Must not have done it in Japan, all would be returned with all money and cards in them.
I love these stories!
I remember one from a few years ago where a homeless man found one of the wallets in a phone booth - didn’t touch a thing. He turned it in and was asked why?
He said the wallet was on the “handicapped” shelf and he figured whoever lost it was most likely in a wheelchair and needed the money far more than he did.
NYC and Rio de Janeiro?.....I’m struggling with those two.
As I understand it, theft in Brazil is legendary.
I was walking in a Philadelphia subway tunnel once years ago, and there was a black couple in front of me. The guy dropped his wallet and I called out to him. He picked it up and went on his way, didn’t even bother to thank me.
Another time in a store, an elderly white woman was in line in front of me. She must have requested cash back when she checked out. The money came out of the slot, and she apparently forgot to take it. I called out to her, and she was so happy, she thanked me multiple times.
Back in the late ‘80s, I lost my wallet in Paris. Traced my steps back to a newsstand on the Champs-Élysées and the lady working the stand was holding it for me.
Wife has had wallet returned in New York City and I found and returned a lost cell phone in the same place.
New York made the list?
Well, I think it really all depends on what part of the city the wallet was left. Every city has good neighborhoods, a fairly decent downtown area, and bad neighborhoods. Democrat run cities have a much higher bad - to - good neighborhood ratio, and their downtowns may be a lot worse than others.
A week or two later, it arrived in the mail, with everything still in it. I sent the good samaritan a $100 gift card and a "Thank You" note.
Found a ladies wallet about 20 years ago outside of a public facility in Estes Park, CO. Was about ready to take it to the police station when she realized she had lost it and came back. Checked her driver’s license to make sure it matched & gave it back to her. That’s what I hope someone would do for me if I was in the same situation.
I also recall a scam where the wallet is lifted, credit card info copied and then returned to the person who “lost” it. They’re happy it was returned so they don’t bother to cancel their credit cards.
Statistically as lame as can be. Take NYC - for a city of almost 9 million, 12 is a pathetically small sample size. And then where do you plant the wallets? How many on the Upper East Side? the South Bronx? Staten Island? Bedford-Sty? Jackson Heights? etc
I didn’t see any African city on the list.
It all depends where in the city you lose it.
Everybody who returned the wallet could imagine how the person missing the wallet would feel. Some people had a sense of pride in being an honest person. But they all had that basic empathy.
“Finns are naturally honest,” he said. “We are a small, quiet, closely-knit community. We have little corruption, and we don’t even run red lights.”
The type of nice, clean, boring country I’d love to live in. Don’t need the “vibrancy” of gunshot sounds, rap music, drugged out bums lying and shitting on the streets, constant racial upheavals...
If I want “excitement” I’ll go visit it somewhere else... and then come home.
It does make me wonder though - rather than comparing major cities, what about comparing them to small towns in various countries? I suspect the overall return rate would be much higher in the latter. Suburbs I suspect would be no better than inner cities, and maybe worse.
Left my wallet on the check out stand in a small market while visiting Santa Barbara, CA. Across the street from a baseball park where some homeless hung out.
Traced back to the place where I probably left it. The store manager looked at the video. Saw the guy behind me put his wallet on top of mine and walk out. Manager knew who the guy was. He was one of the homeless guys in the park. Store manager and I confronted the guy while perp was in the park. Guy finally gave up the wallet...intact...but no money (was 62 bucks). Cops were notified but never showed up.(Other more pressing matters).
DMV rep. Laughed when I told her I wanted a new numbers Drivers license.
Later on,SB cops told me the guy was habitual criminal and wanted me to testify. Cops couldn’t guarantee a court date, and I was a caregiver for my brother. So I couldn’t testify.
Wanted to give store manager money as a reward,later. But he was never at store. Kind and brave man...never forget his good deed.
Very poor study design...very poor...not even worth publishing or even repeating.
Strangely enough — this happened to me in Ukraine (2017) sort of.
I was out and about and a guy in the street found one — weirdly it had money from various countries. The guy wanted to split it with me. Now I could have used the money — the ATM had eaten my credit card and I was praying we’d have enough money to get home.
I thought no, he found it all on his own. There was no ID as I recall.
A few minutes later, another guy came around and claimed the money. The guy who found the money surrendered it rather easily.
I wondered if the whole thing was a scam designed to get me to put my share of the money in my own wallet, then when the other guy came around wanting his money, I’d have had to empty all the cash out of my own wallet.
...or maybe the two guys together would have introduced me to the Ukrainian mafia.