A thief steals $100, then makes the shop owner hand over even more. He returns the stolen bill to buy $70 in goods and pockets $30 in change, leaving a deceptively simple question behind. Before you add everything together, look closely at what actually leaves the store, because one very tempting calculation hides the crucial part of the tru…
The shop owner’s total loss is $100—not $170 or $200. The confusion comes from treating the theft and the purchase as separate losses without accounting for the bill’s return.
Initially, the register is short $100. When the man spends that same bill, those missing dollars come back. But the owner then hands him $30 in change and merchandise valued at $70. By the end, the register contains $30 less than it originally held, and the shop’s inventory is missing $70 worth of goods.
The clearest way to check the answer is to consider the thief’s haul: $70 in merchandise plus $30 in cash.
He leaves with $100 in value that belonged to the business. Counting the original stolen bill on top of those items would count the same loss twice. The transaction creates a distraction, but the final balance tells the story: the owner is out exactly $100.
