Posted on 02/07/2007 10:48:30 AM PST by MplsSteve
A taxi driver returned a black bag carrying 31 diamond rings to a passenger who earlier had given him a 30-cent tip on an $11 ride.
Hours after Osman Chowdhury dropped off the passenger, he tracked her down through a flurry of phone calls and returned the bag, which she had left in the taxi's trunk.
The unidentified woman, who said she was a jeweler, offered a $100 reward. Chowdhury accepted the money to cover the fares he lost while tracking her down.
Chowdhury, a native of Bangladesh, told the New York Daily News that he didn't so much as consider keeping the gems.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
This cab driver could have pocketed the rings and later on claimed "What? I don't recall this woman and I never found anything that she left behind".
OTOH, the jewelers was only willing to tip the driver 30 cents for the fare and only offered him $100 for his honesty.
Is this cheap? Or am I wrong?
Comments or opinions - anyone?
Incredibly cheap..
It is cheap... 10% of the rings' value would have been more like it.
I only wish that fellow had been my driver when I left a 35mm camera in the cab down in the Wall Street area a couple of years ago.
The tip was an insult and the reward was a slap in the face.
The cab driver is a good guy and the passenger is scum.
I will money on it that it was one of those Hasids that works in the Diamond District. Those people don't go for spit.
Was this you?
I attribute it to someone spiked our water supply. :-)
Osman Choudhury, you should have kept the damn rings. $100? What an insult.
Where's the All-Muslims-Are-Eeeevil Brigade? Out on lunch break?
Ok what did Rudy distill in the water supply to make the murder rate go down from 2200 a year to about 600???
And don't tell me he's a gun grabber with your answer cause criminals still get guns on demand.
He is probably HINDU.
Heh. He could be Hindu though.
It would be interesting to know the ethnicity of the jeweler. Y'know, stereotypes and all of that.
Given that (a) he's from 90% Islamic Bangladesh and (b) he has an Islamic first name, it seems extremely unlikely that he's Hindu. The guy's a Muslim. So where's the Death-to-Muslims Coalition?
Being a native of Bangladesh, he's probably Hindu, not Muslim.
That said, there are plenty of honest Muslims, of course, despte what the "All-Muslims-Are-Eeeevil Brigade" says.
It's Islam, in its purest form, that's evil.
Not named Osman, he isn't.
Great story, but what a cheap lady!
Bangladesh in 90% Islamic. Plus his name is Muslim. I think you're wrong.
I knew a Hindu Indian named Mahmoud. But the cabbie is probably Muslim.
Couldn't he be a Christian? Why does he have to be Muslim or Hindu?
I think it's cheap, but that is JMHO.
Osman Chowdhury could well be a shul-going Orthodox Jew, it's just unlikely given his name (Muslim) and place of origin (90% Muslim). My point is that there's always a large coterie of FReepers who will jump on every possible thread to announce to the world the universal evil of all Muslims -- who are strangely absent from this one.
He could just be a hard working honest New Yorker like the other 99 percent of New Yorkers.... or is that too much to assume????
Apparently there is also a large amount of freepers who believe Newt is electable for President as witnessed by the current FR poll.
Seriously though...Osman sounds like a good man and I am proud to have him as a New York neighbor no matter his religious affiliation and I aspire to be more honest myself due to him.
And neither David Eckstein of the St. Louis Cardinals nor Rex Grossman of the Chicago Bears are Jewish. The world is sometimes strange.
Assumptions get you most of the time nowhere
Osman could just be a nice guy.
And the Muslim Religion is not a religion of peace.
And most of us here at FR remember 9/11/2001 and that is why we have a dislike of Muslims.
If he claimed to be a Muslim or if the story stated so the absence of such claims would still be present.
On that I think we all agree.
I'm sure he took a loss by taking the time to find her, even after the $100. I would be ashamed to offer him that much.
So there's one good one. fine. We'll let him live.
It's that 99% that give the other 1% a bad name. (I grew up in Queens. )
No, we're here. Just why say anything, you're the one looking for a problem.
I wasnt thinking about him. I was thinking of maybe some nice guy terrorist trying to make us like each other.
My first suspect was Lawrence Welk untill I found out he was dead.
He should have gracefully accepted the $100 reward (as he did), and then publicly thanked the pathetic cheapskate BY NAME.
Bwa ha ha ha! Holy cow, no that wasn`t me.. It figures though that he got a 30 cent tip. The rich always give the worst tips, if they give any at all.
Yeah, you wouldn`t believe the stuff I find in my cab. About three times a week I find cellphones, usually while I`m driving and I hear them ring..."I left my phone in your cab..Waaah! Can you meet me somewhere??!!"
The best was last year when this girl from Jersey left her wallet/purse in the back seat. I had gone into this deli to buy a coffee, and for some reason when coming out I just had this feeling to look in the back seat, and found her wallet.
If you can believe it, not only did she have $300 in it, she also had her passport, her bank cards, credit cards, student ID, social security card, her drivers license, condoms (busy girl), prescriptions, HMO card, EVERYTHING but her freggin` phone number!
I wasn`t about to drive out to Jersey, so I looked her up in the phone book but no luck, she wasn`t listed. So then as a last resort I was going to mail it to her when I found this slip of paper with an email address on it. I emailed the address and found out it was this guy who had just her the same night I drove her, so he gave me her number and I called her and she practically shiet!!! She was literally crying over the phone lol! So she took he train in and basically kissed my feet, offering me all the money in the wallet as a reward but I couldn`t take it. She was a young girl, plus a student so I wasn`t going to take what little cash she had.
Oh yeah, and the DRUGS...When I use to work nights, I would find drugs all the time in the back seat. Bags of coke, pot, heroin...The biggest was finding about a couple of ounces of weed about two years ago,at least I think it weighed that much. You know those plastic sandwich bags? It was about that size but filled with pot. I would give them all to the dispatchers because they`re all drug addicts, live it up pal! lol! To date nobody ever left a nice case of Budweiser!! Life is not fair!
To date nobody ever left a nice case of Budweiser!!
If you were my cabbie and returned my purse I'd buy you an ice cold case of Bud and $100--no question about it. I made a rule long ago that if I ever lost my purse and/or wallet I'd give the person $100.
I hate cheap people. I was a waitress for a couple years in my early 20s and hated getting stiffed by people.
I tip either 20 or 25% depending on service and attitude.
Oh the rich here are NOTORIOUSLY notoriously cheap cheap CHEEEAP...Don`t know what it`s like in other places, but here in New York city, the liberal cesspool of the east coast, they are BEYOND the beyond of everything that is cheap.
I had one woman once try to pay me a $15 fare in nickels, dimes, pennies, not even quarters! Only dimes, nickels and pennies!...Now you may think that not so unusual except for the fact that I picked her up from 73rd and 5th avenue, Central Park east, right in the same building where Mary Tyler Moore lives.
Her doorman hailed me, and she came out wearing a fur coat with her designer poodle in her arms, just the cliched Zsa Zsa Gabor looking rich b*tch, and when I got to where she wanted to go, she was taking FOREVER to pay me until I saw she was counting change, she had it all spread out in the back seat.
When I asked her if she had any bills, she told me "Yes, but YOU people like change, and I want to get rid of it so it works out"... I told her "but WE people do not like change! And if you don`t get the f- out of my cab I am going to get out and whup you upside the head" lol! (I have a temper) So she gave me a fistful of change which amounted to about $7 bucks and called me every name in the book etc ect, then said she would make a complaint. I told her to sue me.
This stuff goes on ALL the time, although not in that extreme. You know why? Because people like that feel that the world revolves around them, and that everyone else exists solely to serve them. The just don`t like the fact that THEY have to reward service or pay for it because it brings the "little people" to an equality with them.
Don`t get me wrong, not all of them are like that. Before I drove a taxi I use to deliver spring water to the same area, and quite a few were very cool, not so much in the tipping dept, but they were very down to earth. But too many times than necessary they pretty much shiet on you in the respect dept.
What a lot fail to realize is money is useless, it`s powerless unless there is other people. They may look down upon the working class, but it is on the shoulders of the working class they sit. That pyramid collapses, the highest point to fall from is from where they are sitting, so don`t upset that guy below you lest he weaken his grip!
I'm just curious but when you talk politics with passengers does it affect how you're tipped?
Incredibly cheap, indeed. This bangladeshi needs to spread his brand of honesty far and wide.
Yes the $100 was an insult but you can just bet that those rings were all laser tagged so keeping them would not have been wise. Unless you just like having diamond rings.
i live in northern VA/DC suburbs and i had a muslim cabdriver take me to Reagan airport, with whom i had a heated discussion about terrorism/the war in iraq/President Bush and it was a bit contentious. i tipped him respectably, but when i told my husband about it later he said, you are an IDIOT, the guy picked you up at home, so he knows where you live!
This kind of stuff really chaps my hide. Her, not him.
Heck, I've been out working in my front yard when the garbage guys come by and pick up the trash, and I've chatted a bit and given them a tip!
There really is a class division in America. Those with it, and those without.
She has little or none!
Actually they tip me more if you can believe it even if they disagree (which is 99% of the time), but I don`t talk politics all the time. Just by talking to them about anything will get you a better tip.
The biggest tippers are without a doubt the middle class, working class (well everyone works, but you know what I mean) cops, firemen, construction workers etc etc then illegals if you can believe it. I drove a bunch of Mexicans to Jackson Hieghts a few days ago and they gave me $40 for a $22 fare, and it wasn`t a mistake because they didn`t understand English, it`s because they just tip big. I offered to just make it $20 as I had no change, but they refused.
Talk to any cab driver though, the absolute worst are the super rich, the ones who live on 5th avenue, Central Park West, all those multi-mill buck condos I try to avoid. Without a doubt they will 99% of the time give you a $5 bill for a $4.90 fare and tell you to keep the change, AND they complain the MOST!
My theory is the working class sympathizes more, knows what it is like to bust your butt for a living, while the rich really don`t think about it in that way. Not saying they never busted their butt, but somehow they get numb to that, forget about it and become cheap not by choice. Like a friend of mine said, they compain the most because they are use to telling everyone around them what to do and aren`t use to things they can`t control.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.