Have you ever lost anything important, only to have kind strangers return it to you?
I lost my wallet once. The day after I lost it, I got a phone call from some people who said they’d found it lying in the ground next to a sidewalk on a street I walk every day. The cash was gone, but all my credit cards and so forth were still there. (I canceled them anyway and got new account numbers, of course.) Perhaps they were the ones who took the cash, but they did go to the trouble of returning the wallet to me, so I mailed them some free movie tickets from a local cinema.
I’m sure some of you have some even better stories about lost and returned items.
my check book (with all checks there) was returned to me once.
Another time, I’d found a class ring (you know, those overpriced things that have all sorts of sentimental feelings??), I managed to locate the school (no small task), and contact some one there who was able to figure out to whom it belonged, and returned it. I would have done this anyhow, but was using it as a ‘learning’ experience for my son (who was about 6 at the time).
a few days after I’d mailed off the ring to the young woman, I got a phone call out of the blue, asking if I knew some one by the name “Louis” mylastname. why yes, I do- my grandfather. Seems they’d found a little gold medallion my dad had fashioned for my grandparents for their golden anniversary, and they called all (who are we kidding, there were maybe 3 listings for my last name and one for my grand ma’s) in the phone book seeing if they could match it up.
Well, yes and no. The credit-card insert (which contained my ID and assorted crap) in my wallet had fallen out in my backpack once and I accidentally dropped it in the mailbox along with some bills. It found its way back to me through the Postal Service - minus one credit card I borrowed from my folks (I was 18 at the time). I forgot I had it in there so I didn’t realize it was gone until the credit card company called to say it had been used suspiciously.
A couple weeks ago I found a wallet containing cash and credit cards while walking my son to his bus stop. So I picked it up and looked at the ID - suburban address, so I spent some time trying to find the phone number at that address, couldn’t find it, and found out in a roundabout way that she had moved to a place a block away from my house. Called her there - she didn’t know she lost her wallet at all. She asked if there was cash in it, which I confirmed. We agreed that she would stop by my house to pick it up. When she did, she said simply: “Oh, thanks.” and left.
Umm…I dunno, I think I’d be a lot more gushy. Whatever, at least my son learned a convenient little moral lesson.
Don’t know if this counts, but I got my wallet picked from my pocket at a street fair. The thief was kind enough to drop it in the mailbox after he took the cash. At the time I was 18 and had no credit cards, so cash and my license were the only things in it anyway.
I’ve been saved by strangers in a series of near-disaster.
Most recently, I walked away from the ATM with my card still in it (doh!). Thankfully someone ran down the street to return it.
The worst near miss was when I almost lost my moneybelt. I was on a month long trip in Europe. I put everything I needed in my moneybelt, and did not let that belt leave my sight. It had literally everything in it: passport, credit cards, travelers’ checks, train tickets, plane tickets, several hundred dollars US cash…
I was taking a shower in a gungey Barcelona hostel, and I draped the belt over the shower head so that I could keep an eye on it while I bathed. Stupid, stupid me finished my shower and walked out without it. Luckly, a fellow traveler returned it almost instantly. I don’t know what I would have done if she had taken it!
I lost my wallet a few weeks ago, and the woman who found it called my emergency contact number on the organ donor card. A long distance call, too. My contact got a hold of me and I went to her house to get my wallet. Nothing missing. I guess I should have sent her flowers or something.
My ex-fiancée had his wallet stolen in Arizona once, and the thief dropped it off at the lost and found in Disneyworld, Florida. The Disneyworld people mailed it to him. No cash left, but some pictures and sentimental notes he mourned loosing were still there.
I’ve never found a whole wallet, but I’ve found 2 drivers’ licenses and several ATM cards. The licenses got mailed to the addresses and the ATM cards dropped at the bank if the owner wasn’t in sight.
Yeah, I had my wallet stolen from my gym locker in high school, the police returned it to me 5 years later, it had just been discovered lying in the grass behind some bar.
Seems to be a lot of wallet stories in this thread.
A wallet (no cash, no cards) once, and a class ring.
I once found a very expensive custom knife at a RenFair, and returned it to the maker (I recognized his work), whom got it back to the purchaser. The knive’s owner sent me a pair of tickets to the next year’s fair.
Someone returned my mobile phone back to me. I dropped it at university, and as soon as I got home that day, rang the service providers to temporarily freeze my phone (even though it had been turned off before I’d lost it). I was upset because I still had half a year left on my contract, ($50 a month) had stored around 150 phone numbers and practically lived out of my phone.
The girl who found it went to my university, and because the phone was off, couldn’t ring me. So what she did was open the back of my phone and check the SIMcard, then ring my service provider to see who had the number on the back. I was so surprised and so incredibly grateful that a complete stranger would have done that for me.
My ex returned a shirt to me, 5 years after I left it at his house. He’d always denied having it, although I was sure it was there. He finally found it when he cleaned up his room - ew! This is the same guy who couldn’t get into his bedroom through the door at one point in high school. He had to enter and leave through his window, as there was too much junk piled up, and his door wouldn’t open.
I used to carry my wallet around in my back pocket like a guy (never liked purses much…), until it fell out on a ferry to Galveston.
I spent the weekend there with absolutely no money, but a few weeks later the “Island of Galveston” itself mailed it back to me, minus the cash. Weird.
I got a purse after that–still using the same wallet!
My cat…he fled the scene when I got in a car accident and was missing for three weeks. A kind teenage girl eventually took him in and called when she saw my posters. She refused to take my reward money.
I guess an old cat isn’t as valuable as a wallet to a stranger, but I was touched. >sniff<
I lost my wallet somewhere some night I’d been drinking. Went back to a few of the places I’d been, couldn’t find it.
Did the “cancel everything” routine, and moved on with life.
About 5 weeks later, I receive a envelope in mail somewhat bulky.
Open it up to find…drum roll please…
Everything from my wallet…EXCEPT THE WALLET itself. I mean, they mailed back the cash (???). All the credit cards. The little notes and old receipts. Everything.
Just not the wallet.
Bummer was the wallet was a gift from a girlfriend, purchased while I was living abroad. Kinda wanted the wallet back, actually.
2 years ago I was swimming about 300m out on a beach, when a wave knocked off my glasses. After stumbling back to shore, I left a note at the top of the trail with my phone number.
The next day a guy calls to tell me he found my specs half-buried in sand while scouring the beach at low tide. One of five pairs he found that week!
Last week I was running around the company, taking pictures of furniture with our digital camera. About halfway, though, I realized I left the lens cap… some where.
When I came in to the office yesterday, some one left the lens cap sitting on my keyboard.
Usually, when I lose something it’s gone forever, so even though this is stupid… hey! Someone returned something at least once!
