Not when you could have sold the TV for $10K. This is the shoplifting issue; the shop loses both the product and the potential profit on the product.

It gets a bit existential e.g. can you lose what you never really had? But even if you fall on the NO side of that, the cost of re-obtaining a product is not zero.

The cost of re-obtaining the product is $7k, which were already accounted for. Marginal administrative costs are negligible.

But the merchant is still down a TV. Those things aren't free.

Sure. I objected to the assertion that the merchant lost $17k, which is a gross exaggeration.

Like everyone else said, it's not exactly that. It's like getting paid $10k in exchange for a TV, then giving it back but not getting the TV back in return.