If you did the best that you can do, then there’s nothing left to do.
A friend of mine had her cell phone stolen from work, it was on camera so she knows someone walked into the back room and grabbed it from a counter. Later on that night she tried calling it. The other person actually answered and had the balls to tell her she wanted $50 for it. My friend, thinking on her feet said “Ok, meet me at Subway (where she works, where the phone was stolen from) tomorrow at 5:00” The other girl shows up, phone in hand and asks for her $50…
Friend: Yeah, I’m not going to give you the $50, besides the phone is already turned off and reported as stolen, also you were on camera taking it.
Other Girl: Well, how about a $15 finders fee so I have bus fare to get home?
Friend, eyes rolled way back in head: I’m sure the cops will give you a ride home, I told them to meet me here at the same time I told you to come down.
Yeah, people is dum.
She left the phone and took off, cops never actually showed up, but they were called. I’m sure she just walked in to the next fast food place, grabbed a phone and waited for someone to call. I wonder how often this actually works.
I wouldn’t go to the bother and expense of changing all your cards now. Just go buy yourself some groceries! Just the thought of a household with empty shelves in the pantry and just crackers and applesauce makes me sad! And can we use this thread as an example the next time a thread starts about people not carrying cash? The electronic stuff kind of failed here, even with out the grid going down! That jar of coins saved you!
Well, I always have my body.
You’re right. I should keep some real cash stowed away somewhere, for occassions like this.
Keeping some food in the fridge isn’t a bad idea either. Might obviate the need for fast food cash, you know?
Shaddup, you.
There are some astoundingly stupid people out there, and many of them will try to work some sort of scheme, because they don’t realize that they’re stupid. It’s called the Dunning Kruger Effect.
Do you think $5 would have been preferable to the handmade gift that the OP gave the GS?
Wait, how does the wallet finder-scammer anticipate being able to find a cell phone to boost quickly enough that she can extract the phone number, write it on a note, and put the note on the windshield before the owner drives the car away? Or comes out to look for the wallet in the car? The only way I can parse what happened is that the bona fide Good Samaritan found the wallet, and wrote the note with her bona fide phone number.
P.S. monstro, I’m happy that you got your wallet back. I’m not the boss of you, so please don’t take this as me giving you an order, but if I were in your position, my ability to sleep at night would require that I go on with my life as though I had had an encounter with a real-life Good Samaritan, and not with an identity thief.
monstro, I would like any of those flower pots way better than $5. Those are pretty cool!
Personally? Yes. But I’m not the GS in the OP. She might have walked away feeling really good about herself or she might have walked away, slightly disappointed that she didn’t get any cash reward for her efforts.
This thread reminds me a bit of this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=572013&highlight=reward
A headline I like to see -> Lady returns lost wallet, grateful owner decides not to cancel credit cards.
That Denver story is interesting, beware of the good samaritan!
I once had my wallet stolen then returned to me in an odd fashion. It was stolen and or dropped by me, then stolen. I lost it between between the lotto counter and my car. Immediatley I retraced my steps, alerted the store(who didn’t care) had them check the lost and found, then called my spouse who cancelled the cards.
About seven days later, the day I waited in line at the DMV for my new license, the post office called and asked me to identify a wallet. They found it in the mailbox outside the PO. I picked it up, it was completely intact, even the small change was left in it, everything.
I don’t think they even tried to use the cards, maybe they did and got nothing. It was still a big hassle for me, but I got that ugly green wallet back when I thought I would never see it again!
Oh, monstro, those pots are gorgeous! The glass ones are beautifully made but I especially like the mosaic ones at the bottom of the page.
Don’t feel bad about not having cash. You gave what you had. Expecting more than that is unreasonable. That would be true even if the pots weren’t so special.
A real-life Good Samaritan would refuse any reward.
Maybe I’m missing something. It sounds to me like the Samaritan found your wallet beside your car, took the wallet to the other side of town, then accepted a reward for the trouble of driving back to your place? Sounds to me like she was panning for gold.
Oh, dear. I meant to say that personally I’d rather have the pots than the $5. In re-reading, I said the opposite. Sorry for the unintended insult, monstro.
That’s what it sounds like to me, too. Yeah, it’s nice to offer a reward, but returning lost property shouldn’t be done in the expectations of getting something for it.
I managed to drop my wallet outside a friend’s townhouse. Five minutes later, a guy that had been hanging out near a doorway of another townhouse rang the doorbell and asked to see me. Clearly, he’d seen me drop the wallet. I thanked him and accepted the wallet. Then he said that the Lord would bless me if I gave him something for his effort. I said, well, no, the Lord would have blessed him if he had just done the good deed, and quoted a few Bible verses at him about how one is supposed to be kind to one’s brothers and sisters, and I gave him all the money that was in the wallet, about $1.50. I told him that was ALL the money I had until two more days, and that I’d planned to buy some milk for my daughter, but if his conscious could let him accept that money, that he could have it. And yeah, he took the money, and asked if I could write a post dated check. And he asked if my friends had any money. As it happens, none of us did have any cash.
I don’t know how many hundreds of dollars I’ve returned, but if I lose money, I accept that it’s pretty much gone. I wish that karma DID work, because I am owed quite a bit. And I’ve always refused rewards.
ETA: I just looked at the flower pots, and those are DEFINITELY worth more than five bucks. Gorgeous!
Speaking as a wallet returner on more than one occasion, a gift, such as the handmade flower pot, would be rude to refuse. I would never expect anything for doing the right thing, but I would feel uncomfortable turning down a small gift. Cash smacks of a reward, and unless you brought back a bag of cash that fell off a truck to a corporation, it would be inappropriate to accept.
What did you expect her to do with the wallet? Put it on the hood of the car for someone dishonest to steal? Unless the OP has a private mail slot, taking it with you would seem to be the best approach.
If you are far from home and you find a wallet and information in the wallet indicates that the car you are standing beside belongs to the same person AND the car is in front of that person’s house then yes, I would suggest you leave the wallet on the car or, better still, walk up to the house and knock on the door.
Where did it say she was “far from home”? Monstro said it took her 10 minutes to get there.
Was Monstro’s vehicle registration in the wallet? I missed that. I thought the wallet was found next to the car and the person who found it thought that leaving a note on the car would be the best and most logical place to start.
I don’t know where you live, but where I live, it’s very rare to get a spot in front of your building. I would presume that anyone parked in front of my building lives within a 5 or 6 block radius or is visiting someone within that radius, but that’s about it. And a lot of people don’t update their license or state ID every time they move. I know many people in their 20’s that leave their parents address on their license because it’s a permanent address.
You must live in a very honest neighborhood to feel safe leaving a wallet on a car.