I think the logical place to start is to look at the driver’s license (or state ID) for an address.
If you don’t have any better idea who the owner of the wallet is than a wild stab in the dark that maybe a nearby car just might happen to belong them then I can’t imagine why you would do anything with it. Leave it alone. Put it back where you found it.
If I saw a wallet on the ground, I wouldn’t assume it belonged to the car next to it. I’d just drop it off at a police station.
So, I think the general consensus from the dopers is that the woman stole a phone in order to carry out her plans of stealing a wallet. She then used that throwaway number as a means of holding a ransom of the wallet, a crime that could only be sated by the exchange of a glass pot for the ill-gained goods. Score one for the conwoman!
Seriously, people. I think I’d be happy at this point if you guys were looking for zebras instead of horses. You all need to put down the crack pipe and stop searching for centaurs.
I don’t think that the woman used a stolen phone. I think that she just didn’t realize that giving out her actual phone number would be traceable.
And I still say it’s a good idea to cancel the cards.
Right, because that is a lot more likely than her just being a innocent Good Samaritan. who could care less that the number is traceable.
If she was an innocent Good Samaritan, I think that she’d be a lot more likely to check the wallet for an address, and to return the wallet a great deal more promptly.
So you think it’s more likely that she’s a stupid, self-inconviencing criminal, but unlikely that she’s a Good Samaritan who had a brain fart? If she was on the way home and saw a wallet in the street, she might have considered it easier for her to pick it up, leave a note, and keep on driving rather than parking her car, searching out addresses, and knocking on doors to find someone who looked like the OP’s driver’s license picture.
I don’t see why it matters which is more likely. All that matters is that there is a possibility greater than many Dopers deem acceptable, so they advise doing something about it.
If my credit card was out of my hands for that long, I’d cancel it, too. Heck, I’ve done it before, even though I found my wallet exactly where I left it. Was it likely something happened to it? No. Was I making a judgment about anyone? No. I just found the level of risk to be higher than I was willing to accept.
To be immoral, the OP would have to actually tell the lady what she was doing. Otherwise, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt.
On the few occasions I’ve found a wallet I’ve been afraid to look through it for identification for fear that the owner would come back for it and think I’m in the process of stealing the contents. Or even other passers-by could be looking at me suspiciously. So I just carried it very obviously and non-invasively to the front lobby desk or wherever. I’m sure that’s just me being paranoid, though.