Is It Ethical?

[yfr bachur]

The government bailed out the airlines, with our tax money. So basically, anything the airline has is ours.

So I can steal a car from a GM dealership?
Or anything from any bussiness that got PPP?

[WonderingYid]

So I can steal a car from a GM dealership?
Or anything from any bussiness that got PPP?

Did I mention PPP?

Watch this for context, language warning. 

[mevinyavin]

OK.
I sense quite a bit of obfuscation on what the shayla is

Let's clorify the shayla as follows:

Airlines level of hakpada
A. Airlines that have no weight limit at all
B. Airlines that have a weight limit of "you need to be able to lift it into the overhead bin"
C. Airlines that have a theoretical weight limit, just never ever enforce it
D. Airlines that the usually don't enforce the weight/size limit, unless the checkin agent notices something out of the ordinary
E. Airlines that have a weight limt and enforce it selectively, either on certain flights, or during certain seasons.
F. Airlines that have a weight limit, and usually enforce it, just on certain high pressure routes and/or times, choose to priorities timely service over enforcement
G. Airlines that inspect every carryon at checkin and check overweight/size ones for free.
H. Airlines that inspect every carryon at checkin and charge to check overweight/size ones.
I. Airlines that inspect every carryon at the Gate or just before it at a checkpoint and charge for checking overweight/size.

Evasive actions taken to avoid weigh in - partial list 
1. Wearing coats, holding umbrella, holding one sefer
2. Packing heavy stuff in the personal item and rearanging after the carryon is weighed
3. Heavy items in pockets, jacket, coat
4. Wearing abnormal amounts of clothing - multiple shirts, pants, sweaters
5. Placing the carryon close to the checkin desk in the hope that they dont notice/weigh it
6. Taking stuff out of the judged to be overweight bag, hgetting the OK from the checkin agent, and repacking.
7. Leaving some of your stuff with a friend, getting weighed, and repacking.
8. Leaving the entire carryon with friend and when asked to weigh/size the carryon saying "Its with my friend/partner"
9. Leaving the entire carryon with friend and when asked to weigh/size the carryon saying "I don't have one"
10. Passing your suitcase over/around the partition at the checkpoint/gate to avoid having it weighed/sized

Cases A,B,C - Theres no reason to be playing shtick anyway.
Cases H, I (and prob F,G too, and maybe even E) I fail to see why anything should be muttar other than 1,2,3,4,and maybe 5,6. I don't see the difference between 7,8,9,10 and not scanning all your items in a self checkout. The stores should inspect more bags, check better, they're fooling themselves!! What's the difference that one thing being stolen is an item and the other is a charged for service??? (I could see a tzad heter in 7, that if the agent says oh thats ok we dont need to weigh it today, she is authorised to do that)

The shalya is what is mutter in cases D, E, F, (G??).

EDIT: (On further reflection, G might actually be the most chamur category bec you see the hakpada is on using the overhead bins with heavy bags, so you may not even be allowed to do 2 or 3)

Further edit: Realized i left out the "remove items, reweigh, repack" option

Lengthy conversation with a posek (RYB's talmid, I learn Choshen Mishpat topics lehalacha by him).
The first half of the question is gneivas daas. The klal is: if they know that people do this, they are essentially letting you do it and it is muttar. (Example mentioned: wearing extra clothing.) If they know but take steps to stop it, and you are simply one step ahead of them, it is ossur. If they SHOULD know (because everyone does it) and are being naiive, we say ihu deafsid anafshei and it is still muttar. You cannot, however, open your mouth and say something untrue in order to save money. Which of these categories you are dealing with must be accurately judged - a posek can't do it for you.
The second half of the question is a uniquely Rabbi Berkovits take (at least, I never heard the subject discussed lemaaseh anywhere else except from RYBs and his talmidim): limdu leshonam dabru sheker. According to this posek, this is defined as doing something that makes you feel dirty, or putting yourself into a situation that a lie must be expressed on a regular basis. RYBs assurs these. If any of the above acts make you feel uncomfortable, RYBs holds it is a problem even if muttar.

@yfr bachur - see if RYBs himself says something similar. 

[username]

I bought 3 of these pendant lights when they were on DDMS.

Didn't end up needing them, so I filed for a return. Amazon gave me one shipping label, but each light is in a relatively large box of its own, and there was no way I was gonna fit all 3 in any one box, so I taped the 3 boxes together in a stack securely, and shipped them as one package that way. I lazily didn't take off the original shipping label, and instead taped the boxes together with the old labels facing each other so they're not visible from the outside.

My Amazon account said they only received one light, so I chatted and told them that I sent all 3 in one package, and the rep refunded the remaining two. Fast forward to today, and I receive two of them via UPS. Turns out the three were separated (looks clearly cut, by the way it's separated), and the previous shipping labels became visible, so they redelivered two of them using the original labels.

Do I now have to chat with amazon again and try to explain this whole story to them and re-return these two or pay for them? I feel like the rep is not gonna understand this.

Total value of the lights is ~$25.

similar thing happened to me. I bought a 4-pack of chairs that came in two boxes. I returned them-but mistakenly one box came back to me. I contacted Amazon, they told me to keep or donate them.

[yfr bachur]

@yfr bachur - see if RYBs himself says something similar.

@HudZ
Here's my delayed TR on this shayla:
I spoke with RYBs and my shver (who is a RK of a business halacha kollel). I wanted to also speak with Rav Meir Shmuelevitz and Rav Yitzchok Silver but my schedual over the last month or so didnt allow it.

I presented the general shayla to both of them (Not the clorified lists I posted - though with my shver I was able to expand on it over several shabbos seudos)  RYBs' quick response was "Gneiva". When I tried negotiating with him, the only case where he was maskim that you can say "ihu d'avid anafshei" is when/where they NEVER weigh the suitcase, whereas if they sometimes do you need to present with you at checkin whatever you're planning on taking onboard. He didnt buy the "they have the whole airport to check it" tayna. (My take on that last point is that you cant skip THE checkpoint and say that "you should check me somewhere else...") I tried the "what if theyre picking on the bachurim/sem girls" and he didnt buy that either. (Honestly, he was more machmir then I imagined he would be)

My shver flys quite often (and almost always at max weight esp on the return - bringing his father Zt"l's seforim to EY). His take was more or less that back in Europe when we needed to use our minds to figure out "shtiklach" for pikuach nefesh purposes, fine - not everything will be glatt. This aint PN and therefore stay away from sheker/gneiva/mate akum etc...

I'll try to get to RMS and RYS next Zman...Maybe I'll ask Rabbi Blier if i go to him to sell my chometz (Full disclosure: From previous interactions I expect RYS and RCB will prob be more meikel)

[HudZ]

Thank you.
I'm happy you got your maskana. However, as you already know-

@yfr bachur

So I asked my Rav... I was discussing it with him for around 20 minutes, he couldn't see any problem with doing what I said..... And like you said, I asked him why it shouldn't be matteh Akum.. And he said, your not fooling or tricking the goy, they should ask you if you have any hand luggage, the fact that they don't weigh it, that's their problem...   They have the whole airport to weigh it, the fact that they don't, that's their problem... You don't have to bring your luggage to their face... And said even if that's not so, meaning you wouldn't be able to leave it behind, so what would happen. Who said they are going to weigh it anyhow, they many times don't, and even if they do, they'll sometimes check it in for you for free or they'll make you do the taking out thing, and there would be no problem with putting it back in....