FOUND

[Funk]

Tonight after class (I attend a small Michigan college) I was walking to my car in the parking lot and noticed a car key lying on the ground. I walked passed it, and then it clicked in my brain that maybe I should pick it up and take it to Campus Safety where the lost and found is located.

So I walked the 1/8 mile in the 50 degree Farenheit air (I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and shivered the whole way) to return the key there, and the person there took it and thanked me for dropping it off. Then I walked all the way back and took off.

My question is: would you have done the same? Personally, I would expect the same courtesy from my fellow persons. In the case of money, if I found between $1-$5 on the ground I would probably keep it because I wouldn't expect someone to seek out such a trivial amount of cash that they lost. But $10+ I would probably return to lost and found.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: FOUND

I once found $12 in the public pool's changing room. I kept it only because I knew all the guys working at the pool that year, and every one of them would have kept it themselves.

I also found $20 on the ground very near the same pool when I was walking up to that pool. I went to the arcade instead.

Nowadays, I feel the burn when I've lost a significant portion of my income, so if I find extra money, I turn it in at the appropriate location. Never once have I gotten the call saying no one claimed it, and I've turned in money several times.

I've also turned in car keys, wallets (with cash and credit cards), bank books, etc.

I'm a good citizen!

[RPGD]

Re: FOUND

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: FOUND

I would've returned it. I wouldn't know which car to choose.

[Funk]

Re: FOUND

There were no cars near the key anyway. I knew it belongs to a Dodge, though.

[HolyPhoenix]

Re: FOUND

I would have done the same thing as you. It is the right thing to do and you don't feel as guilty.

Which reminds me if I find out who stole my $10 at school I am going to make them suffer. Who knows how(I will think of a way though). It was probably a stupid freshman.

But yeah that was deffinatley the right thing. Maybe it was an extra key they had incase they locked there other key in the car. Or maybe someone was testing people to see what they would do with a key if they found one.

[RPGD]

Re: FOUND

So as to actually contribute to this topic, I always feel uncomfortable when I find cash ammounting to over ten dollars lying on the ground or other things of value. Should I find such, I take it to the closest police station/lost and found as soon as I can.

However, oddly enough, I feel even more uncomfortable when I find litter scattered abouts, and get annoyed when a companion of mine tries to toss things like bottles or tissues out the window whilst in the car. There's a reason we've bins; to keep our cities from looking like pig sties... and smelling like them, too.

[TheHonorableRyu]

Re: FOUND

I found a wallet with $80 cash plus credit cards at a Papa John's two days before the end of my first year of college.

The strange thing was that I saw the owner ten minutes before I found the wallet. He and two others were laughing it up while waiting for a pizza and I spotted a wallet at the same spot they were sitting ten minutes after they left. (The wallet contained a student ID that matched one of them).

I did everything I could to try to contact the owner (having his name and picture but no contact information) before I left the dorms. I actually ran into two police officers on the way back from Papa John's, and I asked if I should turn it into the police station, but they recommended that I turn it into the campus lost and found instead (of which I was quite a bit leery). I sent an email with my contact information to the university standard Firstname+Lastname@asu.edu address in hopes that he used that account. It turned out that he would return a desperate and grateful email a few days after I gave up and turned it into the campus lost and found (I wanted to ensure that he got it by giving it to him personally, but I had to leave). He went to the lost and found upon my instructions and found no wallet with $80. Whoever was at the station had stolen the money and discarded the wallet.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: FOUND

@TheHonorableRyu: that is good of you, i would of aranged to visit him personaly becuase thats alot of cash. it sucks that people are that horrible though, id of left it with someone important, not a lost and foundbox.

[TheHonorableRyu]

Re: FOUND

Yah, I was trying to arrange a personal meeting for that very reason, but I had to leave the city before he contacted me back. So I had to leave it with the lost and found, or take the wallet with me into another city. But, as one who typically faults towards hidden vigilante justice, I did still feel unbecomingly naive.

[Nixon]

Re: FOUND

One time, during a trip to Dallas, I stopped at some little hick town's only gas station. When I walked into the bathroom, I noticed a huge wad of money sitting on the back of the toilet. I looked at it, but didn't touch it. Looked to be about $500+. I went about my business, washed my hands and then picked up the cash, carrying it behind me in one hand while I peeked out of the bathroom. I looked around and tried to search for the female that might have lost it.

No more than 20 seconds later, a very distressed girl comes up to me and asks if I found any money in the bathroom. She said she left it on the back of the toilet while counting the money she had for her trip. I smile, tell her I found it and hand it over. She couldn't believe it. She thanked me several times and told me that this was all the money she had to travel with, and that she was trying to get back to California, where her family lived.

[Jamos' Old Account]

Re: FOUND

One time, during a trip to Dallas, I stopped at some little hick town's only gas station. When I walked into the bathroom, I noticed a huge wad of money sitting on the back of the toilet. I looked at it, but didn't touch it. Looked to be about $500+. I went about my business, washed my hands and then picked up the cash, carrying it behind me in one hand while I peeked out of the bathroom. I looked around and tried to search for the female that might have lost it.

No more than 20 seconds later, a very distressed girl comes up to me and asks if I found any money in the bathroom. She said she left it on the back of the toilet while counting the money she had for her trip. I smile, tell her I found it and hand it over. She couldn't believe it. She thanked me several times and told me that this was all the money she had to travel with, and that she was trying to get back to California, where her family lived.

Dude, I bet she was distressed. I have family there too and some of them are quite sickly. If I lost all the money I had to join them, I would be panicing!
If I was in your shoes, though, I would have seriously considered keeping the money... until something inside me forces me to return it. Does this make me a bad person?

[IRC]

Re: FOUND

One time I found a wallet with five hundred bucks in it at HEB. I kept it. If it's money then it's fair game. But people are leaving stuff behind at my work all the time and I usually will send out emails to people about stuff they've lost. I'd rather bite the bullet on twenty bucks than the flash drive that holds all my papers for school.

[Nixon]

Re: FOUND

I was tempted to keep the money I found in the bathroom, since it was the largest amount of money I'd ever seen. But then I thought about how bad the person who lost it must feel, and how bad I would feel if I just took it.

I did, however, grab a $10 bill from the floor, right before this HEB clerk tried to do the same thing (I knew the guy, he would've kept it too). I looked at him as I picked it up and loudly declared "YOINK!" at which point he knew it was legally mine.

[Jamos' Old Account]

Re: FOUND

Oh good, its not just me.