Wallking along one evening, you find a wallet on the street. No one else is nearby. You pick it up and examine it. No cash or credit cards are to be found inside, but there’s an out-of-state ID, library card, a few family photographs, and a pile of lottery tickets. Each ticket is for a different drawing, and each has a different number that does not correspond to any pattern or sequence you can recognize. Apparently the purchaser has been playing a random number each time.
Taking the wallet home, you get on the web to see if you can track down the owner and save him the cost of a new driver’s license; due to your amazing google-fu, that doesn’t take long. But before you make a call or send an email, your imp of the perverse prods you to compare the most recent ticket to the most recent winner for that lottery. You discover that it’s a winner: a $80,000,000 jackpot winner, to be specific. Even assuming the bearer opts for the immediate payout, he or she is going to see at least $20,000,000 after taxes.
The terms on the back of the ticket say that it is a bearer instrument until signed. It is NOT signed.
What do you think is the ethical course of action? Is that the course of action you judge yourself likely to take?
Poll coming in a second. Unless I decide to go to lunch instead. You never know, so don’t feel obliged to wait.
Though I deliberately chose to leave the responses private, I will 'fess up. I think the ethical thing to do is ot contact the owner and have him or her come get the winning ticket (it’s way too valuable to ship), but I am much more likely to sign it, run my grubby hands over it to obscure anybody’s else’s fingerprints, and redeem that sucker.
I chose “You left out ____ as an option.” I know your imp of the perverse said you’d look up the numbers. But I swear, I just would never bother. I don’t give a t rat’s ass enough so it wouldnt occur to me. I’d make an effort to return lost property, but I’d never even think to look up the ticket.
I think I would try and contact the owner, and ask what they want me to do with the ticket. I’d ship it to them if they wanted, or hang on to it if they’d rather pick it up.
I probably would hope for a reward, but I’m pathetically honest when it comes to money, (really, I get laughed at all the time for insisting on paying teeny pathetic sums of money back to people that they couldn’t care less about) and I think if I did cash it, I’d wind up spending it all on therapy to get over the guilt.
But you’re the goddess of wisdom! You’re supposed to know stuff like this!
:: faith shaken, scrounges around for seppuku knife; fortunately finds only ginger snaps so eats one instead ::
More seriously, here’s a quote from the Mega Millions FAQ:
[What happens if I lose a winning ticket?
Your state’s lottery is not responsible for lost or stolen tickets. You should sign the back of your ticket in ink and take appropriate measures to safeguard it. Lottery tickets are bearer documents. Unless signed, anyone in possession of the ticket can file a claim.](http://www.usamega.com/mega-millions-faq.htm)
And here’s one from the Powerball faq:
[What happens if I lose a winning ticket?
Your state’s lottery is not responsible for lost or stolen tickets. You should sign the back of your ticket in ink and take appropriate measures to safeguard it. Lottery tickets are bearer documents. Unless signed, anyone in possession of the ticket can file a claim.](http://www.usamega.com/powerball-faq.asp)
Obviously the ethical thing is either of the first two options. What you’re really asking here is what would YOU do in that situation, and in that case I will freely admit that I’m signing that sucker, cashing it in and possibly not even mailing the guy his wallet back. Finders keepers motherfucker!
I would redeem the winning ticket myself. Then I would have my lawyer contact the owner of the wallet to give him his wallet back along with a check for a significant portion, though probably less than half, of the proceeds. Wallet guy would have to sign a contract giving up any claim to the rest of the money. If he refused to sign the contract I would use his share to fight him in court, effectively giving it to my lawyer. My lawyer would not know about this latter part of the plan until necessary (so that he wouldn’t encourage wallet guy to sue), as I don’t trust anyone to do the right thing when large sums of money are involved, seeing as I can’t even be trusted to do the right thing, as evidenced by this very posting.
Actually I don’t think it’s ethical to mail the ticket back–at least, not if by “mail” you mean “place in an ordinary first class envelope, drop in mailbox, and forget about it.” I mean, you wouldn’t do that with a diamond ring, would you?
Applying the Golden Rule, I would want the person in possession of the ticket to contact me so I could come pick it up.
I’d send the guy his wallet, anonymously, and after I cashed the ticket, anonymously, have my lawyer send him a money order for a couple of million, also anonymously. Good luck him proving anything about anything in court, and my conscience would be clear-ish.
The ethical thing (IMO, of course) is to contact the owner and deliver the ticket in person - because sending it isn’t secure enough, and (ethics aside) I don’t really want them to have to come to me
Edited to add: the rules are possibly a bit different here in the UK. Trying to claim on a found ticket can land a person in trouble.
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I know what the right thing to do would be, but at the $20,000,000 level I just don’t think I could bring myself to do the right thing. At the $10,000 level I really believe I’d return the ticket but somewhere between that point and 20 million dollars my halo starts to tarnish a bit.
I picked “the ethical choice is to contact the buyer and tell him he can come get the ticket”, but I’d probably just rip the ticket up, throw it away, and wait for the inevitable “80,000,000 jackpot will go unclaimed unless winner shows up by 6 p.m. tomorrow night” article in the paper.
If I’m sure who the owner it, I’d call and celebrate his win with him. The money is not mine just because I can steal it. Anything else is bad karma for me. I’d accept a reward, but expect nothing gracefully.
I said I’d return it, and like **Swallowed My Cellphone ** it would honestly never occur to me to check the numbers (I never play the lottery.) However, reading the replies, I rather like the "cash the ticket and send him a money order for half (or whatever) option…hmm. Surely both of us getting ten million would be an acceptable compromise, no? I kind of hate that I’d even consider not returning it. Damn you, skald, for making me question my goodness.