Question:
I was at an estate sale. This sale was for property owned by a Jew but the Jew hired a non-Jewish company to run the sale. Running the sale includes setting up the sale, setting prices for the items etc. There were two piles of jewelry at the sale, one pile was of jewelry that contained silver and the other was jewelry that did not contain the silver. The jewelry in the silver pile was set at a higher price than the ones in the non-silver pile. I bought several pieces of jewelry from the non-silver pile and was charged the non-silver price. When I got home, I noticed that one of the pieces was in fact marked silver. I asked a rav and was told that it is not considered taus akum even though the goyim are running the sale because it really belongs to a Jew. Because of this I went back and told the workers and they thanked me for my honesty and said it was fine and I did not need to pay more (I had previously gone back for a different mistake that they made which they also said was fine so this was really my second time back and they said it was fine both times). This brings me to today where I noticed that at least 2 more pieces were marked silver (and possibly even 1-2 more) and I was charged the non-silver price on them. At this point can I assume that they will be mochel because they already said it was fine 2 other times. If not what should I do, the sale is over and it will be difficult, if not impossible to track down the people that ran the sale.
Answer:
Hi,
Thanks for your question.
It doesn’t seem that you have to go back again. It is evident from the fact that the Jewish owner was not present to oversee what the workers were doing, that the owner is leaving it up to the discretion of the workers. Therefore if the workers told you twice regarding similar questions that it is fine and that you don’t have to pay any more, then you can assume that this is what they would have to you the next time. Therefore you can assume that this is being done with the consent of the owner and you don’t have to be concerned about it.
Best wishes
