Saw somebody drop a wad of cash in the middle of the city in front of me & about 10 other people everybody else just gauked & were confused I picked up the wad of cash (about $500 ) & ran up to the bloke & handed it to him I dropped a wad of cash in front of the Palace in St.kilda getting out of a cab The girl on the front desk noticed it & picked it up She came inside asking if anybody had dropped their cash Got it all back
Yup I don't know, twisted moral compass. If it is loose cash in smaller amount and If I have no idea who it came from(in a bush on the side of the road) I would keep it. If it is a handbag worth $20 I would return it. Money in personal property I would return it for example a money clip. If I saw a $1000 dollar vase at a thrift store for $5 I would buy it. If I found $1000 cash in a thrift store I would report it. Its all situational to me and I'm not saying its right and may not make much sense. Oh well. For somereason keeping found money doesn't seem like a big deal in small amounts. $5 does belong to someone but the chances and hastle of it getting back to them are too much and it would not hurt them financially.$100 would suck bad to lose but would teach you to pay attention to how you keep your money. $10,000 or a stack of silver could be detrimental to someone if they lost it(not sure how you pull that off though). It goes all the way down to if you would report and return a quarter you found at safeway/coles...clearly belonged to someone at somepoint
Few years back, I found opposite a hardware store car park a wallet with $1250 dollars in it. Yes, full set of ID cards were as well. Once reading the address on the Drivers Lic., I realized it was closed to my place, so I did my shopping at the hardware store( as I was renovating and did not bother to clean myself properly). Once at the house doorstep, the owner opened the door and I explained the situation, he took the wallet and the first thing he did was to count the money and check the credit cards, plus the look he gave me. the bastard, like I was a thief or waiting for a reward, not even a THANK YOU!, I guess he was in shock, and I was upset for the way he looked at me, a humble working guy!! Anyway, I got home, explained the Boss-the wife- and she gave a kiss. THE END
I used to work at walmart a long time ago and have done the same thing. Find a wallet and on the way to bringing to customer service I run into the owner. "Here you go sir, I found this in my department you must have dropped it" first thing first is always counting the money and looking at you as if you snaked it from them. The worst time I found a wallet in the parking lot and returned it, the money had been removed and the wallet was left where I found it. The guy was blaming me for the theft. Other times people are extremely gratefull too though. I saw people all the time with just a wad of cash in thier back pocket about to fall out and would warn them. People need to learn how to properly carry thier cash.
All very true, but as things get worse then the advantage of community and cooperation will be increasingly critical. Maybe all our reasoning breaks down at some point. For an extreme example I found the following. I doubt any of us would hesitate for one second to take a stash in the following example. As the author says of his experience: "But there were also many normal men, like you and me, fathers and grandfathers, who killed and robbed. There were no "good" and "bad" men." Much more in source: http://www.silverdoctors.com/one-year-in-hellsurviving-a-full-shtf-collapse-in-bosnia/
so we can conclude that.. if there we dont know who is the owner of the cash/gold then we can keep it ? back to the topic again: GP make a good point, then he would left a note, that he got your stash, but how long are we keeping it for ? what if those stash becomes a storage problem ? or you need some money, and need to sell those gold coins ?
when I was a young fella many moons ago sitting out front of the caf in the middle of bloody nowhere down on my luck , truckie stoped jumped out dropped his wallet was so fat with notes could have partied for months, by the way he didn't know and by the time he did I would have been long gone, I picked it up and gave it back to him, he just grunted and went on ordering his food. still to this day I wonder if I had have known is attitude prior would I have given it to him its hypothetical I know and the answer well still not sure
I used to look after several buildings along the waterfront in Brisbane & would have valuables handed in all the time, (most people make it very hard to track them down). I would be tasked with the job as the others would simply just want to turn it over to the police because it was all to hard. 99% of the time I managed to contact the owner or someone who knew the owner & would have them contact me. I normally found the more cash in a wallet or purse the less grateful the owner was to have it returned to them. The most grateful bloke I ever came across had less than $10.00 in it but as he explained it had great sentimental value as it was his fathers & pass onto him from his mother when his dad pass on. Those kind of people keep you going on the right track, the others who just grunt at you & couldn't care less what pains you went to tracking them down almost made you want to say stuff it drop it in the lost & found box, if it's still their in a week drop it off at the police station with all the other unclaimed crap. One guy visiting from the USA had over 5 grand in his & he was just a grunter.
there are people in New York who make a living walking the streets picking up bits of gold in the cracks in the sidewalk to use the US term.
Baby boomer!? Nope, I am the generation after them, Gen X. Which pretty much makes the rest of your rant invalid, if it wasn't already right off the deep end to begin with. I am not sure where you heard about the high level of education needed to be a cleaner, you don't need any experience to push a mop around, I used to do it from time to time when I worked for a temp agency. If anyone told you that you don't have the right qualifications or experience to work as a cleaner for them I suspect they were just politely telling you that they didn't want you to work for them. I think I was quite clear about what I would do if I found a stash, it doesn't involve the government either.
When I was fresh out of high school and working at Walmart (shitty job, even shittier pay, but then again I've never had anything given to me for free so I take what I can get) I learned that as soon as money touches the floor in a Walmart building, it is then Walmart's personal property. I was walking with a girl near the end of a shift and found $60 on the ground, I split it with her. It would have been instant termination for picking up found money and not turning it in, which, if I did turn in, Walmart would not return to the owner, even if they knew 100% who it belonged to, they keep it anyway. Because apparently the Waltons need every last penny they can get! It's a finder's keeper's world we live in now. I wish it wasn't that way. I do have ethics too ya know, but I've been robbed three times. You cannot trust anyone anymore. I wish there was more honesty in the world, but as it is, you've gotta play the game their way if you ever expect to win.
I like the message in the bottle idea. I think I might leave a message saying that the stash had been turned in to the local police and actually take it there. I do know in the case of abandoned wealth, the police will call you up after a certain time and tell you to come and take it away. If the previous owner does show up at the station and the police can actually remember then they may contact you, in which case I may attempt to return what I could of his stash...via the police. I would not wish to meet the person. This gives you protection from ungrateful or angry people and also the knowledge that you attempted to do the right thing.
