Thanks for finding my purse, just help yourself to a reward (long and boring)

Apparently, my purse managed to sneak away from me at the grocery store last night without my knowledge. This morning I get a call from Citibank, asking me for my card. Sure thing, I says, and go down to the (locked) garage to retreive said pcard from said purse. Low and Behold - No Purse! “We know” says Citibank - this nice lady called and said she found your purse and therefore we are closing down this card, blah, blah, blah…
She then gave me the nice person’s phone number and address, whom I quickly called. I went on over the the nice lady’s place of employment and picked up my belongings. On the way over, I was thinking about a reward, as I knew I had at least $20 and change in there. I was hoping there was a bit more and finally decided to give her whatever cash I had for being such a nice lady.

I get there, meet the nice lady, she hands me my purse and I notice, while I am chattering away about how lucky I am and how nice she is, that she refuses to look at me. Hmmm. I open my purse to hand her some cash, and whaddayaknow, no cash. Again, I thank her profusely and go on about my merry way.

Hmmmm, I am thinking as I drive home. Hmmm.

I get home and start going through my purse, feeling slightly violated that someone else has been pawing through my belongings.
Now, nice lady said that the first thing she though of when she found it was to call the credit card company and tell them. Why? My checkbook was in there, my phone number is one the checks. My license is in there, my address is not but 2 miles from the nice lady’s home and I am listed. My address book is in there, my name and address are in there, too. AND, they found it in the parking lot (I think it more likely in a shopping cart), why didn’t they turn it in to the store? How did they know I wasn’t in the store looking for it?

Hmmm. I them start looking for the cash, which I keep in two different places. I am positive that there was a dollar, folded up in the grocery store reciept from last night. It’s gone, as is all the change that was in there and some random keys that I didn’t know what to do with as I didn’t know what they went to.

I can only assume (yeah, I know), that this nice lady and/or her husband (he’s the one who actually found it) helped themselves to the little bit of cash I had on hand before bothering to call and report it as found.

Which really pisses me off. Again, I am assuming, so I can’t get too mad because I don’t know who to accuse in this. The nice lady could be completely innocent. But somehow, I don’t think so.

I am not sending her a reward, after all.

Sheesh, the typos!
Sorry

That’s happened to me twice - the first time it appeared in the mail (no return address, no cash); the second time I left it on an airplane, and when the airline FedExed it to me - lo and behold, no cash.

I think a lot of people just cannot resist cold, hard cash. It is pretty ballsy for the woman to give you back your wallet with no cash! Of course if you’d asked her about it, she would have told you she found it with no cash in it…

My daughter was all for “call her and ask her where the keys and the cash are”. Yeah, right. Like she would actually say, “Oh, yes, there was some cash, but we took it.” And, as I said, I don’t have hard proof. But it does look fishy.

Many many years ago a friend of mine who’s a single parent on benefits went into the “posh” loos in town [where there’s an attendant], she left and five minutes later realised she’d left her handbag, so she went back to get it, she told the attendant “I left my bag here” the woman disappeared into the office and came back out with the right bag [having not been given a description], my friend thanked her, and left, a few minutes later, back in the shop where she’d previously realised she’d no bag, she discovers all the money’s been taken out of her purse [wallet]… all very suspicious

So, your purse left your company after you had paid for your groceries? If so, then I’m thinking they probably did find it in the parking lot. It’s also quite possible they weren’t the first ones to find it. Could not someone else have found the purse, emptied it of cash, then tossed it somewhere? By the time the other lady found it, it had already been looted.

The reason I point this out is that my mother had her purse stolen while she was in a train station somewhere in Europe. She immediately notified the local authorities and the purse was found pretty quickly in a nearby trash can missing only her cash.

I say give the lady the benefit of the doubt.

SC

Yeah, I thought of this already, Stana. It’s just that the more I thought about it, the weirder it was. That’s why this is in MPSIMS that the Pit. I don’t want to blame anyone without ample proof. But, it’s a done deal, over and out, a lesson learned. I am thankful that the nice lady called, period. I probably will send a Thank You Note and a small gift certificate, if only to assuage my guilt in mentally accusing her of wrong doing.

I think in at least some cases the person returning the wallet is not the person who took the money.
mrsIteki left her wallet on the console of a video-game in the lobby of a hotel one evening. Within an hour or two we realised what she had done and rang to the hotel who said it had been handed in and we could collect it whenever. All the notes were still in the wallet when I picked it up, but all the 5 and 10 kroner coins were gone :slight_smile: The person had rewarded themselves with a few video-games, I thought that was very sweet, and it was fine by me :slight_smile:

I am also guessing Nice Lady had nothing to do with the cash’s disappearance. If she were that kind of person, shge wouldn’t have returned the purse to you in person. I’m betting it was empty when she found it.