That is brazen. He didn’t even pretend he was going to turn it in. What a beacon of responsibility.
Anyway, it’s probably best to turn it in to the police station where it will be accounted for with forms and your contact information. Whoever claims it will also be recorded. It may still go missing at some point, but at least there would be a paper trail.
This. I’ve never understood why something that is immoral for small sums of money or when dealing with an individual suddenly become moral when dealing with large sums or a souless company.
I remember some years ago watching a professor at a business school talking about a case study. I forget the figures but it was, he said, a doughnut shop with Z invested in infrastructure selling Y in product every month at X cost of goods sold with W going for depreciation, taxes, etc. leaving V in the owner’s pocket. It came to about 2-1/2% annual ROI. “Was this a good investment?” he asked.
It did not take the class long to conclude that it was not. Then the professor said, "I lied. It is not a doughnut shop at all but Mobil oil. Multiply everything by 100,000. Suddenly it was a good investment after all. “Why? Does it make a difference if we’re talking about billions instead of thousands of dollars?”
If you want to keep the money, then keep the money, but don’t tell yourself it’s because otherwise a “multi-million $ company” gets it, even assuming it’s true.
I find money on the ground it’s going into my wallet immediately.
I find a wallet on the ground, it’s going to lost and found, with money intact.
I’m not sure I understand this. I would much rather own a company making 2-1/2% of billions of dollars then one making 10% or even 50% of 1000s of dollars. Am I missing something?
That’s just not true. Now if you’re talking a $10 or maybe a $20, well, how often would someone go up to the customer service desk to ask if anyone turned it in? But $100 starts to eat into someone’s grocery money for the week, or some old lady’s ability to buy food and groceries for the month. People might go looking for it.
Yep, and in those multi-million dollar companies, surveillance cameras are everywhere. I’m not saying they will track down a customer who pockets a bill they find on the floor, but it might be a different story for an employee. But as a customer, it’s still not your money. (Easy to say until faced with the real thing.)
Speaking as someone who works in a store - more often than you might think. There are many people for whom even $10 is a big deal, especially at a store that sells food and basic necessities.
Yes, we have cameras everywhere and yes, it is a different story if you’re an employee. We’re not going to challenge a customer who finds a $20 on the floor and pockets it, but an employee caught doing that will be in trouble.
Happened to me, $100 bill on the ground at the entrance of a store. I couldn’t believe it, looked around, no one nearby in the parking lot. I was just so astonished I turned around and walked back in the store and handed it to the nearest cashier, saying I’d just found it. He was like, “where?” and I pointed to the entrance and holy shit, there was *another *$100 bill. I picked it up and gave it to him as well.
Here’s the thing, it happened in the mid-90s, when the big head bills first came into circulation so I figured someone who lost that amount with the (at the time) distinctive look would be able to come back and describe it. Yes, I could have used the cash but I didn’t go through any big mental jujitsu whether it was mine to keep. When I got home, my friends laughed and said the cashier would probably just pocket the money and I should call the manager and at least give them my name if nobody claimed it. So I called the store manager and needless to say, it was news to him. No one ever contacted me but I left town a month later so who knows.
This happened at FISHER HAWAII, the warehouse store (which I loved, they had everything out on shelves and nothing was shrink-wrapped so you could buy *one *item if that’s all you needed. Was really dusty though, no air con) in Honolulu.
That’s fine if you invested when the company was a start up and for maybe a couple of million dollars you now own a company making tens of millions of dollars, but if you wanted to buy the billion dollar company today, it would surely cost you at least 10s of billions. Today, a 6-month treasury bill is yielding 2.11% and a 30-year is yielding 3.17% with virtually no risk. I’d prefer to invest in a bunch of companies giving me 10% or 50% and put the rest in Treasuries instead.
Even if I invested a relative pittance in a start up that is now worth tens of billions, I’d cash out now and buy the company earning the 10% or 50% and put the rest in Treasuries.
Be careful if you live in New York City. Despite various lawsuits, it looks like Operation Lucky Bag is not dead.
For those who do not know, this is a controversial sting operation started in 2006 by the New York City Police Department. The police leave money and other property laying around in public places and arrest people who pick it up and keep it.
So would the students; that was the whole point the professor was trying to make. A low ROI is a low ROI even if it puts more money in your pocket. Whether it’s Mobile or the neighborhood doughnut shop, you’re better off picking one with a greater return.
How is this not entrapment? If the bait cart was not there, I doubt the there were other carts available for arrestee to wheel away. Even a bait car in a parking lot is one of many unattended autos there; the bad guy just picked the wrong one to boost.
That does not involve picking up cash from the floor, but either taking cash *out *of a bag/wallet, or walking away with abandoned property such as backpacks or wallets. Not the same as the question in the OP.
I’d hand it over to the correct authority. In the same way I would hope someone else would if I’d lost it.
Game this out : what are the consequences if you :
a. Leave it on the ground. The person who found it might come back for it, or the next person to come along might pocket it
b. Turn it in to the store. Instead of making a person who might have a few thousand in the bank $100 richer (yourself unless you are rich), you’re making a multi-million dollar business $100 richer. Oh wow.
c. Pick it up, look around if there are any candidates in the immediate vicinity who might have plausibly dropped it. Make sure it’s actually a valid unit of currency and not a fake. If you can’t find someone who might have dropped it, just keep it.
Not an idiot: honest. But I would have gone to a manager and left my name, etc., and ask for aa receipt. Not because I hoped to get it back if unclaimed, but I’d figure that going through the steps would make it unlikely that a store employee would simply keep it
That’s trivial. The money’s value is to the one who lost it. The reason I care about the individual is because it hurts them. The reason I don’t care as much about the huge company is that it doesn’t hurt them. And who you hurt and how much is the underlying basis of my (and many people’s) morality.
This same logic informs how I support content creators online. I do not support the ones who have big companies backing them, or already have a huge cash flow. I support the smaller creators who really need the money. My money has much more value to them than it does to the others. It’s why a lying sob story is such an affront.
As for the students, I agree with them entirely. A small percentage on a large amount of money is worth more than a small percentage return on a smaller amount of money. To stretch it to the extremes: A 0.1% return on $1 billion is still $1 million, but a 0.1% return on $1 is a dime. Of course the first is a better investment.
That leaves out options, including the one already stated of not turning in the money, but still reporting it, and telling them to contact you if someone comes in and reports it.
Then there’s also turning the money over to charity, which can be done at first or after the previous option. If you can’t give it back to them, it makes some sense to at least help out the poor, since that person is $100 poorer. Maybe it will wind up helping them out a bit. Or, if not, maybe someone else giving to charity will help them.
But I do think you correctly explain why giving it over is not a good choice, because, while you can trust your own integrity, you can’t trust it in others. It’s better to keep control of the money so you can do the right thing.
Granted, I would not have thought of this had others not brought it up. So I don’t think the OP is stupid. But I do think the better solution is to not give it to anyone.
Though, if you’re actually really hard up for money, and you use it to help you survive, I wouldn’t see a problem with that, either. But I’m also the type who thinks stealing when you are genuinely hungry should not be a crime. It’s one of those Old Testament laws I like.
I would have found someone at a service desk, gave them my cell phone number, and said “If anyone inquires about some lost cash please have them give me a call.” I wouldn’t tell them how much it was and leave it up to the caller to supply the info.
Well, you could be up a hundred dollars. But my honesty and dignity is worth more than that. So is doing the right thing.
You should have bought bitcoins.