I just lost my wallet on the way home from work • Hacker News Board

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

#491

Post by esseti » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:47 AM UTC

Liquid_Fire wrote: post #474

esseti wrote: post #469

Has anyone understood how this has been done? how can you place a message in a transaction like this? If not mistaken this was done via contactless payment, right? how is that possible to add a message? (maybe you can in some country)

It's not a contactless payment, it's a bank transfer. The person who found the wallet sent payments of £0.01 to the owner. When you make bank transfers you can include a short payment reference which can be any text you want, and it appears on the other person's statement. The UK has the Faster Payments Service which enables most bank transfers to be completed in a few seconds, so they would have seen the messages im…

now i got it, so he sent the money to the owner, and the owner had the switf & co in the wallet, but not his data. that's strange :)

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

#492

Post by aetherspawn » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:49 AM UTC

nojvek wrote: post #290

outworlder wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes it happens, and sometimes not. I lost my wallet 4 times in total, 3 in Brazil (which is $HOME), 1 in Germany. Got it back 3 out of 4 times. Guess where. That's highly depends on exactly _where_ in Brazil you are, time of day, your looks, general luck and many other factors. In may places you are likely to 'forcefully' lose your wallet, cellphone, car and if you are very lucky, that's all you'll lose. You…

Been robbed 3 times in parramatta, NSW, Australia. I left Australia 🇦🇺

I visited a sketchy part of Parramatta for work and it really wasn’t that bad. I walked around in the streets every night for a month to get dinner. But I can understand how it could easily be assumed (in my opinion) the most likely place in Australia to get robbed.

Australia is a really safe place by comparison to nearly anywhere else.

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

#493

Post by donkeyd » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:52 AM UTC

ojosilva wrote: post #422

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 fig…

I have this same issue with one of my junk email addresses. It's pretty short, it's a famous person's last name (I was a fan), but it's not a very common last name. I've received all kinds of stuff, from many people, but one lady in particular. I only recently noticed this and when checking, I found out that this had been going on since 2008. She's used my email for: car service appointments, plane tickets, Walmart orders, forwards from her work email, turbo tax, customer support, change.org, hotel reservations, etc. Pretty much every aspect of her life has ended up in that mailbox.

I'm truly happy for her that I'm not a malicious person and when I figured it out I sent her a message. I hope she manages to stop using my email for stuff.

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

#494

Post by x220 » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:56 AM UTC

blackflame wrote: post #335

x220 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the best thing you could do would be to not send someone pictures of yourself you wouldn't like shared. Also, the scammer could just add them as friends first.

Yes that would be the best thing but sometimes kids aren’t wise enough. Yes they could add all your friends, but the idea is to kill their incentive. After all they’re banking on you being ashamed for their blackmail to get money from you. Those that matter don't mind and those that do don’t matter.

They would still probably send nudes to your mother out of sadistic pleasure. Sometimes people get themselves into a situation where they have no good choices to make.

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

#495

Post by major505 » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 12:00 PM UTC

Was easier just to call the bank, and leave a message to the manager.

I once found credit card on the floor. I searched the agency on the internet, talked to the account manager, and left my contact info. The manager talked to the owner, and the guy give me a call.

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

#496

Post by major505 » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 12:21 PM UTC

I once was comming back from academy, and was late, so I didn`t want to stay and shower there, and decided to go home in may exercise clothes. When I was going inside the car, I put the duffle bag containing wallet, clothes and watch, OPN the car roof to open the door, and forget there.

When I was on my way home, it fell somewhere. I didn`t even notice.

I got home, showered, I was getting ready to go to bed when I got a call from some guy.

Turns out he was walking with his dog, and saw the duffle bag fall of the roof. He took a look inside, and there was my Id and a business card, but not my contact information.

He recognized the business card because it was someone who got to med school with him. I was my step mother busIness card.

She gave he my cel number. I was incredible luck that day.

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

#497

Post by daveoflynn » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 12:32 PM UTC

emdowling wrote: post #366

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless something changed pretty much all payments in the UK are “Faster”.

Salary payments are typically still BACS and I think Faster does have a transaction limit in the 10’s of thousands of pounds range.

BACS is generally cheaper at volume. In addition, BACS Bureau allows a payroll company to transfer money directly from your employer's account to yours without the money ever reaching their account.

All fixable, but payroll companies are generally chosen on price, not innovation.

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

#498

Post by gsa » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

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…

Similar thing happened to me. I lost my wallet biking in Amsterdam a few months ago. Replacing all cards would have cost a few hundred euros. Plus a guaranteed "please step aside" passing through the passport check at the airport (it's apparently a serious matter to lose your residence permit due to possible fraud).

Luckily for me, a kind stranger found the wallet and sent me an email and I had my wallet the next day.

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

#499

Post by exolymph » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 1:16 PM UTC

arkitaip wrote: post #439

exolymph wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the consequences for her would probably have been much worse. Are you assuming that the mugger you encountered would have raped her? (To be clear, I don't think that's a prima facie invalid assumption. It's a sincere object-level question.)

Amazing, I can't even begin to understand how you reached that conclusion. Maybe you're a 4D being?

The person I was responding to said: "It only takes once, and the consequences for her would probably have been much worse."

I was trying to figure out what he meant / what the assumption indicated, which I still don't understand.

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

#500

Post by needle0 » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

Anything that can hold arbitrary text and can be seen by more than one user eventually becomes used as email.

About a decade ago, I discovered a featurephone-based BASIC programming environment (as in, you write code directly using the phone itself) where you can upload programs you've written and download programs by others. There had sprung up a cottage industry of programming kids whose sole access to technology were their phones; that was pretty amazing & amusing in itself, but I laughed out loud when one of the uploaded programs consisted entirely of comment lines, essentially using uploaded source code as a message to one of the users of the service.