I found a wallet one with around $200.00 USD in it.
Tracked down the owner ( lived near me ) and gave it all back. Refused a “reward”. What the hell- since when is having a moral compass rewardable??
Found a checkbook at The Bronx Zoo on the early 1990’s. The balance shown was a bit over $17,000.00. I called 411 from a payphone there at the zoo. Got their home phone #. Called and left my name, cell#, etc. Told them I’d be sending it back asap.
They called within the hour. I sent it back FedEx P1.
The owners refused to pay me back the $20.00 for the FedEx. Jerks.
If we’re counting that, I once found two checks written to me totalling nearly $4000 that I had forgotten about for a little over a year, sitting in a closet. (I was able to cash both of them, but did let the checkwriters know.)
In actual finding something that was not mine to begin with, though, I think the best I’ve done is a $20 winning scratch-off ticket outside a bar. If we need to narrow it down to “actual cash,” I can’t remember finding more than maybe a tenner. Maybe.
Oh, I would have kept the money, too, but I think I would have gone the extra mile and left a note explaining the situation, just to rub it in a bit more. Otherwise, the woman may not have even noticed she lost a $50 or $100.
$320 in cash on a sidewalk outside a tourist trap in Nashville. I took it in the store and left it with the person at the counter, giving her my name and address if it went unclaimed. Much to my surprise I received an envelope three weeks later with all the cash in it. No one claimed it, and the store owner/manager was honest enough to send it to me.
Loosely, 50 bucks at school which I brought to the office (I probably would just take it now). Probably more in wallets I’ve found but those always go directly to lost and found without even looking at the contents.
One day the Washington DC Metro (subway) broke down and they were using buses to shuttle us between stops. Bodies were packed together and everyone was running late, tired and cranky. When we got off the bus, I let others go first, then stood up and found a wallet on the seat beside me containing $240.
Couldn’t identify my seatmate in the seething crowd (had barely glanced at him anyway), so I took the wallet home and eventually figured out a phone number for him. We met at a nearby shopping center to make the exchange. He was pretty young – early 20s I think – and happy to get the $240 back along with his ID and credit cards.
Found a couple of $20 bills in parking lots. Didn’t return them (one was when I was a college student and quite short on money, one was a few months ago) but I did look around to make sure nobody appeared to be trying to find them.
If I see someone drop money I grab it and chase them down to return it–that’s happened a couple times at malls.
Once found a bunch of $20 bills blowing around directly in front of an outdoor Wells Fargo ATM. Gathered up as many of them as I could find (no other people around) and took them inside. Aside from being an honest person, I figured there had to be cameras around. Never heard back, so I assume they either found the owner or the teller got a bonus. Either way–not my money.
I drove a friend to LAX late one night, and found a little trail of bills leading up to a cart rental kiosk. First $100, then a couple $20’s and some other smaller bills.
Twice in the last year I have found wallets with $50 - $100 dollars in them. I returned them both.
Quite a while ago I found 100 in a plain white envelope on the street. I could have made some effort to ask the neighbors if anyone was missing the , but it seemed like a lot of work and I needed the dough.
I found $1200 of my own that I had misplaced. I sold a sailboat, then lost the money, assumed it had been stolen, then over a year later found it.
I have found $20s, and one time, a 100 sol note (worth around $40 at the time), on the ground.
I found a working GoPro 3 in a waterproof case while scuba diving. That was worth a few hundred.
I’ve found 3 phones, and returned 2 of them to their owners. The third one, despite calling people in the contacts, no one could tell me who the phone belonged to, and no one ever got back to me. Weird. I eventually gave it to the Goodwill.
I found a $50 dollar bill at a David Bowie concert in the Carrier Dome in 1983…we were walking out of our row, I looked over and under the seat in the row above me was a rolled up bill…I just pocketed it, and when we got outside, told my friends what I found, I pulled it out and unrolled it…drinks were on me that night…
I found a credit card a couple of years ago in the parking lot of my local gym…was able to track the name down to a local family - it belonged to a young lady who had just graduated from college and was thrilled someone would actually make the effort to find the owner…
Australian $50 bill floating in a creek a few months ago. (AU notes are plastic and therefore waterproof and buoyant.) Worth around US$40 at the time, a little more now. I had a very good look around for others.
I’ve found plenty of AU$20s and lesser notes and coins, but only one $50.
In the mid nineties I found a $20 on a college campus. I decided I liked feeling smug more than I liked $20, so I turned it in to campus security, telling them where I found it. Then I took a sheet of green paper from my backpack, tore off a roughly dollar-sized rectangle, and wrote, “LOST SOMETHING? CHECK WITH CAMPUS SECURITY” on it. I weighed it down with a rock in the place where I found the bill.
Campus security told me I could come back in a couple of weeks and claim the money if it hadn’t already been claimed, but I never did, and instead I felt super smug.
I walk a lot and find money in the street. Once a hundred dollar bill.
I once had trouble counting out at work (I’m a store cashier) and then I had to return a cell phone call. I knew I’d missed the direct bus, so I walked to another bus stop to take the later, indirect bus.
While sitting there I noticed a bank envelope under the bench. I opened it up and found a nickel…and a fifty dollar bill.
About a decade ago, I found a loose $50 bill in a parking garage in Orlando, and kept the money (until spending it shortly afterwards).
More recently, I was in a parking lot in West Lafayette, and spotted a wallet that turned out to contain exactly one item of currency – a $100 bill. Since the owner’s driver’s license and numerous credit cards were also inside, I took the wallet in to a nearby restaurant. The manager discovered that the guy had just recently used one of the cards to purchase a meal at the establishment, so I turned the wallet in, and also mailed a note to the owner after copying his address from the license. Since I never got a reward or even a “thanks”, I can’t say for sure whether the wallet was ever returned.
$50 on the street right after the “new” bills came out. At first I kept walking, thinking it was an advertising gimmick, but went back, and surely was a $50. I know it’s weird, you kind of feel like you should give it back to someone, but on the street?? No one around? Mine, all mine.
