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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

#111

Post by dpcan »

timcameron wrote: post #90
floatrock wrote: post #52

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 @TransferW…

Hi, I’m the guy who lost his wallet! I agree it’s a convenient overlap and understand your cynicism but I assure you that it’s genuine. I can even provide you with the receipt from me riding a jump bike around for an hour looking for my wallet! :) EDIT: spelling + I did pin the tweet about transferwise after it blew up, and I also changed my bio to share my small side project: Podmast.com - check it out :)

You're making it worse.

Anyone can conveniently lose a wallet, but one with a bank card with no identifying info in it anywhere? A finder who went to bizarre lengths to make Faster transactions to your bank account to send you a message? Absolutely no other identifying information in the wallet? A plan to ride a jump bike around to prove you looked for it with receipts?

Before sending someone pennies with context in the transactions, hoping that person would get them before they canceled all their bank accounts because they lost their wallet, I would just take the card to the bank and have them call the owner, or take it to the police and they'd do the same.

Uhg, sorry, "I ensure you" and "jump bike receipts" is not enough to convince me.

EDIT: Removed the quotes from Faster, my point seemed to get lost because of that.

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

#112

Post by m-i-l »

Nice hack.

The "official" way of dealing with lost property in the UK is to take it to your local police station. If no-one claims it within 6 weeks, you might be able to keep the item. I certainly remember doing this a few times when younger. Not so sure many people know this nowadays.

Anyway, my mother lost her purse a few months back in the small town in Scotland where she lives. Someone suggested she try her local police station (actually not so local any more thanks to the current government having closed over 600 police stations[0]) and lo and behold someone had handed it in there!

[0] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/600-police-stations-shut-...

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

#113

Post by droithomme »

mikestew wrote: post #105
alexis_fr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it actually legal? In France, a bag in a public place is deemed to be a bomb and the military has to come, secure the area and destroy it. Happens on a routine basis, not even worth the newspapers. You don’t have such laws in Washington DC?

You don’t have such laws in Washington DC? Funny you should ask. A few years back my wife and I were stuck in Reagan (an airport in D. C.) for a super-long layover. As I'm watching my first ever episode of Archer , I notice the family a row over gets up and walks down the concourse, leaving their bags. Now, I've heard a bit of their conversations as I've sat there, and I gather they're American and probably self-cent…

If I'm going to take a piss or dump in the WC I'd like to think I can leave my suitcase for a few minutes without people deciding I'm a terrorist.

Deciding I might be a terrorist because I went to the bathroom? That's what is absolutely batshit insane.

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

#114

Post by faeyanpiraat »

JenBarb wrote: post #103

A few weeks ago I found a working iPhone X on the side on the sidewalk. I thought about using siri to call a recent contact and try to get it back to the owner, but I found the language was set to Chinese (which I cannot read or speak) and I gave up and put it back on the sidewalk in case the owner came back. In retrospect, I don't think I could have done anything even if the language was English apart from wait for…

Use google translate text-to-speech function, and make your phone ask the other phone in Chinese to "call mom".

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

#115

Post by astura »

chrisseaton wrote: post #87
astura wrote: post #78

Stupid American question - how does someone get your bank account information from your wallet in the UK?

You bank account information is written on your bank cards, which are in your wallet.

Follow-up stupid American question - what's "bank cards"? Is it like a business cards with your banking information on it that you give to someone so they can send you money?

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

#116

Post by [deleted] »

herpderperator wrote: post #99
Nition wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

NZ expat here :) Venmo doesn't charge for sending or receiving money like this to or from people. They make money through other means; from the top of my head one is paying by credit card - they take 3% if you use credit card. Another way they make money (1% per transfer) is by doing an "instant transfer" directly from your Venmo account to your bank (the other option is ACH transfer which is usually next-day deliver…

[deleted]

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

#117

Post by dpcan »

kraftman wrote: post #106
dpcan wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing is not a banner ad or billboard anymore. A viral tweet like this could land him 5 minute segments on any number of local-news stations that need a feel-good piece. He'll then have the opportunity to talk about his company. And followers. As this tweet makes it's rounds through the media, he'll get more. He can then use that following to promote his business. It opened the door for people to openly bash thei…

Those things don't have phone numbers/email on them, so getting in contact with the owner isn't that easy.

Most cards have a business name or person's name. Taking the card to the police or the bank would get a call directly to them.

Who would think, I'm going to start a chain of 1 penny transaction to contact this person at this bank account, and hope they get them before they cancel their bank account because they lost their wallet.

And is this a wallet with cash and a single card with no identifiable information on it? NOTHING else?

EDIT: Because I can't reply below: because they have access to that bank account now. Pretty simple. The card in question is said to have their banking info right on the card, so you close that account and start a new one.

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

#118

Post by patio11 »

floatrock wrote: post #52

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 @TransferW…

For what it is worth, I saw this story and thought "Oh, I love this; creative use of metadata in the payments system", principally because I am professionally involved with payments. All the "coincidences" here are explainable by "people who geek out on X will tend to see a lot more X in their daily lives than civilians and will become focal points for other people who geek out on X, who see a lot more X in their daily lives than civilians." You can trivially reproduce "OMG banks!" on any social media feed you control; just kvetch in public about a banking story.

Also, there are people on HN who do marketing for a living (checks business cards including me?), and to the extent that you model someone as going into their planning meeting with "OK guys I have this great idea for how to hit our Q4 numbers: lets do stealthmarketing on our personal Twitter accounts", you should know that that would not receive the reply "Genius Bob, why do we employ teams of expensive professionals to do this when you come up with such pearls of wisdom for free."

Mentioning this half because excessive cynicism is a failure mode for geeks and half because many people on HN will, at some point in their life, actually have to get good at causing people to adopt a product or service, and HNers should correct the mental model that would suggest that this is in any way aimed at or effective at causing adoption of a product or service.

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

#119

Post by scarejunba »

astura wrote: post #115
chrisseaton wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bank account information is written on your bank cards, which are in your wallet.

Follow-up stupid American question - what's "bank cards"? Is it like a business cards with your banking information on it that you give to someone so they can send you money?

It's an ATM card.

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

#120

Post by chrisseaton »

astura wrote: post #115
chrisseaton wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bank account information is written on your bank cards, which are in your wallet.

Follow-up stupid American question - what's "bank cards"? Is it like a business cards with your banking information on it that you give to someone so they can send you money?

...it's a card that you use to pay for things in store, taking money from your bank and giving it to the store, and to get money from ATMs, taking money from your bank and giving it to you in cash.

I know for a fact you have them in the US. A 'debit card' maybe?

It uses the Visa or Mastercard payment networks, supports chip, contactless, swipe, or you can enter the numbers online, and also has useful information like your bank account number and routing number on. If you give other people that information they can pay you money even though you're not a store. Which is what happened here.

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