certain shirt for him. Neither my son nor I intended on buying anything in that store, but a particular shirt also caught my eye, and that day the store had a 50% discount on the price of a shirt when buying an additional shirt at the full price. Both the shirt my son's friend asked that we buy for him and the shirt that I ended up being interested in were being sold for the same price. I bought both shirts with the 50% discount on the second shirt. In all honesty, I would not have bought the shirt for my self at the retail price, and it was only the discount that provided the incentive for making the purchase.

Considered with potential ribbit issues, I asked R. Yuval Cherlow how much I should ask my son's friend to receive for the purchase of the shirt. In his response, he noted that no lender-borrower relationship was created by our agreement to purchase the shirt, and even though one could claim that I effectively lent him the money for the shirt once it was purchased, this is not the case since
(i) I did not act as an agent of his,
(ii) he did not become an owner of the shirt upon my purchase at the store as I could have changed my mind and not sold it to him ,and
(iii) if I had lost the shirt on the way, he would have no liability to repay me.

Effectively, the transaction occurred only when he paid for the shirt upon my return to Israel; accordingly, he rules that it is halachically permissible to take advantage of the full discount, though he adds a caveat that if indeed the circumstances were different, and I was acting as his agent, then this is likely to change his conclusion.

R. Cherlow's teshuva can be accessed at http://www.moreshet.co.il/web/shut/shut2.asp?id=133981.

B'virkat HaTorah,
David


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