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I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

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Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#51

Post by SI_Rob »

Every so often my pessimistic tendencies get a healthy slap across the face by the actions of someone who took the high road when they easily could have chosen otherwise.

It's a couple summers ago, at the height of the summer tourist season and I'm cycling up 4th ave SW in DC. Somewhere between the NASA HQ and the National Mall my camera bag - packed full with a fairly new DSLR, a few lenses, and a secondary cell phone - came unbuckled from my messenger bag and tumbled to the sidewalk. Probably a few thousand dollars of gear, not counting the considerable hassle of resetting 2fa and credentials for every possible account that could be tied to my phone (it was password-locked but I have no idea how well that would survive a determined attack).

I was booking it pretty hard trying to catch a metro, so I didn't notice the loss for a couple more blocks. After the only genuinely involuntary (and painful!) facepalm I've ever given myself, I hurried back home (lived in town close by) and immediately started cancelling every account when my main cell phone rang. The bag was waiting for me, all contents undisturbed and intact, in a hotel lobby a couple blocks away. An anonymous samaritan had picked it up, brought it in and gave it to the concierge without a word, then walked away. Concierge called me using my contact info in a business card that was also in the bag.

In one instant, some unsung karmic superhero single-handedly erased the work of several hundred asshole double parking jobs.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#52

Post by floatrock »

I hate it when my cynicism alarm goes off, but this feel-good tweet about hacking payment transfers for good is written by a guy who's twitter bio says he's a PM at Transferwise ("We’re building the best way to move money around the world.")

All the replies are people contrasting shitty experiences they've had with their own wallets and money transfer services.

His top pinned tweet is:

> Reasons to work at @TransferWise:

> 1. Irreversibly change the world of finance to be fairer

> 2. Excellent office dogs [video of cute dogs running around]

I mean, I'd love this to be true, but the coincidences are uncanny.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#54

Post by andreygrehov »

journalctl wrote: post #12

This is neat! I once found someone’s debit card on the street (in the US). It had a small face shot on it, so I found them on Facebook and sent them a message. Of course, Facebook had already started doing the “messages from non-friends are really hard to find lol” UI dark pattern, so like two years later the woman responds thanking me, but also saying she just canceled the card. Which is what I would’ve done, but I…

A few years ago, I found a wallet at a New York subway station. The wallet had some documents (including driver's license), weed and a note saying "You are fool". I found the guy on Facebook. He didn't know anything about the note, but we figured it was written by someone who found the wallet before me. He or she took all the cash and left a note, lol. I threw out weed and mailed the owner all of his documents. He was the happiest man in the world on that day.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#55

Post by lucb1e »

tobr wrote: post #22

My bank only seems to allow 12 characters. Why is that? What am I even supposed to do with 12 characters?

Mine allows about an original tweet in length, but forces a line break in the middle, and it disallows dangerous characters. Just the usual suspects that always break everything and cause database tables to be dropped or commands to be injected. Exclamation marks are super dangerous.

I never understood this.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#56

Post by shaneprrlt »

SI_Rob wrote: post #51

Every so often my pessimistic tendencies get a healthy slap across the face by the actions of someone who took the high road when they easily could have chosen otherwise. It's a couple summers ago, at the height of the summer tourist season and I'm cycling up 4th ave SW in DC. Somewhere between the NASA HQ and the National Mall my camera bag - packed full with a fairly new DSLR, a few lenses, and a secondary cell pho…

> In one instant, some unsung karmic superhero single-handedly erased the work of several hundred asshole double parking jobs.

Perfect balance. Yin and yang.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#58

Post by Nition »

calebegg wrote: post #49
Nition wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$16 to pay someone? How do you do something like transfer your friend some money? Or pay someone who did some work for you? Here in New Zealand you'd tend to get their bank account number and send them a (free) direct deposit through your bank's Internet banking service. Until very recently that was also the main payment method for our eBay auction site equivalent TradeMe (they've now started a sort of PayPal clone c…

>How do you do something like transfer your friend some money? Or pay someone who did some work for you? Venmo mostly.

Interesting. But the service provider takes a cut that way, right?

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#59

Post by hesk »

Since we're sharing, I lost my wallet in the park on the day before I had to hand in my thesis. When I realized it was gone, I just blocked my bank card, but otherwise I put it out of my mind because I was focused on last-minute changes. An hour later or so, the police called and told me that someone had handed it in and that I could pick it up at the station. I told them that I would do that the next day because my thesis deadline was more important. So they sent two officers to my address and and brought me my wallet. Talk about service!
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