What would you do?

Question

You were walking down the street and saw a man in front and he dropped his wallet on the floor, you pick the wallet and it is bulging with cash well over £2000/ $4000 USD or 6000 euro. But before you can catch up with him he has got into his car a brand new top of the range rolls royce and set off. The wallet has no name or address in it. Do you

A) Keep the money and think its a nice windfall and the person looked wealthy so wouldn't miss the money

B) Take the wallet to the local police station and hope if it isn't recovered after 6 months you will receive the contents

C) Give the money to charity because you don't want the guilt of keeping the money and you don't want to hand it in.

Personally I would hand it in to the police, i am not a wealthy person but i couldn't take the guilt of keeping it.

Answer 1

I'd take the money...

Answer 2

Wallets usually have more than cash in them. I would look for some sort of identification in them, then try reverse lookup / directory assistance to track down the guy myself. I have just enough hatred for humanity as a whole that I wouldn't even trust the cops to not skim a little off the top before contacting the guy.

Answer 3

Guilt is relative.

If you were close enough to the man to see that HE dropped the wallet on the floor, you were close enough to yell out and get his attention.
If you yell out, "HEY! You dropped your wallet!" he's going to turn around.
It takes a bit of time to drop your wallet, keep walking until you reach your car, get into your car, and "set off".
All time enough to get his attention.
And, to see the license plate number on the car.
(Which you could use to track down the man and return his property.)

Obviously, you did none of the above.
So, it's no wonder you feel guilty.


Turning in unidentified cash to the police is the same as giving them a donation. (Which is not a bad thing.)

Finding untraceable cash, is a gift from the gods.

But, "untraceable" is a difficult adjective to claim.
There are many avenues to pursue.


You say, "the person looked wealthy"--don't be judgin'.

Also, maybe the money belonged to someone else.
Maybe he was on his way to give it to someone more deserving than you.

Answer 4

Don't hand it in to the police - sneaky buggers at the best of times. By all means hand it to a charity - only to be absorbed by their administration costs! Keep it. If you have trouble wrestling with your conscience, put it in a savings account and just spend the interest, that way you won't actually be spending the money - just looking after it really.

Answer 5

Take half the cash, pocket it.
Take the wallet and the rest of the cash to the Police station.

Actually thinking about it more, i'd just keep it all!!
The police wouldn't be able to track him down if there was no contact details or tracers in his wallet anyway.

So yeah, yeah I'd keep it all and go blow it all in one day!! x x x

Answer 6

I would love to keep the money and go on a spending spree but I would have to hand it in to the police and hope that guy would leave me an equally good reward for being honest - lol. I only ever lose things never find anything - I lost my bag at the weekend with my phone in it and no one handed it in - bad lucks on it's way to them haha.

Answer 7

Put the money in the bank put an ad in the paper and people who called you would hve to tell the amount of money in the wallet and the exact description and where they lost it. If no one answers keep it. You did your best to locate the owner. Who knows it might be an honesty test.

Answer 8

Absolutely depends on how skint I was at the time. If I was poor (to the extent of not managing to pay bills on time etc) then I'd keep it and call it divine intervention. If not struggling then I'd take it to the police station.

Answer 9

keep the money and buy myself some new clothes
i wouldn't feel guilty if he drives that flash motor and can afford to walk around with that much cash in his wallet and not keep it glued to his hand then he has plenty of money and thats why i wouldn't feel guilty

Answer 10

I know what I SHOULD do.... but I would definitely be tempted to keep it all for myself. It's a difficult one! I might hand it in because it would probably be money from drugs and I don't want to have fun with money made off other people's misery.

Answer 11

I'd give it to charity because if i couldn't find the owner i wouldn't trust the police to give it to me after 6 months. At least if it goes to charity its going to good use.