Lost wallet.How many honest people are out there?

Once on holiday in France near Toulouse, we tret ourselves to Sunday lunch.
I went to the loo and beside the sinks was a Chanel handbag. I shouted hello but I was the only one in.
I took it to the reception desk and explained where I had found it. They were astonished I had handed it in and gave me the equivalent of £20 out of their till.
I often wonder if the owner went back for it.

I spotted a handbag by the roadside a few years ago and took it in to our local police station, I did get a call from the owner to thank me.
Another time I was driving out of IKEA and stopped at traffic lights behind a car with a purse on the roof. As it drove off the purse slid off and the car didn’t react to me flashing my lights. So I picked up the purse which contained the owner’s address.
I phoned the library ( it wasn’t a smart phone!) and they told me where this address was. Found my way there and handed it over. The girl seemed amazed.
This just seems normal to me.

I handed in an envelope containing some cash in too police , after 6months (i think )noone collected it so got a phone call to say it now was mine ( this is in nz ) , donated it to charity .
Got a phone call one day from my son's phone , someone had found it on a bench ,went through contact list and thought mum would be best number to ring to return it.

This is quite a heartwarming thread on balance.
I do like to think the best of people though..
I hope your husband gets his wallet back eventually. 🤞

MissAdventure

Why don't people take them to the bank or the police?
On the next door app people seem to enjoy saying "message me, and if you can tell me what's in the front pocket, blah blah..."

Just hand it in!

Most banks and police stations are closed now. Nowhere to hand in lost property these days. Lots of lost items are reunited via my local Facebook.

It is ok saying hand it in but when your local Police Station is 20 miles away it isn't that easy.

I,m glad so many honest people are around.DH has just been unlucky there was no honest person around when he lost his wallet. He doesn't have much hope of it turning up now.However he may get a surprise one of these days!

Many years ago when I was in my 20's I lost the gold wrist watch my dad had bought me for my 18th birthday.
I had been shopping in town on a busy Saturday before Christmas and I guess it fell off somewhere. I was devastated, my died had died when I was 19.

Before leaving town I called into the main Police Station and low and behold someone had handed it in. I was over the moon. The woman police officer said the man who had handed it in had left his phone number, which she gave me to thank him.

The first thing I did when I got home was to phone him and it was one of the strangest conversations I've ever had.

He was a man of around 40 I'd say from his voice who seemed very guarded, as if I was going to catch him out or accuse him rather than thank him. I can't really describe what I mean but believe me it was weird and rather uncomfortable.

Anyway, I was tremendously grateful for his honesty.

I’ve found a couple of mobile phones in the past and traced the owners. One was very grateful, but the other ‘demanded’ I deliver the phone! I said no, but she arranged for a local chap to pick it up from me. I found a £10 note blowing around at my retail park and took it into a shop and put it into the charity box on the counter.
Sadly, no-one was honest enough to hand in DH’s Rolex - a 21st birthday present from his parents.
Generally though, I think most people are honest.

When my children were about nine and eleven, they found a lot of £10 notes on the ground at our local station. They handed them in, and later were given a reward out of public funds for their honesty. I hope they’d have been as honest if I hadn’t been with them!

I once left my handbag, with everything in it, in a taxi. I rang the taxi firm, they traced the cab and the driver brought the bag to my door fairly quickly. It was about midnight. I’d been singing in a concert and was on a bit of a high, which made me careless. I did give him a reward, can’t remember how much.

I did lose my purse a few years ago. The person who picked it up didn't have time to take it to the police station before they went on holiday. When they came back, two weeks later, they handed it in and the police brought it to my house.
Don't give up hope just yet.

I think here they often take things to the library.
When I left my handbag in the toilet near sainsbury's, somebody handed it in there.

Thankfully untouched, when I had been wringing my hands and insisting it wasn't even worth checking out because someone would have picked it up.

If anyone looses a purse, wallet or card it's advertised on the community page on FB. If not claimed that day we take it to the post office.
There are no banks or police station within 10 miles.

A dd who’d returned from work via a heaving Waterloo station in the rush hour, found on arriving home that she’d lost her purse. Assuming she’d been pickpocketed, she cancelled all cards, but the next day she called in at Waterloo’s lost property, just in case.

And lo, some kind person had handed it in, all contents intact, so evidently she must somehow have dropped it. It did restore our faith in human nature.

I once had my bag snatched off the front passenger seat of my car, while waiting to turn left at a busy junction after dark, in the rain. (Talk about a lesson in using your central locking!).

Some months later we came home to find the purse that had been in that bag, put through our letterbox. Someone had found it (rather the worse for wear) in their garden, where the thief had evidently thrown it. My driving licence (which I still hadn’t bothered to replace) a couple of other items that were still valid, were still in it. I did send a thank you note to the person who taken the trouble to return it.

A few years ago I found a smartphone lying on a grass verge. I opened it and there was no PIN needed. I rang a couple of numbers on it and the owner was traced. She rang me and came round to collect it at the entrance door to the development.

“Thanks” said she as I handed it over.
“You’re very welcome” I replied.

Honesty is its own reward. I was just happy the woman got her phone back.

A few months ago i posted on here about a Bank card we found and then found the owner on FB which saved him cancelling cards, reordering and waiting for new ones. He asked me to post it to him which I did and he said he “would stick a tenner in the post.”

Of course, as often happens on GN I was the wicked one for “expecting” a reward (which I wasn’t but it would have been nice to have the postage (Signed for) refunded at least).

I never did receive the tenner. 🤣🤣. So in answer to the OP question …… i think there are a lot of honest people about and a lot of ungrateful people too.

Years ago in Italy we were on a bus with the children , and we found a wallet stuffed with notes and bank cards.
We gave it to the bus driver. People said later they didn’t think the driver would hand it in and implied we should have kept it.
I hope he had handed it in, but either way we had done the right thing and happy it wasn’t on our conscience.
Later someone put a brick through our car window. 🤔 cost a lot in time and money we couldn’t afford, to get repaired before we travelled home. Hmmm,🤨

I work in a suppermarket, I carry a gift card in my pocket (we are not allowed to carry money cards etc) So I always have a gift card in my pocket with no more than £10 on, just to buy a drink or yogurt etc when I am on my break to save me going all the way up n down stairs.

On Friday I topped up my gift card £10 as it was low, but unfortunately I seem to have dropped it out of my uniform pocket due to me in and out of my pocket for pen/paper etc.

No one has handed it in, it had my name on and "staff". So I hope whoever found it enjoyed and made good use of the £10.20 . Just glad it wasn't my bank card!

What a lovely story Margiknot.

Oh of course, I hadn't thought about there no longer being places to hand things in to.
As per usual, I'm way behind the times

Last week we found a handful of pound coins in Waitrose car park so thinking it might belong to some elderly lady or gent we handed it in to the shop with the proviso that if it wasn’t claimed within 6 weeks we would have it back and give it to a charity of our choice. It will be interesting to see what happens but I am not holding my breath!

Most people are honest but I don't think people tend to hand in lost property to the police anymore-. A young friend lost his wallet and eventually it found its way back to him via a local social media post and a friend of a friend contacted the finder to arrange collection!
DH interrupted a thief trying to remove his wallet from his back pocket.
I agree its not just the money lost but all the admin to get new loyalty cards etc.
I did once loose a £10 note which was folded into my tiny purse- I think it blew away in a fierce wind and I could not find it. I had very little other money. I had driven all the way to our nearest seaside with my SN son and needed the money to pay for my parking and the planned activities. I had no other money. A gent saw me trying to find the lost note (son crying!!) and gave me the extra 10p for the parking. We just went to the beach. When I got back to the car the lost note ( complete with the unique folds I had used) was stuck with a note under the windscreen wipers!!

The vast majority of folks are very honest
Two grandkids have had their phones found and brought back to them One grandaughter lost her purse and a few days later an uber driver brought it to her door with everything intact A ‘just grown’ grandson left a ‘very’ expensive coat on a train …don’t ask ….he got it back
Everyone in my family always hand things in and put it on face book that’s the ‘go to’ lost and found information bureau

In never fails to surprise me how many bank cards are lost and found on fb every day, also keys

My son was mugged at uni and his wallet was stolen. I cancelled his cards immediately. Several weeks later his wallet, minus cash, was posted to me. Someone had found it whilst walking their dog. Obviously there was no money in it. It did cost me though as, even though they didn’t expect it I felt I had to give the finder a reward for being so kind. My son found a roll of banknotes on his way back from school. On asking around a neighbour said it was his, although there was no way of proving it. However, my son gave him the money. He didn’t give my son anything: not even a bar of chocolate.

No banks near me and I have no idea where the police station is.