If you found $10,000 inside a bag while strolling through the park, would you keep it?

Question

Perhaps gamble it? Or put the money in an interest bearing account? Or would you turn it into the police?

Answer 1

Well, I return $9000, the other $1000, I need it for the PS3, besides the person who put the money in the bag does not need the money, that's why I have it, if they do, they always remember about the big amount of money in the bag, i mean like i heard a story about a person lost the money, another person saw it and returned it to the person who lost it, and then he gave the person a reward like half the money that he got.

See, if I return this bag back and get a reward for half the money ($5000), I just only take $1000 and give the rest to the owner, that's not even a half of the money, I'm so nice.

Answer 2

I would keep it, if there is no dangerous risks. I am human, so I naturally sin, greed here. I don't think $10,000 is really from like a lost wallet or anything. Something definitely happened for it to be there in the first place, and it's most likely something corrupted. Turning it into the police? What would they do with it anyway? Buy more power for the unjust cops? Of course, I wouldn't hog the entire thing, I would keep some for my self enjoyment, and maybe spend the rest to help out the poor, or donate to charity.

Answer 3

I have a rule about this sort of thing. If the bag had identification I would turn it in, if it didn't, I would keep it. This sort of thing happened to me quite a bit when I worked in a supermarket. When I first started I worked outside collecting the shopping carts. Unbelieveable people would forget things from their shopping cart all the time. Sometimes it was food and other times it was their purse. When it was food I'd stroll that shopping cart to my car and upload the items into my trunk. When it was a purse I'd turn it in.

My rationale was that if I turned in the food back to the manager she'd just put it back to be sold. Losing a purse, on the other hand, is very troublesome and could easily be returned. I just had to consider how I'd want someone to act if they found my wallet. On the other hand, if I forgot a 2 liter bottle of Dr. Pepper, I wouldn't really care about it.

Answer 4

I sure would not turn it into the Police, they're the biggest crooks of all. I would probably take it home and place some kind of ad in the local paper, saying something like
Found Item In Park please call and describe item and location lost. Hopefully someone would see the ad and call.
After 30 days with no call, I would keep the money, donating much of it to Cancer Research and The American Heart Foundation.

Answer 5

Look at it this way.

If you were walking through the park with a bag with $10,000 in it and you accidentally lost it, would you want whoever found it to turn it into the police so you could reclaim your money? Or would you want them to keep it and you're just out of luck for losing it?

Answer 6

I would turn it in to the police. Use to, a few years back, if you found money and turned it in to the police department, after a certain amount of time, if the money was not claimed, the money was returned to you. Times have changed a lot since then. So it may not be this way any more. I would still turn it in. I wouldn't feel right keeping it. Besides with my luck it would be counterfeit! Then I would be in hot water if I tried to spend it.

Answer 7

I would turn it in to the police, first of all because that would be the right thing to do, second of all because I would be afraid that it's money from a drug dealer or someone doing something illegal, and I would not want them tracking me down and trying to retrieve the money!

Note about turning things in to the police: if I turned it in to the police, I would make DARN sure that I had documentation as to the amount I turned in and who I turned it in to. Little story from my own experience:

My husband and I were walking in downtown El Segundo, CA when we found a gold chain lying on the sidewalk. It was a heavy gold rope chain, it had a hallmark of "14 kt" on it, it was a serious piece of bling.

Now if I lost something like that, I'd be devastated. So my husband and I did what we would want someone to do if we'd lost the chain: we took it to the El Segundo Police Department and turned it in to the lost and found.

We were told by the young lady who took the chain, and who we naively did not bother to get the name of, that if the chain went unclaimed for 90 days, we could have it. Since we were turning it into a police department, we didn't think we needed any documentation beyond the receipt the young lady gave us, which described the chain as simply "gold chain."

90 days later we called the police department to find out if it had been claimed. It hadn't, and we were told we could have it if we'd bring our receipt. So my husband and I drove down to the police department and presented the receipt.

The young lady at the desk, who was not the same one as the young lady who had taken the chain and given us the receipt, went somewhere and came out with a "found item" report with a plastic bag stapled to it. She handed this to us.

Well, big surprise: the chain that was in the bag wasn't the chain we'd turned in. It was literally the kind of chain you get out of a kiddie vending machine for a quarter or fifty cents.

We told the lady that this wasn't the chain we'd turned in. She pointed out that the found item report just described a "gold chain." She also said that she didn't recognize the signature or initials of the person who had given us the receipt.

So we were had. No doubt someone saw the opportunity to get a real serious gold chain and pulled a substitution. And that was the moment that the El Segundo, CA police department convinced me that you can't count on the honesty of police officers just because they are police officers. Sad.

Answer 8

Legally, for such a large sum of money, you are required to report it to the police (since it is most likely stolen property or evidence in a criminal investigation). If it remains unclaimed after a certain period of time, which is highly unlikely, then it will be returned to you.

If I still got to keep it after doing the right thing, then I would spend it lavishly - it's like pirate booty and should be spent on fun happy things, like a trip around the world.

Answer 9

If it was stuck in astone, you should try to pull it out. If you succeed, you should change your name to Arthur and find a girl whose father will give you a big round table for a wedding present. But if a guy named Lancelot wants to sit at it, don't let him out of your sight! However, if it was just lying there, look up to see whether there's a statue about twenty feet tall holding out an empty hand.

Answer 10

No, i don't think i would keep it, partly because of the guilt you will feel for taking the money that belongs to someone who lost it, i would probably turn it into the police and make sure the police finds the owner instead of keeping it for themselves!