Taking stuff that isnt yours

I just did a quick poll around my office (about 9 people) of well educated, law abiding citizens asking what they would do if they found a wallet in the middle of a busy street with £50 cash inside and no possible way of tracing it back to the owner. Every single one said they would keep the cash. Comments included:

"I'm not stupid, if I handed it in to a shop they would just keep the money themselves"
"It balances out for when I lose money"

I changed the item to a phone and every single one said they would call the last number dialed or "home" and return the phone back to the owner.


Finally, I changed the item to an ipod, again unable to trace it back to the owner. 8 people said they would pick it up and keep it after asking people in the immediate vicinity if they had lost an ipod (and ask for a full description before handing it over). One person said they wouldn't bother because they already have an ipod. Comments indluded:

"If I don't pick it up someone else will"
"It might get stepped on and broken which would be a waste"


I conclude that the world is probably how I suspected it. There is a grey area afterall.
 
Fair enough, interesting - thanks for doing that. Maybe I'm just a mug then as I find it a little bit hard to justify the argument of "someone else will pick it up so I might as well". Meh, we're all different - maybe my faith in people is held too high.
 
Freefaller said:
Fair enough, interesting - thanks for doing that. Maybe I'm just a mug then as I find it a little bit hard to justify the argument of "someone else will pick it up so I might as well". Meh, we're all different - maybe my faith in people is held too high.
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It is, I'd say your average man in the street would keep something they find in the street rather than return it 9 times out of 10
 
One person also said that they wouldn't have the time to walk to the police station, discuss it with an officer, probably fill out a form (and possibly be arrested and accused of stealing ;)) all of which could take 1-2 hours. I'm sure you will say people should make time to help other human beings but a busy world where a shopping trip in town has to be completed within a set time frame, not to mention the possibility of having to pay extra for parking, it's simply not worth the time and expense to hand in a 2nd hand ipod that's worth, what? £50? (I don't own one so not familiar with pricing)
 
Guest2 said:
E.g. When i was travelling I lost a number of cameras and 2 phones and had my towel stolen off a washing line. I took someone elses towel in return and ended up finding a new Camera.
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so basically you're saying you can't look after your own stuff and are stupid enough to keep losing things like cameras etc... then using some even more retarded logic you've decided that because you're a complete **** who can't look after his own things you're justified in taking stuff that other people have carelessly lost

no I don't think you're in the right I just think you're ridiculously dumb
 
gambitt said:
One person also said that they wouldn't have the time to walk to the police station, discuss it with an officer, probably fill out a form (and possibly be arrested and accused of stealing ;)) all of which could take 1-2 hours. I'm sure you will say people should make time to help other human beings but a busy world where a shopping trip in town has to be completed within a set time frame, not to mention the possibility of having to pay extra for parking, it's simply not worth the time and expense to hand in a 2nd hand ipod that's worth, what? £50? (I don't own one so not familiar with pricing)
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I can understand the excuses for not doing it (i.e. handing it in etc...) - but I cannot understand the excuses for tricking yourself into believing that keeping it for yourself is the right moral thing to do.

I do maybe put too much faith in my fellow men/women, but hey if we don't have some belief that there is some good around then we might as well all give up!

I've made a few detours to hand things in as I alluded to earlier, sure I didn't get a thanks or a pat on the back etc... but I felt deep within me that Iv'e done the right thing. I'm not expecting good luck or karma, but I feel at peace with myself for having done it. If the owner was ever reunited with their posessions I know not, and honestly I hope they did, but I don't worry about it, I would worry about not handing it in though.

If as was said above 9/10 people would just pocket an item, then frankly I think we need to take a good look at society and re-evaluate social and moral codes as it seems clear to me from this thread that people think it's acceptble to do such things. It's really quite disturbing.

I wouldn't be vehemently vengeful or enraged by someone who pocketed my stuff should I have dropped it - but I'd be a) gutted b) annoyed to have lost it (with myself). Admittedly there isn;t a national/local lost and found so it's a bit of pot luck to find the right police station - but a wallet is easily traceable, even a phone (even if locked) the police can find who it's registered to... a camera most people would be looking for it and ask at a police station if anything was handed in.

I guess my faith in people is misplaced.. well I'm not going to change, I'm going to keep believing that there are in general honest people around - and feel sorry for those who think that such behaviour is acceptable and wish they develop a higher level of social/moral values as they grow older and just hope that society doesn't end up being a total dog-eat-dog world.
 
gambitt said:
I don't keep incorrect change either. The person in charge of that till will probably get the blame and I don't need £10 that badly.
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Indeed. How ***** would it be to keep an extra fiver or whatever?

I even once sent a cheque to Ikea when I checked my receipt at home and found I'd forgotten to scan an item and thus underpaid them. They sent a letter back expressing their surprise. Sad times.
 
Ive never really found a wallet/money, although if I found cash on the street I'd take it and if I found an expensive item/wallet I'd hand it in.

Last week I lost my wallet on a night out when I was really drunk, not sure how I lost it but thankfully it was handed in (Had all my student ID cards, Provisional license etc which are useless to other people, but expensive for me to replace) sadly the cash was gone though (maybe ~£10, I'm not gonna lose sleep over it).
 
Freefaller said:
I can understand the excuses for not doing it (i.e. handing it in etc...) - but I cannot understand the excuses for tricking yourself into believing that keeping it for yourself is the right moral thing to do.

I do maybe put too much faith in my fellow men/women, but hey if we don't have some belief that there is some good around then we might as well all give up!

I've made a few detours to hand things in as I alluded to earlier, sure I didn't get a thanks or a pat on the back etc... but I felt deep within me that Iv'e done the right thing. I'm not expecting good luck or karma, but I feel at peace with myself for having done it. If the owner was ever reunited with their posessions I know not, and honestly I hope they did, but I don't worry about it, I would worry about not handing it in though.

If as was said above 9/10 people would just pocket an item, then frankly I think we need to take a good look at society and re-evaluate social and moral codes as it seems clear to me from this thread that people think it's acceptble to do such things. It's really quite disturbing.

I wouldn't be vehemently vengeful or enraged by someone who pocketed my stuff should I have dropped it - but I'd be a) gutted b) annoyed to have lost it (with myself). Admittedly there isn;t a national/local lost and found so it's a bit of pot luck to find the right police station - but a wallet is easily traceable, even a phone (even if locked) the police can find who it's registered to... a camera most people would be looking for it and ask at a police station if anything was handed in.

I guess my faith in people is misplaced.. well I'm not going to change, I'm going to keep believing that there are in general honest people around - and feel sorry for those who think that such behaviour is acceptable and wish they develop a higher level of social/moral values as they grow older and just hope that society doesn't end up being a total dog-eat-dog world.
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Good post.

I have a very similar viewpoint to your own - I will always go out of my way to do something decent to aid another. Sadly, I think some people are just fundamentally different from others in their values and morals.
 
gambitt said:
I didn't say I "hang out" with this type of person but it is naive to think that the majority of people in this country are as honest as the people in this thread. Consider all the chav scum in this country, none of them would hand anything in and that's a big chunk of the popluation right there.
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It really isn't as big a chunk as you think.

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of civilised human beings try to do good things for the most part.
 
Chimerical said:
And another thing, piracy is just as bad but I bet many more people do that and don't think twice about it.
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:rolleyes: Piracy isn't theft, why even try to lump them in to the same category?

I suppose I shouldn't have expected any less though, some people can't help telling people "Piracy is stealing you know?", it's like they have some sort of compulsion to do so.
 
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At the OP.

I would hand such items in. I always have as it is the right thing to to.

Items you have lost previously do not justify your actions. I don't know what I find more annoying; the fact that you do it or the blase attitude that goes with it.

You commit theft the second you assume the rights of the owner when it would be relatively simple to reunite owner and item as they would likely report them lost / stolen.

Do the right thing next time although I have a feeling that will fall on deaf ears.
 
mrk said:
Now if I found a suitcase full of cash one day....that would be a different matter entirely :p
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Have you seen Shallow Grave? :eek:

Back to the OP - keeping hold of lost items seems rather unfair but I don't think it constitutes theft in the eyes of the law.

I should add that I would most certainly hand in anything I found!
 
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mattheman said:
so whats the didfference of finding a 100 year old gold coin?
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There's special rules for finding "treasure". You may be required to turn it over the government or to the landowner. You may also be taxed on your find.

There was an article on my work Intranet a while back about it.
 
krooton said:
It really isn't as big a chunk as you think.

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of civilised human beings try to do good things for the most part.
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See my post above regarding the quick poll I took in my office. If you do the same I'm sure the results will be similar even among civilised human beings.

Some people simply put more value on material goods than others. Someone who has saved for months to buy an ipod would care more about it than someone who earns say £40k a year who would probably chose to purchase a new one because a few hours of their time is more valuable than a used ipod.

The "lost item model" that someone described would not work in this society. People do not simply have time to spend 1-2 hours helping each other when they can be fired for returning to work late from a lunch break spent shopping around town. What will they tell their boss? "It's ok, I was busy handing in a £50 ipod belonging to a complete stranger so please disregard the hundreds of pounds I cost the company this afternoon."
 
Loose cash, I'll keep, bag of cash? Keepsies again.

Wallet, I'd take it upon my self to try and contact the owner myself to return it, if that didn't work, I'd hand it in to the police, I wouldn't touch money in it as I'd who whose it was.

Phone, I'd get ringing some numbers on it so I can return it to the owner.

iPod? I'd suspect I could find out who it belonged to via apple as it should be linked to an itunes in some way.

I'm not really sure what I'd do with items that had no personal information within it.

Personally, I don't know if I'd trust the police to actually do something about it.
 
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