Would you have kept it?

You are stupid.

 

Karma. It is a funny thing. [/earljunkie]

No kidding, I found $1800 once. Was working a side job and had to work on some Hallmark holiday. Was leaving in a rush, saw a bank envelope on the floor in the jewelry department. Didn't even think of even opening it (wasn't sealed) but immediately took it to the managers.

In two months, no one claimed it and by law it was mine. However, when the managers opened the safe, one of their own (only three people had keys) had stolen it. I made them reimburse me.

That said, had I immediately noticed an extra $10 in change, I would have given it back without hesitation, but if I had been down the road a mile or two, I wouldn't have made the trip back.

However, I've screwed up on those self-checkout things before, and made it to the car and realized the beep I heard hadn't been the price clicking through but something else. I'm not fighting customer service to pay $2.49 for some grocery item.

 

a lot of people say it turns into a question of who is losing the money. if it's a faceless corporation, people are fine with it -- which is why people on this board have posted that they periodically blatantly rip off places that have liberal refund policies. but if it's a mom-and-pop store, or the faceless corporation has an actual face (like the cashier who might be fired) then most of us would return it. that said, i think i'm in the majority - if i noticed it right away i'd give it back but if i was a couple miles away i wouldn't think twice about keeping it.

i'd be more interested in hearing from people who have worked in the fast food or service industry, which i've never done. i would think if the cashier is a decent employee and the manager is a half-decent person they'd realize she made a mistake and she wouldn't get fired. but maybe that's just a pipe dream on my part, thinking that most people are rational and reasonable.

 

It's Pizza Hut pizza for free. It couldn't have tasted good, free or not.

 

So you let someone else who was in a better position of deal with that situation. I bet he and only he knew about the $$, and since it's unlikely no one claimed it by the end of his shift, he had a nice bonus for the day.

 

This one is tougher. You turn in that $15 and you have no real expectation that it will get back to the person who left it.

 

I'm usually very good about stff like that, but one time I received too much money when I was cashing a check at the bank for my holiday tips. As part of the cash, I wanted 40 dollars in $5 bills and they gave me 40 $5 bills. I tried to give back the money, but the teller didn't understand what I was saying. Eventually, I just gave up. Began feeling really guilty later that day and went back to the bank. For whatever reason, they wouldn't take the money back. I bought a very nice bottle of wine for about half the $160 and gave the rest to charity.

 

damn, that's a stupid teller.

reminds me of the dyslexic banker i ran into once. he got my social security number wrong when i opened my account, juxtaposing a couple of numbers. i was only using this account for a few months because i was doing an internship for a newspaper that i knew wouldn't last long so i just signed the form and left. every time i had to go into the bank to get something, it caused problems.

 

I totally screw big stores over with return rules, and don't feel too bad about it. I also always return money to the cashier if they screw up.

I once microwaved my cell phone with like a day left on my warrenty so I could turn it in and get a new one for free. It had to be broken and it couldn't be obvious I broke it. (in case you're wondering, one second in a microwave won't ruin a phone ... two seconds will) I used to have a terrible time with the travel power cord for my laptop. My first one frayed and wouldn't work, so I bought another one, and it was a tough $75 to cough up as I was stringing while in college. About 2 months later, that one frayed as well. I wasn't doing anything stupid with them, but they were just shitty. So I bought a third one exactly like the second one, packaged the second one back up in the third box and returned it. That one worked through the life of the computer. Office Depot hasn't gone out of business yet.

That said, I almost got in a fight trying to pay for a pizza at Papa Murphys one night. The guy was convinced I had paid. I was convinced I hadn't. Finally, he checked something, and was like "Oh ... yeah, you didn't pay." He just charged me half price, saving me like $5, and looked at me like I was an idiot for not leaving a long time before. I felt good about that. I used to cashier at Best Buy and some other places during high school, so I know how shitty it is when you dish out the wrong change, so I don't screw those people over either and have returned cash that was extra.

 

Some kid at my library turned in someone's Visa check card to me after he found it in the cushions of one of our sofas. He asked if we wanted to run his fingerprints to prove he didn't steal it. I told him I believed him and I would find the guy who it belonged to. Which I did; saved him a sleepless night or two.

It would have been easy for that kid just to take that card and use it a couple times before anyone realized it was missing. And I was a bit surprised that he brought the card to me b/c he had been in the library pretty much just screwing around the whole night.

Hopefully I will see the kid in there again soon so I can tell him how thankful the guy was when he came to get the card. It will make him feel good and reinforce in him that it pays to do a good deed. And it taught me that sometimes a kid screwing around in the library is just a kid screwing around in the library, and don't judge him for it.