Only in rich countries.
Even in poor countries, a wallet with money in it is actually more likely to be returned to its owner than an empty one
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/20/734141432/what-dropping-17-00...
I just lost my wallet on the way home from work
71–80 of 562 posts
Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work
#72Coincidentally, I was able to return four peoples' IDs and other cards just this afternoon. Yesterday I was walking in East Oakland and found a pile of credit cards, debit cards, and IDs. Oakland Police Department wouldn't take them so I brought them home and started googling names and addresses.
Of the four IDs I found three belonged to adults; the third was a state ID for a minor related to one of the adults. I was able to find a contact number for all three, via relatives, and had reached them all by afternoon.
I learned that the person who'd dumped the cards had committed a series of car break-ins in San Jose yesterday morning and had fled to Oakland. They stole purses, laptops, and an iPhone. I wish OPD had taken an interest in the theft or at least in returning the stolen property.
Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work
#73I found a wallet recently. I found the guy on linkedin, sent a request, and we coordinated the pickup. Less creative than OP I suppose.
Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're a European teenager transfering money to someone you know, it's customary to enter something like "Payment for the drugs and the firearms".
Same with Venmo in the US. There is literally a whole website that polls the front-page API for Venmo, scans for some keywords that could indicate a "spicy" transaction description, and displays them.[0] P.S. I have zero affiliation with the website or the owners/developers, I just thought it was entertaining. 0. http://www.vicemo.com/
Why are these all public?
Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work
#75This 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…
"Dark pattern". Do you know how many unsolicited messages women receive on Facebook ?
Two tons and growing.
However, FB should have filters for those instead of grouping everyone in there.
It makes no sense that the person living in the same town as me with a genuine profile is in the same interface as accounts written in foreign languages with 1 friend and a creation date of two days ago.
Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work
#76Every 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…
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?
Wow, that’s some insane security theater.
How often do the bags turn out to be bombs? never?
Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work
#77I 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…
Isn't this a success story of a regular bank account though? I would find this super far-fetched as some sort of weird promotion, especially where OP's company is never mentioned and not actually posed as better than a regular bank account (or a regular bank account as bad).
Let's just enjoy nice stories that we come across.
Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work
#78Stupid American question - how does someone get your bank account information from your wallet in the UK?
Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work
#79Every 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…
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?
About the only place that would happen in the US (a bag being destroyed for being forgotten) is an airport.
There may be a handful of other places with ‘unattended baggage’ policies, but there is definitely nothing illegal about dropping your bag.
Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work
#80I 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…
If it wasn't a real story it's a brilliant bit of marketing. But this may be more commonly known 'hack' in the UK with their banking system than it appears.
>If it wasn't a real story it's a brilliant bit of marketing
Marketing for what?