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Found CASH $Money$.... in the garbage...

Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky

Frumious Bandersnatch
Joined
Nov 3, 1999
Messages
1,297
Location
Looking-Glass Land
So my boyfriend and I live in a townhome community and we have a mailbox kiosk near the entrance to our subdivision. There is a trash can right next to it that people toss there unwanted "junk mail" and coupon flyers into. My bf has taken a second "job" going thru this can and scooping up multiple coupons to sell online. Perfectly legit and legal. Think Dunkin Donuts- 5 coupons for free coffee, he can sell for a couple bucks on eBay. That's $2 he didn't have before. He's already made a good amount of money doing this!

On days he doesn't have me to stand guard and watch (so the neighbors don't think we're weirdos), he just takes the whole bag home and sorts through it inside. Keep in mind there is never old food or anything nasty like that- just paper products.

Today he was sifting through at home and noticed lots of VERY old mail addressed to one person in particular- This mail was over 2 months old. We think the mail delivery person (young kid) got tired of old mail stacking up in this person's mailbox and tossed it. A few of the items to this person were handwritten cards from different people. Well, curiousity got the best of him and they were opened. A total of $105 cash in the form of b-day cards. Hmmm...

I guess you know where I'm going with this. Obviously it is illegal to open someone else's mail. We assume that this person no longer lives at this address. What would you do with the money?

Knock on the door of the printed address to see who lives there?
Mail the $ back to the senders with no return address?
Finders keepers?
Call the post office?

A poll would be interesting...
 
My good half says the right thing to do is send the money back to the original sender, with a letter explaining the situation. My smart half says keep the money.
 
TheAppleCore said:
The way I see it, if it's in the trash, it's unwanted. :D
Click to expand...

But she's said she believes the person it was adressed to had no idea it was in the trash, so I don't think this is correct.

I think the least you should do is at least knock on the door which the letters are addressed to. If there's noone there, well, it'd probably be good of you to return them to the senders, but otherwise, it's really the former occupant's own fault if they haven't set up a redirection of their mail.

I can't help wondering if they're dead inside their apartment though :|
 
Knock at the door of addressed mail and see if the original recipient lived there - if so then hand over the cards / cash. If they have moved then I would simply mail the cards back to the senders with a not at this address (I would keep the money to pay for your time/cost of postage etc)

This way your being paid for your time / efforts and the poster will save money in the future :).
 
I think you know what to do. If it's validation and justification you want, then you won't find it from me. You want to keep the money; who wouldn't? But it's wrong.

How would you feel if you sent a friend money and it got stolen/lost when it could have been returned somehow? Then imagine how you would feel if you knew someone found it but was respectable, decent and honest enough to hand it back to it's rightful owner.

Money comes and goes but life-long honesty is invaluable.
Veracity is but an impossibly rare virtue, a currency so hard to come by.
Do the right thing.
 
Shouldn't be opening it in the first place. Don't go tracking people down to give them their unopened mail that you opened and further invade their privacy.

Either keep it or put it back in the bin. And don't open the next lot.
 
attempt4 said:
I think you know what to do. If it's validation and justification you want, then you won't find it from me. You want to keep the money; who wouldn't? But it's wrong.

How would you feel if you sent a friend money and it got stolen/lost when it could have been returned somehow? Then imagine how you would feel if you knew someone found it but was respectable, decent and honest enough to hand it back to it's rightful owner.

Money comes and goes but life-long honesty is invaluable.
Veracity is but an impossibly rare virtue, a currency so hard to come by.
Do the right thing.
Click to expand...

This is so sound. Nice post.
 
^he is a sweetie, isnt he? ;)


I would probably mail it to the sender or try to knock on the neighbor's door myself. It obviously was meant to get to them even if it somehow got in the trash. Just think you found it for a reason. You are going to get them their birthday money or something :)
 
If you knock on the door and it ends up being the right person, how would you explain how you came across the cards with the money? Would you tell them that you were going through the garbage?

I say keep it.
 
attempt4 said:
Money comes and goes but life-long honesty is invaluable.
Veracity is but an impossibly rare virtue, a currency so hard to come by.
Do the right thing.
Click to expand...

I love this.

I know I'd have a tough decision like these people. But yeah, I'd mail it back to the sender. Maybe write a note that the receiver doesn't live there anymore, so the sender doesn't keep sending things that way.
 
As broke as I am, as much as I love money, and as much as I love stealing, I would feel pretty guilty about keeping that and most likely at least attempt to follow up with the return addresses to see where it came from. I mean, that is someone's birthday money from like their grandma and shit. Some little old lady packaged that up in a card for her grandson to enjoy on his birthday, and now you ended up with it, most likely to spend it on drugs.
It's really tough.
When I find a lot of money on the floor, I always keep it assuming I didn't see the person drop it. I'm not gonna go turn that shit in to the clerk or lost and found or whatever depending on where I am. But you straight up know where that money came from, who it was for, even that it was a birthday gift with little handwritten notes of love inside the cards and all. Finding money is great, but do you feel okay with keeping it in this situation? You gotta go with your gut. If you got no shame about it, then do it up. If you feel bad about it, go at least attempt to give it back, even if you're unsuccessful you'll feel better about it.
 
You're not going to be able to wiggle out of revealing that you opened their mail. Keep it, or if you feel bad, donate it to charity or give it to a homeless person or something.
 
danceofdays said:
You're not going to be able to wiggle out of revealing that you opened their mail. Keep it, or if you feel bad, donate it to charity or give it to a homeless person or something.
Click to expand...

^^
We've decided to donate half of the money to charity. The rest we will spend on baby supplies for our son. The return addresses were different on all the envelopes and were alrady tossed. If we come across any more, my bf will attempt to contact the sender. I appreciate all the replies given. We feel at peace with our decision.

If it were my own money that got chucked, I'd be pissed. I'd much rather see it go into someone else's hands than in the garbage. But #1 I'd want it to reach the sender. Either way, I'd never send cash through the mail- check only!
 
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