If you ever lose a wallet stocked with cash but no identification, you can probably forget about ever reuniting with it. But a homeless 49-year-old Navy vet in Boston made the near-impossible happen for the bike messenger who lost the precious cargo.
The Boston Globe reports the man who found the wallet took it to police, who identified the owner through a receipt left inside.
The virtuous finder told the Globe he considered pocketing the cash and forgetting about being a hero.
“I counted the money and said, ‘Wow, I could probably get three nice presents with this,’ ” he said (the man has three children in another state). “But maybe it was some student’s Christmas gift money. I just kept thinking of the meaning of Christmas.”
If you’ve ever found a lost valuable, what did you do with it?
Man in need finds wallet and moral compass [Boston Globe]
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Was he rewarded? Even a nice meal or something…
I pulled up to the ATM one day and discovered that the customer who just pulled away left her card in the machine and didn’t even finish her session, so I still had full access to her account. I grabbed the card and walked up to the bank door, but they had just closed. They didn’t want to open the door for me, but finally did when I held up the card and yelled “this isn’t mine!”. The bank employee was annoyed that I made her stay at work 30 seconds longer to take the card from me. If someone dishonest had pull up, they could have cleared out her whole account.
I actually had my wallet stolen right after high school, and it sucked because I lost all my friend’s senior pictures with their contact info on the back. This was pre-Facebook/internet, so I was never able to get in touch with those people again.
Pocket street-cash (loose bills on the sidewalk or on mass transit), always track down and return wallets or other lost belongings. Treat others as you wish to be treated, and I sure as Hell itself would hate to have somebody just walking around with my phone or cards.