I found a passport in the middle of a rather busy intersection on my way home tonight. I picked it up and when I got home I looked up the person. They are local and just based on the hits I saw, I don’t see any reason to be concerned if I contact them. But I have no idea how to contact them. I’m not on Facebook, twitter, couchsurfing, or any of the other social media platforms they are on. There is no contact information that I can find on the slim parts of the profiles I can find for him.
How do I contact this guy? Should I just hand the passport over to the police and let them deal with it?
How would that work? At least in the USA, your passport has no address. Also, in the USA, passports are valid for ten years so even if they could look up where you last applied for it, that information could be way out of date.
For the OP, do you have a local online group? For example, in Chicago, we have Everyblock. Or,just ask someone that’s on facebook to message the owner of the passport.
I assume it is a passport from the country you live in, otherwise a lost passport can be a serious emergency if it is from another country and I’d contact the police immediately as well as the embassy or consulate of that country.
It is a US passport and I’m in the US. The guy appears to be local.
I’ve contacted a couple of friends to see if they can contact the person.
The only thing that gives me pause is that the passport looks really weathered. But… it is rather wet in the Northwest and I suppose this could have been out in the rain all day. It just looks more beat up than just 1 day out in the rain.
It’s unlikely he would have been able reapply at night. If he even knows he lost it.
I’m with those who say turn it over to the cops. Why is that “more work”, or “more work” than what? Call the cops and have them come by your house and pick it up if you can’t make it to the police station.
Besides the reasons the others gave, I would strongly recommend you not do this. A passport is a particularly powerful piece of identification - if the wrong person got a hold of it, they could perform all sorts of identity theft mischief.
Best to send it to the address I’ve given above, unless you’re really confident you’ve got the right person. A matching photo on Facebook, and an not-common name, at minimum, is what I’d go with.
Instead you’d rather spend your time asking for opinions on a message board and farting around with social media instead of taking appropriate action to make sure that it gets to the right person. Either mail it to the address given above, or get off your butt and take it to the police.
What part of Mayberry County do you folks live in that the police would come by and pick up a found item, would send it to the proper Dept. of State address, or would attempt to track down the owner?
I’m curious whether you’ve tried looking in the phone book—or it’s online equivalent—and just calling the guy?
Apparently it had been lost for awhile, OP said it looked pretty trashed. That is why I said toss it. But, whatever, the average Joe would have stepped over it. He didn’t have to pick it up. I would not be concerned at all about it. That’s just me. Do what you will.
Lost passports are not a police matter. Stolen ones, maybe, on a slow day. And the police coming to your house to pick it up? I can’t see it happening.
There’s no way to know if the passport was lost versus stolen. If you found a bag of money on the street, would you assume it was merely lost and that no criminal activity could possibly be involved? Likewise, finding a passport on the street doesn’t tell you how it got there; maybe an inept crook dropped it after a mugging. Moreover, by turning it in, you could possibly be PREVENTING a crime by turning it in to the authorities before it fell into “the wrong hands.”
I would not expect the police to swing by my house and pick up the passport I’d found. But I’d certainly think I could pick up the phone, call the non-emergency number for the cops, and say, “I found a passport on the street. What should I do?”