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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

#451

Post by DoreenMichele »

marvin wrote: post #442
DoreenMichele wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have reservations about the explanation that a consistent positive outcome can be chalked up to pure luck. She may not know what she was "doing right," but I think it more likely she was doing something that helped foster positive outcomes.

I would guess that GP's reasoning is flawed; in this part of the world, the likelihood of a "normal, honest person" picking up a young woman is much higher, due to the knowledge of a high crime rate.

I don't doubt that's a factor. But I also know that I have a very long track record of successfully negotiating circumstances that others deem untenable and I've actually taken college classes in subjects such as Negotiation and Conflict Management.

Nonetheless, I am consistently and insistently told that I am simply lucky as the entire explanation for those outcomes. It doesn't matter how reasonably I engage, I'm outright dismissed in a manner consistent with the idea that no woman is capable of having useful skills that substantially influence the odds that they will remain safe.

No matter how clearly I state that luck is always a factor in all situations and so forth, I get basically this la, la, la not listening! response.

This has been a consistent pattern across various forums for many years. Ergo, my conclusion that it boils down to an assumption that women can't actually be competent that I stated in some other comment here.

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

#452

Post by skrebbel »

tialaramex wrote: post #423
mikepurvis wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'r…

Wow, that site is awfully bad. I had to go through 3 pages + one excruciatingly slow video all of which just told me how amazing their organization is, but I still didn't know what "Clever Never Goes" means.

tl;dr for the rest: it means: "Never go anywhere unless it was planned beforehand".

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

#453

Post by lostlogin »

js2 wrote: post #313
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 left a MacBook Pro behind in the bin at a security checkpoint at Miami International Airport a few years back. I realized it when I got home, looked up the airport's lost & found number, called them, and they had it. I was shocked. They held it for my dad to pick up.

I’ve grabbed the wrong Air out the airport scanner. It even had a dent in a similar place. I opened it to check on it as I walked off and the saw it was wrong. The other laptop was just leaving in someone else’s hands. Close call.

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

#454

Post by ProZsolt »

roenxi wrote: post #277
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…

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.

In Hungary, I have been conditioned that if somebody approaches me on the street 95% of the time is a homeless person begging for money or somebody trying to sell me drugs or sex. The other people just not interacting with each other.

When I moved to New Zealand it was the opposite. There is more interaction with "regular" people. They are helping me or asking for help.

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

#455

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

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…

A few weeks ago, my partner and I, together with our 1-month-old baby, were rushing to a courthouse as she needed to do some paperwork for a case she's involved in. We were under high pressure as the courthouse would close in like half an hour, but our son was especially hungry that day and we had to stop several times to feed him, etc.

In one of these stops, probably due to the stress and rush, we left her handbag behind. We noticed when we got to the courthouse (with around twenty minutes left until it closed). This not only implied losing her credit cards, house keys, healthcare card, some money and her phone, but also her ID card which was needed for the paperwork in court. The deadline for the procedure was the next day so we might still have a chance by going to the police and asking for a temporary ID or something, but I'm not even totally sure it would be possible, and in any case it would have been an absolute mess and we would have spent the next morning running here and there.

One or two minutes after we realized the handbag was missing and we were feeling like crap and powerless to do anything, my phone rings. Someone had used my partner's phone [1] to call her mother (because "Mama" is usually a reliable contact, I guess) and she told them to call me. I met the finders in a nearby square five minutes later. They returned everything, and refused any compensation. We completed the paperwork in time that day.

They will probably never know how big a favor they did to us (of course returning cards, phone, money, ID, etc. is always a big favor, but in this case it was even more important than normal due to the court issue, having very little time due to a newborn baby, etc.) and how grateful we are.

[1] In case you are wondering, indeed she didn't have her phone locked with a PIN number, pattern or similar... I know, this goes against every security recommendation. It's just laziness. In this case, it probably helped by accelerating the return, though.

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

#456

Post by rkangel »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #379
laurex wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long ago, I worked in a record store, and David Byrne came in to the store to shop. He was wearing a red plastic hard hat, yet gave a disparaging look to everyone who seemed to "notice" him. When he left, I discovered he had forgotten to take his credit card from the counter. I called him (we also had a video store with contact info) and he was incredibly rude and told me just to cut it up because he couldn't be both…

I flew back from Palermo to Zurich on Monday. Exceptionally in business class (essentially same price). A pretty well known German performer was also on the flight with his companion and - I assume - his favorite microphone. The gentleman was meticulously polite, including the fact that he queued up at the gate instead of jumping the queue with about a dozen economy passengers in the queue. Not every prominent person…

Whether you're talking about rich or poor, famous or not, educated or not - there are good and bad people.

Our instinct is to make assumptions like 'rich so asshole', and there may be correlations between some of those categories and rate of occurrence of good and bad, but the differences are small compared to the normal panoply of personality types.

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

#458

Post by ivanhoe »

osrec wrote: post #432
peter303 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gmail has this weird bug that if I am XY@gmail.com, I also get email from X.Y@gmail.com.

Is that just for you? Or in general for anyone?

For everyone, that's on purpose. Also xy+anything@gmail.com will go to xy@gmail.com inbox (with anything label added)...

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

#459

Post by deadbunny »

Reason077 wrote: post #185
Skye wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK the details needed to transfer money into an account are on most bank cards (Account Number and Sort Code), so that's enough identifying info. That would also mean someone can send you money if your card is blocked or cancelled. Account number and sort code don't change when you get a new card. Also, "Faster Payments" is the name of the normal system to transfer money between accounts in the UK. It doesn't…

I'm curious about this. I've always banked with NatWest so I'm only really familiar with their cards, but my bank account number is definitely not printed on the card (the sort code is). Do some other UK banks really print the account numbers on their cards? Or is there some way to send a Faster payment to a debit card number?

I think Natwest is the outlier in this case. I've always had my account number and sort code on all my cards with other banks (Barclays, Lloyds, Halifax).

Edit: Maybe also Monzo, no account number on that one.

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

#460

Post by majewsky »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #368
virgilp wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how? Doesn't the ATM eat it up if you don't take it in 30s or so?

Some do (that happened to mine when I forgot it once, bank called me). Others do not. The best ones require that you take your card before they do the thing you wanted it to do (as a measure to ensure you don't forget your card).

I live in Germany, where ATMs always require you to take out the card before giving you money. The reason I've heard for this is to avoid a particular scam that goes like this:

1. Eve spies on Alice as she enters her PIN into the ATM.

2. As Alice takes her money, Eve taps her on the shoulder and gives her a 10$ bill, explaining that it fell down to the floor when Alice didn't notice.

3. Mallory uses the distraction to swipe Alice's card from the ATM without her noticing. Now Mallory and Eve have both the card and the PIN and can empty the account.

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