wow, that's really impressive.

Wow...i'm not sure if I would do the same in these circumstances. Pretty impressive!

@Yankees368: that is exactly what I thought when I read this....its a shame that more people can't be like this.

My grandfather owned a small tractor and lawnmower business in Ohio. He was a WW2 veteran, and was probably the most honest man I've ever known. At his funeral, someone told me a story of the first time someone passed a bad check at his business (and never returned). He was unable to believe that someone would be as dishonest as that, especially signing their name to it. He lived in a generation where your name was often all you had. Your name was your word. I had to laugh considering how the world has become now, with probably a thousand bad checks passed in a day. It shows how the world has changed in 50+ years. Good to see that immigrants are bringing an honest mentality to the US, god knows we could use some.

I used a mail server software that I once felt was incredibly underpriced, and every year I used it I would send the owner/programmer an additional $25 donation around Christmas time. It's a good feeling.

I hope this is a sign of immigration reform. Skills in medical, engineering or sports fields used to get someone a green card faster than an unskilled worker. Maybe now they've realized the US needs conscientious, upstanding citizens and made that a priority.

Hopefully the guy didn't get the money from a 110% of value, zero-down stated-income home loan on a 4500 sf house.

Reminds me of the Windows 3.11 games I had on my computer years ago. The About box would always ask you to send the developer $10 at his home address in Armpit, Iowa. I still feel guilty . . .

@weakdome: Which was it?

I sold a box of laptop memory (22 X 256MB PC2100) on eBay for next to nothing and the shipping charge was just enough to cover the shipping cost.

About a week after receiving the memory the buyer sent another $20 because he thought I was a very honest seller, was impressed that there was 24 chips (I put 24 by mistake, I guess I'm not good at counting) and just wanted to say thanks for the great transaction.

There are good people here in the US. People who sell and honest product and people who pay an honest amount for the product and even a bonus if the service is really good.

This story was really nice.

What a shame there are a few scumbags who ruin it for the rest of the good people here in the USA.

@stopNgoBeau: I'm guessing he means the owner was the programmer; i.e., it was a single person job.

@jumpo64: give those immigrants 3 years to became a dishonest consumer :P

I (immigrant) think "behaving" is part of our culture but at the same time there are some scumbags immigrants too so lets say that we have everything in this world.

But reading this post, It's good to remember that we have to be as that person... we need to change this world... or at least our neighborhood.

@Angiol: I'm guessing stopNgoBeau means 'Which program', not if some stranger sent money to one stranger or another stranger.

@weakdome: The program was "Argosoft Mail", and as far as I could tell the owner and the programmer/designer were all the same person. I don't know if it still exists or if it's still supported, but I remember "Artie" would always answer any and all techsupport emails personally, within 12 hours. I don't get that kind of response time from software I've paid 10x the money for!

there are still some honest people out there! when i worked at walt disney world guest services, people turned in loose cash at least once a month to lost and found.

it kind of made up for the times that people came up to lost and found and asked if they could root through the bin of lost cameras because 'they didn't remember exactly what brand theirs was' [no, you DON'T get to look at lost and found and just pick out things you want]

for the record - if the cash wasn't claimed it went to charity, along with the coins from the fountains. to claim lost cash at disney you have to describe where you might have lost it, how it was folded and what denominations

Kudos to the guy...

Wow, what a great story. Though it's a tad sad that we all get so surprised by someone doing the right thing. And bravo to the company for actually admitting that they made a mistake that lead to the whole problem.

If the customer was indeed from Pakistan, he may have been a Muslim. One of my friends who is a Muslim once told me that many forms of debt are not halal, meaning that they are forbidden by islamic law. I know that he told me that while he always paid his credit cards off completely because incurring a debt to pay a debt was definitely against Islamic law.

@aristan: "...always paid his credit cards off completely every month because..."

(couldn't we used to edit these?)

What a nice surprise, I wonder how long till America changes him. :)

my american friends NEVER understand my views on my money. Which is, I never ever borrow. My friends can give me money, and I always return the money, or a favor. It sounds like I am borrowing, but its more like we just share our money, and if anyone feels they are getting screwed, they stop. or ask for money. But no records are kept. I hate "owing money". I'd rather have a friend I know has given to me in the past, so I will give in the future.

Thats the sort of person that causes you to keep a little faith in humanity. Honest, intelligent, and with a functioning moral compass.

This story makes me happy.

I do customer service work for a large publishing house and have direct daily contact with many many customers in the middle east. It's been my experience that they are some of the most humble, most honest, and friendliest, people of anywhere on the planet. That the protagonist of this story is Pakistani makes complete sense to me and totally aligns with everything I've come to know about the people and their culture.

@CountryJustice: Pakistan is not in the Middle East. It's in South Asia. Just because its a Muslim country doesn't mean its Middle Eastern.

I don't find this "Above & Beyond". A similar situation happened to me. I payed $200 to my dentist via his website. My account with the dentist was credited, but the money never came out of my checking account. I called them, they said they'd fix it, and never did. So after 2 months I went into the office and wrote them a check for the $200. If you intend to purchase something and don't follow through with payment it's stealing.

Neither honesty nor dishonesty know any borders.

Had a similar thing happen to me when I ordered HDMI cables from a vendor. They used the Yahoo Checkout. I paid and I noticed they credited and debited the transaction within seconds of each other. The cables arrived a few days later and I recieved a call explaining the problem and asking if I would mind if they actually charged me for the cables. I agreed (they held up their end of the deal) and we both were happy. I got a good deal on cables and they got paid.

@ConroyCotta: Considering he was in a different country, and the company had no way to make him pay or to report him for non-payment, the fact that the first thing he did when coming to the US was to pay off a debt a year and a half old is remarkable. And rare.

Sounds like he's a customer you want to keep. I would try to do something nice for him in return. If you have a newer version of the software, give it to him for free or give him 20% off. things like that might make him a customer for life or at least build up the reputation of the company so others will buy the software too

@InfiniTrent: Nicely and pithily put.

I don't think it's anything racial, there's good and bad people all over the world. When your product is really good, your customers reflect that.

@aristan: I think it is because Pakistan is an Islamic country where they chop off hands for theft. He probably had many sleepless nights that the company would have the Islam Police come to his house and chop off his hands for [inadvertently] stealing software.

Sending a check to pay for it was probably his way of assuaging his conscience (as well as being halal) of not being a thief.

@Yankees368:
I would have long since forgotten.

@S-the-K:

Yes, because all those Islamic countries are exactly the same.

I guess this is what 30-odd years of greed mentality by corporations has done to this country. We are absolutely shocked and awed when someone performs an act of honesty that would have been considered the norm 50 or 100 years ago. I'm constantly reminded of that infamous "greed is good" speech by the Gordon Gekko character in the 80s movie Wall St. If you ever want to understand why the economy is in its current state of affairs, rent that movie. I personally know of at least 2 people who used to work on Wall St who said their whole motivation for getting into finance was that Gordon Gekko character, and they viewed him as a hero and role model.

@seamer:

I agree. I work with a lady from Iran and I will never, ever again loan her money. She "forgets" and needs to be constantly reminded or else if the period of time is too long (because of her delays) she then claims she already paid. Once we went out to eat and she pulled up in her Rolls Royce (her husband is filthy rich) and proceeded to stiff the waiter on a tip (after arguing that all she ate was a salad and drank water...I know she drank SOUP and ate a Salad and drank tea). I went back in and gave the waiter her share of the missing meal and the tip.

I will never again loan HER money. I have other Iranian friends who aren't such cheapskates!

I blame the customer, fully and wholy

@jumpo64: Just another reason I support strong immigration reforms!

I like to pay people who do work for me as soon as possible and with a tip. I don't do this because I'm a particularly nice guy; I do it because I people to like working for me and when I need them to be responsive, they are. They'll go out of their way to help me first, and they do it because I pay them without them having to pester me and I over pay a little to show my appreciation of a good job. Not being nice, it's being practical.

Pakistan is a world away from Maine, but they must share the same honesty gene pool. About 8 years ago, I visited an island off the coast of Maine and fell in love with some pottery at a local store. They only took checks, and all I had was my credit card. So they allowed me to walk out of their store with $150 worth of pottery and nothing more than a kiss and a promise to mail them a check for it when I got back to Philly. They didn't even write down my driver's license info - just my name and purported address.

Of course I mailed them a check the minute I got home. That kind of trust just can't be abused. I hope they're still that trusting! Or perhaps they now take CC's and verify them first...

@jumpo64: Your grandfather was a good man. People like him will be missed. My folks still write checks (debit card? No thanks) and the thought of passing a bad check, even by mistake, is unthinkable in their eyes.

It's nice to see honest people. heck make his next purchase free, He didn't need to do that, although he probably felt bad for scamming the store.

It is really sad that we get so shocked when people do the right thing, but it happens so often that they don't. The coffee shop near my office had computer problems one day and couldn't take cards, but I didn't have cash. They gave me my bagel, etc. and wrote down the total, telling me I could pay the next time I came in. They did this for everyone without cash. When I went back a few days later I showed them the paper and asked them to add the 3.50 or whatever to my bill. The cashier was shocked and had to ask someone else what to do - apparently, I was the only person in three or four days who came back to pay. And this was a busy shop.

And where are we attacking right now? Pakistan! Because we're morally superior... ahem...

@redkamel: My friends and I tend to be on the "I'll get it this time, you get it next time" plan - I figure at this point we all owe each other about a half a million bucks, so who cares.

@Yankees368: Same here, I doubt that I would have paid for it after the fact. Essentially, he did TRY to pay for it but the company had technical issues beyond his control. I think this client deserves full lifetime free upgrades and support.

Us NA's have had the image of the ROW peopled by raving lunatics in hijabs burning effigies of Ronald McDonald in the street thanks to the news media (but frankly, why would the news show anybody in another country unless something bad is happening?). My experiences with contractors working in Singapore, Pakistan and India serve as reminders that there are more good people in this world than bad.

Kudos.

@uchari: That's so true. I have Somali friends (we have a lot of them here in my city) who refuse to go Walmarts where there are predominantly other Somalis. In his words "they're rude, smelly and dishonest." Too funny.

I bought a piece of handmade jewelry for a gift. Everything was done over the phone, the artist mailed it to me expecting I'd send a check. Since the amount we agreed on was relatively cheap, I figured it wouldn't be much to look at.

It was fantastic, and the person I gave it to loved it. I sent a much larger check than was requested.

I didn't think that was strange. I paid what I thought she earned. Is that uncommon?

In many parts of the world, debt, even owed to those in distant countries is a huge issue from a cultural standpoint. I am confident that the buyer was concerned about making sure that debt was paid the moment he knew it was a debt and not a freebie.

Thanks for the story!

@jumpo64: Back in my granddad's day you didn't have a checkbook. There were counter checks everywhere. When you wrote a check for something you just scratched out the name of the bank and scribbled in your own if the check wasn't from your bank. My dad found a box full of old bank statements, ledgers, and canceled checks my grandfather had written, many of which had the name of the bank X'd out and his bank's name written in its place.