The other day I found two lottery tickets in my car. Neither my husband nor I play the lottery. I have no idea where the tickets came from.
A coworker looked up the tickets online where we discovered, to no one’s surprise, that neither of them were winners.
Say that one of the tickets had been a winner. What would your code of ethics require of me?
Cashing the ticket and enjoying the proceeds without a second thought would cover it.
I might do the same, but I wouldn’t keep cash that I found, or a wallet, or stock certificates, or a check made out to “bearer.” Is there a difference?
There’s a difference with the stock certificates and the check made out to “bearer”. In the case of the stock certificates, the company should be able to track down the owner through the certificates’ numbers. With the “bearer” check, you can again find out who the check writer is, or simply destroy it, so that no money would be drawn from the checkwriter’s account.
There is a difference in the case of cash and the lotto tickets. Both are untraceable. Under such circumstances, the options are you have the cash, or the lotto’s value, or no one has. There is therefore no unethical conduct on your part if you keep them.
Sua
Registering the tickets with the police, then cashing them if no claimant turned up. Same as with cash.
I once found a ticket on the ground while closing up at work. It won $12.00. I felt kind of bad, but I knew there was no way to find the rightful owner. I cashed it and bought myself a nice dinner.
Since you found the tickets in your car and they were not yours or your husbands’, I would take the additional step of making a list of people (from the best of your recollection) who either rode with you or your husband in the car, between the time of the ticket sale and your discovery, or whoever borrowed the car from you. Ask them if they were missing anything when they were in your car, and give them the tickets if they told you explicitly that the tickets were lost. The main reason I would do this is because you do have a list (from your recollection) of people who are not the general public, nor anonymous. I assume this would be a friend, co-worker or relative who is familiar to you, and has formed some mutual trust between you or your husband (or both of you) and I wouldn’t risk that trust over some lottery tickets…losing or winning.