I’m curious about the laws and/or general practices regarding a store’s responsibility to keep items that customers have accidentally left in the store. I’m in NJ.
Note that I do not want this store to change its policy.
I help run a Pokemon league at a local game/comic store. Occasionally, we find that someone has left cards and such in the league area. If we can’t figure out who they might belong to, the store owner puts them in the lost-and-found closet.
One day, when they opened the closet, I started idly nosing around and seeing what happened to be there. I joked that they should give the cards to me. The store owner laughed and said that she wished they could, but they HAD to hold on to them, implying that it was a law.
So are there laws to this effect? Obviously that type of store would want to hang on to people’s lost cards for a long time in the name of customer relations, but what about some type of other store? How long would they have to keep, say, a lost pair of sunglasses?
He was probably referring to a New Jersey escheatment law. Most states have escheatment laws governing unclaimed property of others that businesses have. Most commonly these laws refer to financial institutions and their customer’s abandoned bank accounts, uncashed cashier’s checks, etc. Most states require that businesses turn this property over to the state after 7 years, and then the state treasurer, makes additional efforts to find their owners. As these laws typically related to financial accounts, and not personal property, I am unsure what your friend was referring to, but a google search did turn up a document regarding unclaimed personal property laws for New Jersey.
I’m not sure about actual law, but at my store, for things like sunglasses, gloves, keys etc… We hang on to them for a week or two and then they get tossed. For credit cards I wait about an hour or so* and then look up the person’s name, if I can find it, and there aren’t 10 people with the same name in the area I’ll call them, if they can identify the card, they can come and pick it up. Purses (and rarely wallets) I wait about an hour or so* then I’ll open it up and try to find an ID and go from there.
*I usually try to wait and hope that they call me first for two reasons. 1)It’s slightly less intrusive feeling to them and 2)I’d hate to start some weird domestic thing. “You left your credit card where? How many times have I told you to put it back right away?” or “What were you doing all the way on that side of town?/Why’d you lie about what store you were going to?” For this same reason I’ll rarely tell a husband why I’m calling, I just leave a message or try back later. I know, it’s silly. But it’s just what I do.
I don’t know about laws, but Disney World has a store called Property Control where they sell various things including unclaimed lost and found items. My dad works very part-time at DW, and he and my mom go there sometimes. They have bins of sunglasses that have been found in the parks, as well as shoes, T-shirts, and other stuff like that. I’m guessing, then, that in Florida it is legal to sell this stuff after it’s been unclaimed for a certain period of time. Property Control also sells damaged products sold in regular DW stores as well as furniture from remodeled hotels and so on.