Is it OK to sell hotel toiletries on eBay?

steve.brown

So, do you take the soap, toilet roll, tissues, pen, paper? and from breakfast do you take the sugar, salt, packets (or bottles) of sauce, pots of milk, jam, butter. Sounds like someone who could use breakfast to make up lunches/dinners for the next 3 days.
Perhaps this is a small loss for big hotel chains and, as suggested, is factored into the price of the room. However, small B&B owners often use comps to raise the standard of their rooms and improve the experience for their guests. They factor an "average" useage into their pricing. They already suffer the loss of light bulbs, toilet rolls, towels, cups, plates, spoons etc.
I ask that anyone considering taking excessive amounts from small B&Bs consider what they would like to happen if they were the owners.

elsien

Morals aside, given that the quality of them is generally fairly dire anyway, I can't see many people actually wanting to buy them. Really not worth the effort.

loltara

Of course it is, although they are generally small in size, but if sold by the dozen I expect someone would want them. The cost will have been costed into the establishment,so room cost. They are yours.

Philosopher2014

When you own goods you have the right to sell them.
Complimentary hotel goods given to you are your property.
Therefore you have the right to sell them.

whether you use them or sell them makes no difference to the hotel.
If you leave them there, then you are helping the b and b or hotel.

If you are poor, then maybe the most moral thing to do is to keep or sell the goods, which are legally yours, as you need them more than the hotel.

If you are not poor and the hotel is a struggling b and b, maybe the morally right thing to do is to leave them there.

It's a moral choice we have to make as individuals. Theres no one morally right solution.

Ebenezer_Screwj

I can't say that it's unethical to do this but are you going to sell much of them ? They are invariably in small containers and if people have got to pay for toiletries it's more economical to buy larger sizes from discount stores. When we stay in hotels we bring them home for our own use, so we don't buy them anyway.

jon81uk

JethroUK wrote: »

No you havent!!

It's a facility you would need in a hotel
It would.very inconvenient if they were not supplied
Of course these facilities are costed in to the price just like the toilet, but MOST people are happy just to BENEFIT from the.facilities without stealing them which is as they were provided and points to the rudimentary maths based on that very fact
YOU HAVE NOT PAID FOR ALL THE SUPPLIES YOU STOLE

Person one takes theirown shower gel and therefore didn't use the provided little bottle and took it home. Person two decides to use the little bottle as they didn't bring their own. Both only use/take one bottle. So why is the person who didn't use it in the hotel stealing?

If you take a whole box off the housekeepers trolley then of course it is stealing. But if the hotel provide them in the room it is part of the price of your stay. Some hotels I've been in are quite stingy and don't provide more unless they can see the old bottle is almost gone, other hotels I've been in gave a new bottle every other day and I ended up with loads of shampoo I wasn't using!

florere

I think it is unethical, they were put there for your convenience not a gift, if I saw them for sale on e bay it would put me off using the vendor for other things, not quiet honest. I don't take them myself, I pefer to use my own stuff.

JayD

I feel that the toiletry items have been paid for by the guests and there is no problem taking them away with you, so I see nothing then morally wrong with then selling them on.

However, selling these items on ebay seems rather penny pinching to me - and seriously, the seller fees, paypal fees and postage - not to mention the packaging you will need to use and the huge amount of time that would be involved in listing, packing and posting - surely cannot make it worth your while.

So on business sense grounds I would say - it is just not worth it.

On moral grounds I would say - just what are your personal values if you would want to spend your time on such a petty pastime?

stork_2

Philosopher2014 wrote: »

Complimentary hotel goods given to you are your property.

Not necessarily. It depends on the terms under which the goods are 'given'. There may be an implied (or even an express) term of the contract to the effect that the items are provided as a courtesy for your use during your stay, rather than to take away. It may be that the goods never become your property.

Obviously some people think it's worth their while collecting this sort of stuff and selling it on. But if they're doing it regularly, it's probably a business, so they need to make sure that they register to pay tax on their profits and comply with distance selling regulations and cosmetic safety regulations -- possibly also taking product liability insurance.

Do you also take the spare toilet rolls and sell them on an auction site?

System

hellienellie wrote: »

Please don't ever is it our house !!!!!!!

Sorry? I can't understand what you are trying to say.