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Fatwa CenterBenefitting from discarded receipts to collect store points
Question
Assalaamu alaykum. My friend is not religous. He and I have a joint account with a store where we earn points for shopping there, these points then turn into money, and we can buy things using vouchers in the store. The problem I have is that my friend sometimes picks up the dropped receipts of people, and the owner of the receipt is unknown, so it is not known if the owner of the reciept dropped it intentionally or by accident, and sometimes the cashier would give me several reciepts of people. Again, I do not know if they left them there intentionally or by accident. I am unsure whether these points are halal now, because some were obtained using other peoples receipts after their purchase and I do not know if they dropped those receipts by accident, but my friend just picks them up and does not look for the owner of the receipt. Could you please advise me. May Allaah reward you.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
According to the Fiqh rules, anything whose owner discards because he no longer wants it, others are allowed to take and benefit from. Abu Al-Barakaat ibn Taymiyyah (the grandfather) wrote, "What people discard for not wanting it anymore becomes the property of whoever takes it." [Al-Muharrar]
As to whether these receipts were left intentionally or forgetfully by their owners, this cannot be established or negated by scholars. Rather, people who have experience in this regard can judge this, and circumstantial evidence and what people commonly do is to be looked at.
So if these receipts and the resulting earned points are not eagerly sought after by average people, then they are considered property whose ownership is legitimately obtained by taking it without having to announce it, even if the original owner dropped it unintentionally.
Another question remains: Does the store allow a person to benefit from the receipt of someone else? If the store does not allow it, then it is impermissible to benefit from it. The Prophet, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said, "The Muslims are bound by their conditions, except a condition that makes lawful what is unlawful or makes unlawful what is lawful." [At-Tirmithi: Hasan Saheeh (good or sound)]
The fact that the cashier gives someone the receipts of others does not necessarily mean that those receipts were left intentionally; however, it does indicate that the store does not forbid that someone benefits of the receipt of another.
Allah knows best.
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