Every so often my pessimistic tendencies get a healthy slap across the face by the actions of someone who took the high road when they easily could have chosen otherwise.
It's a couple summers ago, at the height of the summer tourist season and I'm cycling up 4th ave SW in DC. Somewhere between the NASA HQ and the National Mall my camera bag - packed full with a fairly new DSLR, a few lenses, and a secondary cell phone - came unbuckled from my messenger bag and tumbled to the sidewalk. Probably a few thousand dollars of gear, not counting the considerable hassle of resetting 2fa and credentials for every possible account that could be tied to my phone (it was password-locked but I have no idea how well that would survive a determined attack).
I was booking it pretty hard trying to catch a metro, so I didn't notice the loss for a couple more blocks. After the only genuinely involuntary (and painful!) facepalm I've ever given myself, I hurried back home (lived in town close by) and immediately started cancelling every account when my main cell phone rang. The bag was waiting for me, all contents undisturbed and intact, in a hotel lobby a couple blocks away. An anonymous samaritan had picked it up, brought it in and gave it to the concierge without a word, then walked away. Concierge called me using my contact info in a business card that was also in the bag.
In one instant, some unsung karmic superhero single-handedly erased the work of several hundred asshole double parking jobs.
I turned in more than one lost wallet or debit card to a librarian (or similar) while homeless.
I didn't want to call them myself or whatever because I was homeless and I knew I was automatically suspect as a thief because of it. So I wanted someone the world would trust/believe to deal with it.
Well before I was homeless, attempts to return wallets or found ID cards or whatever were consistently met with suspicion. One woman tried to run from me and my husband on the assumption that we were up to no good for trying to catch her because we happened to see her drop her wallet just before she got in her car. But, obviously, we must have been muggers or something. No other explanation was possible in her mind.
While I was in college, there was a summer I couldn't find any tech work and ended up doing property claims for a tour company. It paid minimum wage, but it was pretty fun. What really surprised me was how many valuable items (camera bags full of lenses and an expensive-looking camera, CPAP machines, etc.) we would find with absolutely no identifying information whatsoever. We were able to track down some of the owners, but not all of them. If you're traveling, you should definitely have your name and contact information not just on, but inside your bags. It could come in handy someday.
I live in Sweden. Lost my wallet during my bike to work time in the morning. Not sure why it fell from my pocket, but it might because of the bumpy road due to some construction.
As most of the things inside the wallet can be replaced in a couple of days (bank card, and some ID's), I did not worry that much. But, a nice guy from the neighboring office took the high road by calling the contact point of my office, which ended up in my boss hand.
Sometimes it happens, and sometimes not. I lost my wallet 4 times in total, 3 in Brazil (which is $HOME), 1 in Germany. Got it back 3 out of 4 times. Guess where.
I left a MacBook Pro behind in the bin at a security checkpoint at Miami International Airport a few years back. I realized it when I got home, looked up the airport's lost & found number, called them, and they had it. I was shocked. They held it for my dad to pick up.
Not too long ago after a series of unfortunate events I spent the night on the floor of the international terminal of the Atlanta airport. The next morning I (exhausted) was riding the tram back to my departing flight's terminal and noticed a kid left a little dinosaur action figure on the tram. I didn't notice until the next stop. I grabbed the toy, hopped off the tram, sped-walked back to the last stop, and walked through a handful of gates looking for the kid.
In the end I didn't find him and left the toy on a counter, hoping he'd find it. The whole thing bummed me out. My own kid's lost a few toys and I know how devastating it can be. Granted I was sleep deprived and emotional, but it put a damper on my day nonetheless.
Everyone I know who's worked in restaurants or as a delivery driver tips very well. In my limited experience, teachers make some of the best parents when it comes to student interaction and parent participation.
I'd bet whoever found the wallet had lost their own at some point. Empathy is a powerful, powerful thing. I wish that more people would recognize that and work to instill it in their children.
A few weeks ago, my partner and I, together with our 1-month-old baby, were rushing to a courthouse as she needed to do some paperwork for a case she's involved in. We were under high pressure as the courthouse would close in like half an hour, but our son was especially hungry that day and we had to stop several times to feed him, etc.
In one of these stops, probably due to the stress and rush, we left her handbag behind. We noticed when we got to the courthouse (with around twenty minutes left until it closed). This not only implied losing her credit cards, house keys, healthcare card, some money and her phone, but also her ID card which was needed for the paperwork in court. The deadline for the procedure was the next day so we might still have a chance by going to the police and asking for a temporary ID or something, but I'm not even totally sure it would be possible, and in any case it would have been an absolute mess and we would have spent the next morning running here and there.
One or two minutes after we realized the handbag was missing and we were feeling like crap and powerless to do anything, my phone rings. Someone had used my partner's phone [1] to call her mother (because "Mama" is usually a reliable contact, I guess) and she told them to call me. I met the finders in a nearby square five minutes later. They returned everything, and refused any compensation. We completed the paperwork in time that day.
They will probably never know how big a favor they did to us (of course returning cards, phone, money, ID, etc. is always a big favor, but in this case it was even more important than normal due to the court issue, having very little time due to a newborn baby, etc.) and how grateful we are.
[1] In case you are wondering, indeed she didn't have her phone locked with a PIN number, pattern or similar... I know, this goes against every security recommendation. It's just laziness. In this case, it probably helped by accelerating the return, though.
Is it actually legal? In France, a bag in a public place is deemed to be a bomb and the military has to come, secure the area and destroy it. Happens on a routine basis, not even worth the newspapers. You don’t have such laws in Washington DC?
Someone registered and paid for a new Netflix account with my gmail address plus a point somewhere, which Gmail ignores. So I logged into the Netflix account, thinking it was actually mine and this was some misunderstanding. I realized that was not the case, so I to tried to get in touch with the person but no other info was available, everything was done from his phone apparently according to the account logs. I figured that reporting it to support would not do much since they too did not have his info and no phone number was on record, they would cancel the account and maybe the amount paid would be lost.
Finally the only way I found to notify the user was by creating/modifying Netflix users with usernames as short telegraphic messages such as "you registered", "using my email", "*@gmail.com is mine","contact me or change it". That message would be visible as the user opened up any of the Netflix apps or web app. It apparently worked as a couple days later my email stopped being primary on the account and never got any Netflix emails at that gmail inbox.
I have this problem too - only, it happens a LOT. I've had people use my Gmail address but without the "." to sign up (or try to) for Playstation accounts, Apple accounts, Paypal, Skype, Bank accounts, plus it's pretty common that I receive wills and other sensitive legal documents, property deals, you name it. The legal docs etc are likely due to other people mishearing/mistyping someone's email which I can understand, but I'm constantly baffled by how often people must type in their OWN email address incorrectly for important situations too.
Often I can just ignore the signup confirmation emails and it doesn't go any further, but it's surprising how often there is no confirmation link sent out and the account gets opened without verification of the email address. At that point, it can be incredibly difficult to get the problem rectified. Most companies don't seem to have any procedure in place to deal with this situation - Many online companies only have an easy way to contact them if you are one of their customers, so I often have to resort to resetting that user's password to get into their account and use the company's contact form to try and get things straightened out from there. Sometimes even that isn't possible, e.g. because 2FA prevents me from resetting the password, so about the best I can do is unsubscribe from their marketing emails and leave the account active.
I have this same issue with one of my junk email addresses. It's pretty short, it's a famous person's last name (I was a fan), but it's not a very common last name. I've received all kinds of stuff, from many people, but one lady in particular. I only recently noticed this and when checking, I found out that this had been going on since 2008. She's used my email for: car service appointments, plane tickets, Walmart orders, forwards from her work email, turbo tax, customer support, change.org, hotel reservations, etc. Pretty much every aspect of her life has ended up in that mailbox.
I'm truly happy for her that I'm not a malicious person and when I figured it out I sent her a message. I hope she manages to stop using my email for stuff.
It does make a case for not using common user names. I used to always try to use my first name in the early days of the Internet, but it was almost always taken.
The one time I got it was with one of the Maxis online accounts and for the next couple of years I seemed to get a bunch of password reset requests from people who thought it was their account.
While there's something to be said for not using the same user name across different systems using a very common name is not a mistake I'm going to make again.
In terms of the kindness of strangers, I’m reminded of a friend who decided she wanted to hitch hike around Mexico when she was 18. She was poor but she wanted adventures. She wanted to get away from the beaten path, away from tourist traps, and go out into the rural areas so she could discover what Mexico was really like.
Everyone who picked her up warned her that what she was doing was very dangerous. She was lucky, they said, to get a ride from them, and not the criminals all around them. She got ride after ride like that. Family after family picked her up and took her along on their trip and all of them said, “You are in danger! You are lucky we are the ones who picked you up!”
In this manner, she traveled around Mexico for a month, and she never had a dangerous ride.
I frequently walked home from work in Oakland at 1am when I worked a night shift. I always wore headphones too and people would tell me I was being stupid. After about a year and a half of this I was coming up a hill to a four way intersection when someone popped out from behind a fence just before I passed it, grabbed my shirt and stuck a gun in my stomach.
He ended up being not the worst and let me keep my keys and license when I asked.
It only takes once, and the consequences for her would probably have been much worse.
The problem with hitchhiking is that you don't pick someone at random, someone decides to pick you up.
If you pick a random person, they'll almost certainly be a normal, honest person.
If you advertise yourself with a giant sign "I WILL GET IN YOUR CAR IF YOU STOP", then a small percentage of random strangers, but a large percentage of opportunistic criminals, will stop.
In a bus traveling south of Mazatlan I met a family and they invited me to stay at their home in Mexico City. This place, as it turned out, was right in the middle of the largest slum and consisted of a metal frame with roofing and side walls made of tarpauline and a mud floor . The first few days there was a queue of people outside just to oogle the foreigner, but it was all good with lots of smiles. The morning teeth brushing and face washing ritual by young and old was fascinating to watch, with everyone awaiting their turn at the single faucet for hundreds of people.Food was simple, mostly made on small kerosene stoves. I stayed for 8 days and at no time did I feel unsafe , despite my host explaining about many pickpockets , expert thieves and robbers living in this area who went to work the tourist spots during the day , like other people would go to an office , but this was home.
My host had a real job in the forestry department of the city government , but he said he could not afford to live
else where.
They were picking her up to protect her. I’ve been in Central America and had these types of things happen, never foolish enough to hitchhike. Many times people on buses have explained these types of things to me. Where I need it watch out for my stuff, how to not get ripped off, and which places I should avoid. One example I can remember[1].
Another woman did that recently(ish) in Europe, not just for adventures but to prove the world was a safe place or something - she was murdered though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippa_Bacca
This reminds me of a story about how a tribe in the amazon jungle picks their camp site. They check the surrounding trees to make sure they are in good health. I imagine you would have to spend 1000 nights next to a tree they would regard as unsafe, before there was even a chance for something to happen to you. When it happens though, your family will remember it.
That's not how it works. People travel around like that the whole time I'm sure. If every one would end up dead after a month, there would not be anyone left. But that one time it happens, be it after 10 years or 20, you are still dead. Sucks to be that tiny percent that it happens to.
In Czech Republic, during presidential elections, one of the participants (winner, Milos Zeman) opened a transparent as part of their marketing. That meant that every transaction was visible along with donor, amount and a short message.
Because Zeman is controversial person, it turned out badly. People started spamming it with lowest amount possible (about 0.01 CZK) and wrote funny messages. There were people selling their bike or computer, sending messages to their mother from a trip. Two people even played boats there [1]. Even ASCII Pikachu picture appeared there apparently [2].
Coincidentally, I was able to return four peoples' IDs and other cards just this afternoon. Yesterday I was walking in East Oakland and found a pile of credit cards, debit cards, and IDs. Oakland Police Department wouldn't take them so I brought them home and started googling names and addresses.
Of the four IDs I found three belonged to adults; the third was a state ID for a minor related to one of the adults. I was able to find a contact number for all three, via relatives, and had reached them all by afternoon.
I learned that the person who'd dumped the cards had committed a series of car break-ins in San Jose yesterday morning and had fled to Oakland. They stole purses, laptops, and an iPhone. I wish OPD had taken an interest in the theft or at least in returning the stolen property.
After OPD refused the IDs/cards I contacted a handful of local news outlets and explained the situation. One of them, ABC 7, began reaching out, possibly incessantly, to the media relations office at OPD.
By 4:30 PM today I had a text from one of the ABC 7 producers telling me the OPD media relations officer wanted to get in touch and including her desk phone number. When I spoke with her she apologized, acknowledged that procedure had not been followed, and told me they were in touch with SJPD regarding the break-ins. She also told me she would follow up with OPD leadership.
Not sure how applicable this strategy would be in other communities/countries but it appears to have worked for me. I'll also note that I reached out to the mayor's office before contacting news orgs and got no response.
This is neat! I once found someone’s debit card on the street (in the US). It had a small face shot on it, so I found them on Facebook and sent them a message. Of course, Facebook had already started doing the “messages from non-friends are really hard to find lol” UI dark pattern, so like two years later the woman responds thanking me, but also saying she just canceled the card. Which is what I would’ve done, but I at least wanted to provide some peace of mind or closure that it wasn’t stolen or anything.
I hate it when my cynicism alarm goes off, but this feel-good tweet about hacking payment transfers for good is written by a guy who's twitter bio says he's a PM at Transferwise ("We’re building the best way to move money around the world.")
All the replies are people contrasting shitty experiences they've had with their own wallets and money transfer services.
His top pinned tweet is:
> Reasons to work at @TransferWise:
> 1. Irreversibly change the world of finance to be fairer
Since we're sharing, I lost my wallet in the park on the day before I had to hand in my thesis. When I realized it was gone, I just blocked my bank card, but otherwise I put it out of my mind because I was focused on last-minute changes. An hour later or so, the police called and told me that someone had handed it in and that I could pick it up at the station. I told them that I would do that the next day because my thesis deadline was more important. So they sent two officers to my address and and brought me my wallet. Talk about service!
Two weeks ago in Maui at the visitor center at Mt. Haleakala a distraught young woman came in saying she had dropped her wallet somewhere between the visitor center and the peak. When she went to the women's bathroom in the visitor center to check if she might have dropped it there, she found someone else had forgotten their iPhone by the sink.
Within a few minutes an older couple walked into the visitor center and said they had found a wallet on a hike but had lost their iPhone :-)
Two individuals each finding the others lost item was pretty karmic!
I found a wallet once. It has a bankcard in it, so I called the bank, telling them I had found the wallet of one of their customers and asking them if they could help me return in to the owner.
They weren't allowed to give contact details of the owner to me, but they were allowed to forward my contact details to the owner of the wallet.
Through this route we eventually got the wallet back to its owner. Took half a day to get everything in order, but man were they happy to get the wallet back.
I was riding my mountain bike in the woods about 5 years ago. I found someone's wallet in there. Looked them up on Facebook and LinkedIn and sent them some messages. Never heard back from them for a few years.
Then one day, they responded to my Facebook messenger message that they didn't notice my original message. I never looked deep in the wallet, but evidently there was some sentimental stuff in there they were happy to have back. I can't believe I held onto that wallet for so many years.
I once lost my wallet the night of a work Christmas party. Went through the trauma of cancelling cards etc, getting some cash from the bank branch to tide me over, using my passport as ID. A real pain.
Found it a few months later in the back pocket of my smartest suit trousers, which I’d drunkenly hung up in the wardrobe. Never thought to look!
FML.
At least I found £50 that I assumed had gone forever.
The "official" way of dealing with lost property in the UK is to take it to your local police station. If no-one claims it within 6 weeks, you might be able to keep the item. I certainly remember doing this a few times when younger. Not so sure many people know this nowadays.
Anyway, my mother lost her purse a few months back in the small town in Scotland where she lives. Someone suggested she try her local police station (actually not so local any more thanks to the current government having closed over 600 police stations[0]) and lo and behold someone had handed it in there!
The twitter user just so happens to works for a company that uses the technology the "good Samaritan" used. I just glanced at who the guy was, and found it funny that he works in the industry. Who knows, maybe that's why he found it so awesome.
"In April 2018, TransferWise joined Faster Payments as the first non-bank payment service provider to be a directly connected settling participant,[23] after being the first of its kind to gain access to Bank of England's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system.[24]"
"Money transfer firm TransferWise has become the first non-bank company with direct access to Britain’s Faster Payments Scheme, which the start-up said on Wednesday would help it compete with banks on sending money overseas."
I feel pleased reading the stories on the comments here.
Two years ago, I was in a mountain ski resort in Big Sur with some friends and found an iPhone (with no emergency contact) with a wallet case containing an ID card on the floor. They were afraid of taking it from the floor. Still, I had just been past the security office, took it without thinking at all, and went straight to it while trying to find the girl who lost if on Facebook to send her a message.
When I arrived there, I was holding the ID to copy the person's name in the Facebook search. There was a queue with some people talking with the security officer there. Once it was my time, I was putting back the ID.
The officer was such an asshole, I thought he might call the cops to question me about it.
I said I found the phone on the floor. The officer kept me asking why I went through someone's else things. Multiple times like I was doing something evil.
I got upset really quick and told something like 'look, I found this on the ground full of snow and am trying to find the owner' and left the office immediately.
I told my friends (all Brazilians, like myself), and they told me the culture there was different, and probably I should have asked someone to come over to retrieve the object instead of taking it there on my own, as I didn't want to be accused of anything. I never bought this explanation.
Despite what happened, I'd have done the same again.
[+] [-] SI_Rob|6 years ago|reply
It's a couple summers ago, at the height of the summer tourist season and I'm cycling up 4th ave SW in DC. Somewhere between the NASA HQ and the National Mall my camera bag - packed full with a fairly new DSLR, a few lenses, and a secondary cell phone - came unbuckled from my messenger bag and tumbled to the sidewalk. Probably a few thousand dollars of gear, not counting the considerable hassle of resetting 2fa and credentials for every possible account that could be tied to my phone (it was password-locked but I have no idea how well that would survive a determined attack).
I was booking it pretty hard trying to catch a metro, so I didn't notice the loss for a couple more blocks. After the only genuinely involuntary (and painful!) facepalm I've ever given myself, I hurried back home (lived in town close by) and immediately started cancelling every account when my main cell phone rang. The bag was waiting for me, all contents undisturbed and intact, in a hotel lobby a couple blocks away. An anonymous samaritan had picked it up, brought it in and gave it to the concierge without a word, then walked away. Concierge called me using my contact info in a business card that was also in the bag.
In one instant, some unsung karmic superhero single-handedly erased the work of several hundred asshole double parking jobs.
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|6 years ago|reply
I didn't want to call them myself or whatever because I was homeless and I knew I was automatically suspect as a thief because of it. So I wanted someone the world would trust/believe to deal with it.
Well before I was homeless, attempts to return wallets or found ID cards or whatever were consistently met with suspicion. One woman tried to run from me and my husband on the assumption that we were up to no good for trying to catch her because we happened to see her drop her wallet just before she got in her car. But, obviously, we must have been muggers or something. No other explanation was possible in her mind.
[+] [-] roenxi|6 years ago|reply
1) If someone on the street approaches you, they are probably up to something.
2) If you randomly select someone on the street you have probably picked a moral and upstanding person who would love to do you a good turn.
Because of (1) people tend to be a lot more defensive than they need to be when assessing what the average stranger is likely to do.
[+] [-] FineTralfazz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qxfys|6 years ago|reply
As most of the things inside the wallet can be replaced in a couple of days (bank card, and some ID's), I did not worry that much. But, a nice guy from the neighboring office took the high road by calling the contact point of my office, which ended up in my boss hand.
faith in humanity restored. :-)
[+] [-] shaneprrlt|6 years ago|reply
Perfect balance. Yin and yang.
[+] [-] epx|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] js2|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] njovin|6 years ago|reply
In the end I didn't find him and left the toy on a counter, hoping he'd find it. The whole thing bummed me out. My own kid's lost a few toys and I know how devastating it can be. Granted I was sleep deprived and emotional, but it put a damper on my day nonetheless.
Everyone I know who's worked in restaurants or as a delivery driver tips very well. In my limited experience, teachers make some of the best parents when it comes to student interaction and parent participation.
I'd bet whoever found the wallet had lost their own at some point. Empathy is a powerful, powerful thing. I wish that more people would recognize that and work to instill it in their children.
[+] [-] Al-Khwarizmi|6 years ago|reply
In one of these stops, probably due to the stress and rush, we left her handbag behind. We noticed when we got to the courthouse (with around twenty minutes left until it closed). This not only implied losing her credit cards, house keys, healthcare card, some money and her phone, but also her ID card which was needed for the paperwork in court. The deadline for the procedure was the next day so we might still have a chance by going to the police and asking for a temporary ID or something, but I'm not even totally sure it would be possible, and in any case it would have been an absolute mess and we would have spent the next morning running here and there.
One or two minutes after we realized the handbag was missing and we were feeling like crap and powerless to do anything, my phone rings. Someone had used my partner's phone [1] to call her mother (because "Mama" is usually a reliable contact, I guess) and she told them to call me. I met the finders in a nearby square five minutes later. They returned everything, and refused any compensation. We completed the paperwork in time that day.
They will probably never know how big a favor they did to us (of course returning cards, phone, money, ID, etc. is always a big favor, but in this case it was even more important than normal due to the court issue, having very little time due to a newborn baby, etc.) and how grateful we are.
[1] In case you are wondering, indeed she didn't have her phone locked with a PIN number, pattern or similar... I know, this goes against every security recommendation. It's just laziness. In this case, it probably helped by accelerating the return, though.
[+] [-] erikbye|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phendrenad2|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexis_fr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ojosilva|6 years ago|reply
Finally the only way I found to notify the user was by creating/modifying Netflix users with usernames as short telegraphic messages such as "you registered", "using my email", "*@gmail.com is mine","contact me or change it". That message would be visible as the user opened up any of the Netflix apps or web app. It apparently worked as a couple days later my email stopped being primary on the account and never got any Netflix emails at that gmail inbox.
[+] [-] chris_overseas|6 years ago|reply
Often I can just ignore the signup confirmation emails and it doesn't go any further, but it's surprising how often there is no confirmation link sent out and the account gets opened without verification of the email address. At that point, it can be incredibly difficult to get the problem rectified. Most companies don't seem to have any procedure in place to deal with this situation - Many online companies only have an easy way to contact them if you are one of their customers, so I often have to resort to resetting that user's password to get into their account and use the company's contact form to try and get things straightened out from there. Sometimes even that isn't possible, e.g. because 2FA prevents me from resetting the password, so about the best I can do is unsubscribe from their marketing emails and leave the account active.
[+] [-] donkeyd|6 years ago|reply
I'm truly happy for her that I'm not a malicious person and when I figured it out I sent her a message. I hope she manages to stop using my email for stuff.
[+] [-] zantana|6 years ago|reply
The one time I got it was with one of the Maxis online accounts and for the next couple of years I seemed to get a bunch of password reset requests from people who thought it was their account.
While there's something to be said for not using the same user name across different systems using a very common name is not a mistake I'm going to make again.
[+] [-] peter303|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sleepychu|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lkrubner|6 years ago|reply
Everyone who picked her up warned her that what she was doing was very dangerous. She was lucky, they said, to get a ride from them, and not the criminals all around them. She got ride after ride like that. Family after family picked her up and took her along on their trip and all of them said, “You are in danger! You are lucky we are the ones who picked you up!”
In this manner, she traveled around Mexico for a month, and she never had a dangerous ride.
[+] [-] ericmcer|6 years ago|reply
He ended up being not the worst and let me keep my keys and license when I asked.
It only takes once, and the consequences for her would probably have been much worse.
[+] [-] tgsovlerkhgsel|6 years ago|reply
If you pick a random person, they'll almost certainly be a normal, honest person.
If you advertise yourself with a giant sign "I WILL GET IN YOUR CAR IF YOU STOP", then a small percentage of random strangers, but a large percentage of opportunistic criminals, will stop.
I'd argue she got very lucky.
[+] [-] jaco8|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wil421|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/2...
[+] [-] lazyasciiart|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] mbar84|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Moru|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zantana|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EA|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] recursed|6 years ago|reply
Because Zeman is controversial person, it turned out badly. People started spamming it with lowest amount possible (about 0.01 CZK) and wrote funny messages. There were people selling their bike or computer, sending messages to their mother from a trip. Two people even played boats there [1]. Even ASCII Pikachu picture appeared there apparently [2].
[1]: https://1gr.cz/fotky/bulvar/19/041/anime/KIT7a6caf_imgbauer_... [2]: https://1gr.cz/fotky/bulvar/19/041/anime/KIT7a6caf_imgbauer_...
EDIT: Transparent account was apparently mandatory for every candidate by law.
[+] [-] es-hn|6 years ago|reply
Of the four IDs I found three belonged to adults; the third was a state ID for a minor related to one of the adults. I was able to find a contact number for all three, via relatives, and had reached them all by afternoon.
I learned that the person who'd dumped the cards had committed a series of car break-ins in San Jose yesterday morning and had fled to Oakland. They stole purses, laptops, and an iPhone. I wish OPD had taken an interest in the theft or at least in returning the stolen property.
[+] [-] es-hn|6 years ago|reply
After OPD refused the IDs/cards I contacted a handful of local news outlets and explained the situation. One of them, ABC 7, began reaching out, possibly incessantly, to the media relations office at OPD.
By 4:30 PM today I had a text from one of the ABC 7 producers telling me the OPD media relations officer wanted to get in touch and including her desk phone number. When I spoke with her she apologized, acknowledged that procedure had not been followed, and told me they were in touch with SJPD regarding the break-ins. She also told me she would follow up with OPD leadership.
Not sure how applicable this strategy would be in other communities/countries but it appears to have worked for me. I'll also note that I reached out to the mayor's office before contacting news orgs and got no response.
[+] [-] djrogers|6 years ago|reply
Sadly, in California most theft is merely a misdemeanor, and busy PDs do not have time to chase down criminals to give them a ticket.
[+] [-] droithomme|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] journalctl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] floatrock|6 years ago|reply
All the replies are people contrasting shitty experiences they've had with their own wallets and money transfer services.
His top pinned tweet is:
> Reasons to work at @TransferWise:
> 1. Irreversibly change the world of finance to be fairer
> 2. Excellent office dogs [video of cute dogs running around]
I mean, I'd love this to be true, but the coincidences are uncanny.
[+] [-] isp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hesk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marai2|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neor|6 years ago|reply
They weren't allowed to give contact details of the owner to me, but they were allowed to forward my contact details to the owner of the wallet.
Through this route we eventually got the wallet back to its owner. Took half a day to get everything in order, but man were they happy to get the wallet back.
[+] [-] nostromo|6 years ago|reply
"You have a collect call from 'GAME IS OVER PICK ME UP MOM THANKS'. Would you accept the call?"
[+] [-] einpoklum|6 years ago|reply
Keep a note with your email address in your wallet - clearly marked "wallet owner's email".
Paranoid version of the life lesson:
Keep a note with an anonymized email address, with forwarding set up for the message to go to your actual mailbox, in your wallet.
[+] [-] taude|6 years ago|reply
Then one day, they responded to my Facebook messenger message that they didn't notice my original message. I never looked deep in the wallet, but evidently there was some sentimental stuff in there they were happy to have back. I can't believe I held onto that wallet for so many years.
[+] [-] trollied|6 years ago|reply
Found it a few months later in the back pocket of my smartest suit trousers, which I’d drunkenly hung up in the wardrobe. Never thought to look!
FML.
At least I found £50 that I assumed had gone forever.
[+] [-] m-i-l|6 years ago|reply
The "official" way of dealing with lost property in the UK is to take it to your local police station. If no-one claims it within 6 weeks, you might be able to keep the item. I certainly remember doing this a few times when younger. Not so sure many people know this nowadays.
Anyway, my mother lost her purse a few months back in the small town in Scotland where she lives. Someone suggested she try her local police station (actually not so local any more thanks to the current government having closed over 600 police stations[0]) and lo and behold someone had handed it in there!
[0] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/600-police-stations-shut-...
[+] [-] tobr|6 years ago|reply
Why is that? What am I even supposed to do with 12 characters?
[+] [-] midvar|6 years ago|reply
The twitter user just so happens to works for a company that uses the technology the "good Samaritan" used. I just glanced at who the guy was, and found it funny that he works in the industry. Who knows, maybe that's why he found it so awesome.
"In April 2018, TransferWise joined Faster Payments as the first non-bank payment service provider to be a directly connected settling participant,[23] after being the first of its kind to gain access to Bank of England's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system.[24]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments_Service
"Money transfer firm TransferWise has become the first non-bank company with direct access to Britain’s Faster Payments Scheme, which the start-up said on Wednesday would help it compete with banks on sending money overseas."
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-transferwise-britain/start...
[+] [-] astura|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] henvic|6 years ago|reply
Two years ago, I was in a mountain ski resort in Big Sur with some friends and found an iPhone (with no emergency contact) with a wallet case containing an ID card on the floor. They were afraid of taking it from the floor. Still, I had just been past the security office, took it without thinking at all, and went straight to it while trying to find the girl who lost if on Facebook to send her a message.
When I arrived there, I was holding the ID to copy the person's name in the Facebook search. There was a queue with some people talking with the security officer there. Once it was my time, I was putting back the ID.
The officer was such an asshole, I thought he might call the cops to question me about it.
I said I found the phone on the floor. The officer kept me asking why I went through someone's else things. Multiple times like I was doing something evil.
I got upset really quick and told something like 'look, I found this on the ground full of snow and am trying to find the owner' and left the office immediately.
I told my friends (all Brazilians, like myself), and they told me the culture there was different, and probably I should have asked someone to come over to retrieve the object instead of taking it there on my own, as I didn't want to be accused of anything. I never bought this explanation.
Despite what happened, I'd have done the same again.