Is this technically theft?

[estebanrey]

So we have a vending machine at work that sells crisps and chocolate bars which are priced at 70p each.

However, somehow one of the slots has been set to 10p and of course every time the vending machine lady comes and fills it up, whomever notices first, waits for her to leave then whacks a quid in and gets 10 chocolate bars.

Now in a shop I know if something is priced incorrectly they can refuse to complete the sale at the till but given this is a machine does it mean, legally speaking, an offer was made and accepted by both parties and therefore a legitimate transaction as far as the law is concerned (even though the person doing it knows they are exploiting a mistake made by a former technician)?

What amazes me if this has been the case for about 4 months now and it has been filled and emptied numerous times in that period and the vending company haven't seemed to have noticed the loss?

 

[estebanrey]

machine is regularly refilled, cash collected and accounted for.

they must know unless they never actually check their numbers?

The machine wants 10p, it gets 10p. So I'm guessing all they are checking is that the amount of money the machine says it should have tallies with what they actually have which it would.

 

[estebanrey]

My secondary school (early 1990s) vending machines registered a French half-franc coin as 20p

I used to work for a catering company that ran a few vending machines around a factory floor and we kept finding people were using one of the Euro coins that wasn't worth much was being taken as a quid in the machines.

They all had to be replaced in the end