Old discussions of similar, but not identical, ethical and legal issues:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=474613

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7798

No offense, but a person who "work(s) for a retailer of high ticket items" will not know everything about what gets flagged as possible fraud. This is 2006. There are various scams related to high-ticket returns (and no, I am not going to say what those scams are) and there are things that can get a person flagged as a possible thief. If a person established a pattern of doing this, imagine that person trying to justify to someone why he was doing it, and what his real purpose was, and why he was just a goober and not a thief.

Even if a person's moral compass is off-kilter and the person doesn't see anything wrong with doing this, it's an absurdly silly thing to do.