Energizer Hearing Aid Batteries vs. Immorality

Energizer is giving away FREE hearing aid a CI batteries. That's right -- FREE batteries. No catch. You go to http://offers.energizer.com/perfpack/ and sign up to receive your pack of free batteries. You can even choose which kind you need. But it is supposed to be a one pack per person giveaway. On a listserv in which I participate it was suggested that one use other family members or friends to sign up for a free pack and then give the free pack to you. Following that suggestion was a comment that it was immoral. Following THAT comment was the following comment:

"Actually, trying to take advantage of the battery company fits in pretty well with what I read on here. People looking for every benefit available, trying to force other people to do things for our benefit at their expense...."

I had to respond to that last one:

Hmmm, interesting. My husband and I recently had a rather long
discussion of what is considered reasonable accommodation.

Truth is: everyone does what is in their own best interests. People
who advocate for the disabled generally are either disabled
themselves, or are close to someone who is -- either family or
friends.

No one just out of the blue decides to advocate for the disabled. That would be crazy -- because of course there is a cost to doing that.

My shul for instance: We are building a new shul. We are required to
make it wheelchair accessible. That adds a real cost to our budget.
Never mind that there is no on in the membership who is in a
wheelchair, right? (Wrong, but I am just playing devil's advocate here -- yeah, I am advocating for him of all people!).

And the mechitza (the divider between the men's' and women's' (sections) must accommodate hearing impaired women who need to see in
order to hear -- never mind the fact that there is only ONE person who
actually needs that.

I could go on. NO ONE would ever consider making their business,
home, or public space 100% accessible to all people -- it is not
do-able -- unless it is mandated. The ADA pretty much took care of
that but not wholly -- some of its wording is too ambiguous -- and
there are loopholes for organizations to take advantage of. And, as
discussed in previous posts, the smaller "mom and pop' places are
exempt due to the prohibitive cost of making their places accessible.

But is this comparable to finding a way around the giveaway of free
batteries, intended to be one pack per person? Nah. To be sure, the
manipulation of the system to get more than one pack per person IS
unethical. Immoral? No. Unethical? Yes. Perhaps I am splitting
hairs, but there IS a difference.

Comments, anyone?

(01/01/2008 Update: Energizer was contacted with regard to this promo and stated that it is NOT meant to be 1 pack per person. One may sign up for a free pack as many times as one wishes, as long as one waits 24 hours between sign ups! So, no one is taking advantage of anyone here...)