Purchasing pots at a discounted rate using stickers attained through bribery

Question

Last year I purchased some pots from SPAR using discount stickers.

Spar gives these stickers to customers – 1 sticker for every R100 spent. When you have 10 stickers, you can put them on a card and buy a pot at a 75% discount.

I obtained some of these discount stickers through some incorrect means, ie:

1 – I purchased a chocolate for the cashier so she gives me extra stickers. (Can I now change my intention for which I gave the chocolate?)

2 – I saw some extra stickers on the counter and I took them.

I don’t know which pots I purchased with which stickers, as some were purchased with stickers I obtained in the correct manner.

Can I use these pots in my house and, if not, what should I do with them?

(From what I understand they inflate the price of the pots, so when you purchase it with the stickers, you end up purchasing it at the normal selling price. Now that the sticker promo is over, they are selling the pots at the 75% off discounted price)

Mufti Mohammed Desai · Accepted Answer

We understand from your query that you bought the cashier a chocolate to obtain the stickers, which is considered as bribery. If you hadn’t bought her the chocolate, she wouldn’t have permitted you to take the extra tickets. The matter cannot be reversed and corrected by merely changing your Niyyat at this stage. The only way to rectify the matter (with Allah Ta’ala) is by sincerely repenting for your action and making a firm resolution not to bribe in the future.

Now, as for purchasing the pots at a reduced price, you should pay the full price to Spar to rectify the deceptive transaction. For example, if the pot set was selling for R1000.00 and you managed to purchase it for R750.00 due to presenting a stipulated number of stickers (which was wrongly acquired), then you should pay an amount of R250.00 to Spar. By doing so, the matter will be resolved and cleared Insha’Allah. If the admin department or manager doesn’t accept the funds and in fact tell you not to worry about it, then you should deposit the funds into Spar’s bank account, or purchase an item to the value of R250.00 from Spar and leave the item in the store.

You should exercise your mind in estimating the number of stickers you acquired legitimately, and the discount procured due to using these stickers will be in order. If you are unable to ascertain the number of stickers legitimately acquired, then you should pay the shortfall on all the pots as a precautionary measure.

We do understand that the same pots are being sold at a reduced price now, but we will have to correct the transaction according to the price when the transaction was concluded.

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