BurningBeard said:

Here's a question for ya.

Did the wallet at one time belong to someone else? The answer is yes.

Look up stealing in the dictionary.

The wallet was not given, and thus, it is stealing. There's no argument here, just plain English.

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Cubie said:

Taking the money is the charge for returning his shit.
That's how I would look at it

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WhiskeyClone said:

Bandersnatch said:

People suck, just got to get used to it.

Which feels better, a pat on the back from yourself or cash in hand?

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^^^^There's a good attitude.  People suck, so you might as well become part of the problem.

Rationalize all you want, but if you keep the money, you're a thief.

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If you lost your wallet would you rather someone took the money and made sure it got back to you, or would you rather they took the wallet and tossed it back somewhere in a public place for someone else to find? Personally I'd rather not go to the hassle of getting all my credit cards canceled and getting a new driver's license and who knows what else that would need to be dealt with.

I never said taking the money was right, but he is under no actual obligation to return the wallet or the money. It is found property

He found the wallet so now he's obligated to go through the extra work (for free I might add) of making sure the thing gets back to him? That hardly seems fair to the person who recovers your lost item.  Maybe leaving it on the sidewalk outside the restaurant is a more moral choice, right?

You read all the time in kid's storybooks about how some boy or girl finds a wallet and tracks down the owner and returns it and then they get a reward at the end for doing the honorable thing. Doesn't happen in the real world.

I by no means mean it is the right thing to do to take the money but it doesn't mean it's wrong either.

(Hell, why not even donate a portion of the money to a charity or something that could use it more?)

Bandersnatch said:

WhiskeyClone said:

Bandersnatch said:

People suck, just got to get used to it.

Which feels better, a pat on the back from yourself or cash in hand?

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^^^^There's a good attitude.  People suck, so you might as well become part of the problem.

Rationalize all you want, but if you keep the money, you're a thief.

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I never said taking the money was right, but he is under no actual obligation to return the wallet or the money. It is found property

He found the wallet so now he's obligated to go through the extra work (for free I might add) of making sure the thing gets back to him? That hardly seems fair to the person who recovers your lost item.  Maybe leaving it on the sidewalk outside the restaurant is a more moral choice, right?

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WhiskeyClone said:

It is better than stealing it, yes.  Believe it or not, some people do indeed return wallets.  My wallet slipped out of my pocket on the bus, and sure enough, a woman found it and gave it to the bus driver, who put in the lost and found.  It was intact, nothing missing, $80 in cash still in there.  The woman didn't take it, the bus driver didn't take it, the lost and found guy didn't take it.  Imagine that, THREE people in a row resisted the selfish impulse to take the money.  This isn't a miracle, it's just human decency.

That somebody else is likely to steal it does not justify stealing it yourself. 

For those of you who doesn't think finding and keeping a wallet is theft in the eyes of the law, ask a lawyer.  Even if an object has been sitting there for months, taking it is theft.

No he's under no obligation to return it, but if he's not planning to do so, there is no justification for picking it up at all.

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You're lucky to get your wallet back with the money. Human decency, despite what you'd like to think, usually has a very low success rate though.

I've had my wallet stolen out of my bag at an amusement park stripped of money (no cards since I was a kid at the time) and returned to lost and found. I had that happen twice in one day at the same park except the second time I had no money and my wallet was NOT returned to lost and found.

People will screw you but you're right that it doesn't make it okay to screw them back.

I wasn't saying that it would be right to take it but if that woman hadn't picked it up, someone else undoubtedly would have and most likely someone who wouldn't return it at all.
I figure taking it all would be a negative act, taking the money and returning the wallet would be a neutral act, and returning the whole thing intact would be a positive act.

All of that being said, I've returned everything that I have found and had some form of contact on/with it.
I've even returned a cell phone that I found in the road dead. Went to the work of finding a phone with the same provider, putting the sim card in and calling the number listed as "mom"
Met them in a park and returned their phone, barely even got a thank you before they drove off.

At work I've returned all the money and cards that I've found, even going so far as to look people up in the phonebook and try and contact them. I've never gotten anything in return and it kind of sucks.

If I'd found the wallet I'd probably return it personally to their address, but I'd by no means be obligated to and they would be fucking lucky that I did.

If it was my wallet, like I said, I'd never expect to see it again.

Tangerines said:

Keep the money. Even if you believe in Karma you, which I think is BS, maybe the wallet was left there because blkjkrabbit has done good things and that guy is recieving the bad karma. That is exactly why karma is shit. It is so subjective.

But keep the money man and honestly, I would leave the wallet on his front doorstep or in his mailbox.

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