Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 562 posts

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

#421

Post by jen729w »

neor wrote: post #412

I found a wallet once. It has a bankcard in it, so I called the bank, telling them I had found the wallet of one of their customers and asking them if they could help me return in to the owner. They weren't allowed to give contact details of the owner to me, but they were allowed to forward my contact details to the owner of the wallet. Through this route we eventually got the wallet back to its owner. Took half a da…

Same find, in Australia. But they (Commonwealth) wouldn’t entertain any swapping of details. I was just on the phone to the service centre and I thought all was lost ... but of course they said “just take it to any of our branches and we’ll sort it out”.

So I lose the satisfaction of closure — who knows what happened to that thing after I handed it over — but this does feel like the most-safe option.

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

#422

Post by ojosilva »

Someone registered and paid for a new Netflix account with my gmail address plus a point somewhere, which Gmail ignores. So I logged into the Netflix account, thinking it was actually mine and this was some misunderstanding. I realized that was not the case, so I to tried to get in touch with the person but no other info was available, everything was done from his phone apparently according to the account logs. I figured that reporting it to support would not do much since they too did not have his info and no phone number was on record, they would cancel the account and maybe the amount paid would be lost.

Finally the only way I found to notify the user was by creating/modifying Netflix users with usernames as short telegraphic messages such as "you registered", "using my email", "*@gmail.com is mine","contact me or change it". That message would be visible as the user opened up any of the Netflix apps or web app. It apparently worked as a couple days later my email stopped being primary on the account and never got any Netflix emails at that gmail inbox.

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

#423

Post by tialaramex »

mikepurvis wrote: post #323
roenxi wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an interesting selection bias at work. 1) If someone on the street approaches you, they are probably up to something. 2) If you randomly select someone on the street you have probably picked a moral and upstanding person who would love to do you a good turn. Because of (1) people tend to be a lot more defensive than they need to be when assessing what the average stranger is likely to do.

This is why modern parenting guidance tends away from a blanket stranger danger policy toward something a bit more nuanced like "beware of a grownup who approaches you or initiates a conversations with you, but if you are in trouble, almost any grownup who looks safe to you is probably someone you can ask for help." You can add a few more layers like seeking out someone in a uniform or who has a stroller, but general…

UK Advice is moving towards "Clever Never Goes".

http://clevernevergoes.org/

Honest grown-ups will be annoyed that a lost child refuses to come with them to the obvious "lost children" place, but they'll put up with it while somebody tries to figure out where the people responsible for that child are. Somebody with nefarious motives will probably need to take the child somewhere else though - by refusing to go they're protected.

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

#424

Post by noneeeed »

Symbiote wrote: post #266
Spoom wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For regular bills, when adding a bill pay account online, the bank will ask for your account number... so there must be some way to specify that with an ACH transaction. I've noticed that the custom input memo field visible to the end user goes away on ACH transactions though, at least at my bank. Perhaps it's just used by the account number automatically? For bills that don't accept ACH bill pay (i.e. most smaller c…

It is probably even more decades than you expect. The predecessor to this UK system was introduced in 1968. (Usage by individuals to send money didn't really happen until online banking was introduced around 2000.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BACS

Yep. While Faster Payments is brilliant, BACS' overnight processing and the direct debit system is total sufficient for the vast majority of cases, certainly things like bill payments.

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

#425

Post by carlmr »

tialaramex wrote: post #419
tareqak wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like this in the US as well, and I didn’t know the possible difference in order of operations before you brought it up. I would think stuff like this would be written down in a best practice / licensing document somewhere in order to even sell ATMs. Edited: Added “up” after “brought it”.

Sadly no, there's very often tricks to correctly designing routine things in life that not everybody responsible has thought about and this can have dire consequences. Every "push" door with prominent "pull" handles is a miniature example. Modern railway trains use electronically controlled doors. Rather than needing a team of people to run along checking every door on the train is closed and locked, or just hoping n…

This is why I recommend all software engineers to read The Design of Everyday things. These basic design principles are helpful in designing UIs, APIs and architecture.

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

#426

Post by checkyoursudo »

qxfys wrote: post #398
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…

I live in Sweden. Lost my wallet during my bike to work time in the morning. Not sure why it fell from my pocket, but it might because of the bumpy road due to some construction. As most of the things inside the wallet can be replaced in a couple of days (bank card, and some ID's), I did not worry that much. But, a nice guy from the neighboring office took the high road by calling the contact point of my office, whic…

When I lived in Germany, I would sometimes notice items placed up on fences, stone walls, the side of a fountain, etc. Things like keys, or a small child's toy, or a hat, for example.

I asked a couple different friends about this, and they said that often when people see something that looks like it was lost, they will place it up somewhere more conspicuous right be where they found it, so that hopefully whomever lost it can more easily find it.

I always thought that was a little bit of a nice touch of humanity, even if it doesn't take a lot of extra effort to do.

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

#427

Post by tareqak »

tialaramex wrote: post #419
tareqak wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like this in the US as well, and I didn’t know the possible difference in order of operations before you brought it up. I would think stuff like this would be written down in a best practice / licensing document somewhere in order to even sell ATMs. Edited: Added “up” after “brought it”.

Sadly no, there's very often tricks to correctly designing routine things in life that not everybody responsible has thought about and this can have dire consequences. Every "push" door with prominent "pull" handles is a miniature example. Modern railway trains use electronically controlled doors. Rather than needing a team of people to run along checking every door on the train is closed and locked, or just hoping n…

The thing with doors for me is that I feel “trapped” when I have a door with no place for my hands besides a panel that lies flat (does not extend outward) from the door. The first time I saw one I was very confused: it seemed to me that I was against a wall that was painted as a door, but had no handles. It was surprising to me that specific example it was brought up as an example of good user interface design in my university UI class.

Your account of the train incident is heart-breaking, but further solidifies my desire to have mandatory best practices that are evidence-based and have sufficient consensus for user interfaces that have harmful failure modes. On top of these best practices, there also needs to be a ramp plan from the any status quo interface that is nonconformant to the final version through as many intermediate designs as necessary to deal with ingrained user behaviour and ingrained user expectations.

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

#429

Post by bobsoap »

Great story.

I seem to keep finding cash. The first time when I was 9, a couple hundred between racks in a department store. I showed my mom and we brought it to Lost&Found. A year later after nobody had claimed the money, they called us up and gave it to me as the finder. I promptly invested it in a shiny new skateboard.

The last time I was walking behind two guys on the street and one of them dropped a bundle of bills. He didn't notice. I picked them up and yelled "hey, stop!" after them. It was dark. I'm sure they heard me, because they stopped talking to each other, but they quickened pace without looking around. I kept yelling at them - in hindsight it must have come across as aggressive, because they just kept hurrying away. At last one of them turned around, saw that I wasn't trying to jump them, and gladly accepted his money back. He wouldn't let me go until I reluctantly accepted $20 as a thank you.

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

#430

Post by m-i-l »

OJFord wrote: post #224
m-i-l wrote: post #112

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 loca…

The one time I tried, Bobby wasn't interested! I think my father managed to find the owner from the wallet's contents in the end.

Seems like the practice came to an end last year in England and Wales: "From 1 October, anyone who contacts the police about something they have lost will be redirected to private websites"[0].

[0] https://news.sky.com/story/43-police-forces-in-england-and-w...

Post reply on HN