Careful if you see money on the floor & pick it up.

The Op is tricking you.

The article doesn't mention the floor in relation to this case. It was a cashpoint, if the money were inside the bank and you nicked it you would be in a lot more trouble than this.
 
Why would money be treated different to any other goods? Do people just take stuff they find outside?

Do people just take a car that is unlocked? A package left outside? A bag/wallet left in a bar?

Saying someone else would steal it, it might as well be you, is a terrible excuse.
 
JOSH said:
I didn't realise until I was listening to LBC today that there is a law called theft by finding which is only about finding money.

Wiki Link
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I was under the impression that it was for anything that you find, such as mobile phones.

As for this case, it should have simply been a case of the shop stopping the woman next time she came in and asking for it back so that it can be given the rightful owners, I think police and courts over £20 is rather wasteful of resources. Even if the police were involved, a simple police caution and returning the money should have been enough.
 
marc2003 said:
The last time I found money on the floor, it was a £2 coin. Who would hand that in? :p
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no one and you would be fine
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8129534.stm
Therefore, in England and Wales, as well as in most other countries across the world, the onus is on the finder to take what the law describes as "reasonable steps" to track down the loser.

"And that depends on where it has been found," says Professor Chambers. "In the airport you should go to the authorities, if it is in the street you should go to the police."

In the same way, those claiming ship-wrecked goods are obliged to notify the Maritime and Coastguard Agency's Receiver of Wrecks, and those finding buried treasure must notify the local coroner.

And in the case of winning lottery tickets, finders should advise organisers Camelot.

But what action is required often depends on what's found, says John Spencer, professor of law at the University of Cambridge.

"If you pick up a £1 coin, you can keep it unless you saw someone drop it, as you would not be able to find the owner by taking reasonable steps.

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"But if you found four or five £20 notes in a gutter - as I once did - you probably will find the owner as they are likely to contact the police, as they did in my case.
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If i find money on the floor and I had no idea who it belonged to, I would probably keep it. Inside a shop I would hand it in.

If I see someone drop money, I make effort to get it back to them. Don't see if often, but saw a guy drop a fiver and picked it up and gave it right back :)

If I find a wallet, I'd hand that in, or make some effort to return it if it contained info about the owners.

If I lost money I'd expect someone else would probably profit from it.

Swings and roundabouts. I don't really find cash lying about though.
 
muon said:
Do people just take a car that is unlocked? A package left outside? A bag/wallet left in a bar?
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Someone took a rucksack that was just lying around the boot of my locked car and then helped themselves to the last tenner from my student bank account. Ownership is such a fluid concept :p

She did herself no favours by denying it initially. She should have handed it in or left it there for the owner to find on his return.
 
MooMoo444 said:
If someone dropped their phone and someone found it and kept it, would people feel different?
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I would, because there's a far, far greater chance of being able to track down the owner and the owner being able to prove they are rather than some greedy chancer. Also, a £20 note is probably a lot easier for someone to replace than their phone and all the data on it. So the level of obligation shifts dramatically from "it would take a lot of effort to track down who this belongs to, it's probably not possible and even if it is, it's more effort than £20 is worth" to "this is really important to someone and we can probably get it back to them."

Not everything is an argument about principle. Sometimes it's an argument of degree.
 
There's a bar I sometimes drink in that's got a 50p coin superglued to the floor on the way to the toilets. Quite funny watching people (nay, thieves) try and pick it up.
 
Ahleckz said:
There's a bar I sometimes drink in that's got a 50p coin superglued to the floor on the way to the toilets. Quite funny watching people (nay, thieves) try and pick it up.
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I see your location is "Glasgow". Has nobody come back with a claw-hammer for it, yet? :p
 
Ah yes, society catering for the morons as per usual.

If you lose money, it's your own stupid fault and if someone else pockets what you drop - too bad! Connect your brain next time and think about what you're doing.
 
In a shop, I'd just leave it. Outside though, well that's just fair game.

Malevolence said:
I found a wallet a while back. It was just sitting on a wall next to a bustop, it had just shy of £500 in cash and little else bar a couple of credit cards and debit card which, strangely, were all in different names. There was no driving licence or any other form of identification at all, just the three cards in different names. This was at silly o'clock (around 03:30) on a weekday and the town centre was dead. There was literally nobody in sight, on foot or in a car, and it was deathly silent.

Yoink.
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Hotwired said:
Hey look there's some money lying about in a shop.

Oh look also some goods lying about in a shop.

Clearly it's fine to pick up and take either right?
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Well no... the goods are obviously owned by the shop, the money is less likely to be. I would keep it, since the chance of finding the legitimate owner is low if you hadn't seen where it had come from. There are very few options to actually get it back to it's rightful owner.
 
I think if someone loses something then that's their own fault. Some things are easier to lose, like cash, so you have to take extra care and it's not stealing to take lost cash. Other things, like cars, are almost impossible to lose so by definition it is always stealing to take one.
 
SilverTongue said:
Handing it in to the staff would have just resulted in it either being pocketed by staff or chucked in the till. Even if the person who lost it came back do you think staff would give it to them?
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Money is fairly often dropped where I work. It's accounted for seperately and held in one of the safes for a while. I've no idea what happens to it if no-one claims it for a month. We will also watch CCTV if it's dropped in an area covered by a camera to try to see who dropped it and if we recognise them so we can get it back to them.

Plenty of places will at least take reasonable steps to do the right thing.

Having said that, a court case for keeping a dropped £20 note with no idea who dropped it seems excessive to me.

I found 10p on the pavement a couple of days ago. Should that result in a criminal conviction for theft too? Where's the line to be drawn?
 
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