you find a wallet
 

You find a wallet in the parking lot of a gas station. You open it to find it has $182 and a Mexican ID. No US address. What do you do?

Turn the money in but keep the ID. Then I use the ID to smuggle myself into Mexico so I can live in a country with a single payer health care system.

John

If the Mexicn ID is from their federales turn it in or mail it to the Mexican Embassy. Use Certified mail

Leave your phone # with the cashier at the station if anyone come looking for something.

Write a letter to the address on the ID, have them call you to ID what you found.

If no response.

Donate the funds...

Good one!:D

I paid $180 for a Chinese Music Angel Pre-amp with tubes on CL.....

just sayin'

That's probably what I'd do. Right up the "donate funds" part. Sorry, but I'd give it 30 days, then it's "finders, keepers". So sue me.:)

Dave

rotflmao

Now did I state the recipient of the funds?:D

Yeah, this is the path I wanted to take.

Do the right thing within reason.

I lost my wallet once, 1977 or so. I got a call about 6 months later that it was in the lost and found at Radio City Music Hall.

Cash was gone but I got back all the ID and credit cards.

So what difference does it make if the money belonged to a Mexican?

Mexican, American, Chinese, Hmong.... Doesn't matter..... The finder should do the right thing regardless.

No American address.

send the wallet back to the home address in Mexico without the money.
Ask for a person to send it to. Most likely his family will tell him or let you know who to wire the money to. Most likely they rely on him for remittances back from the States.

that is the best way.
Investigate the best and safest way to send the wallet back.


even if you mail the wallet with the money back to Mexico you are doing him a big solid.....at least his relatives get it.
I just do not know how reliable the Mexican mail system is.

It maters in the regard that you just can't mail it to Mexico and expect it to get there. They might be living here and not on vacation lol

I'd turn it in to an organization like "No more Deaths"

http://www.nomoredeaths.org/

They would know better how to handle it than I would, and I would trust them to do the right thing.

The only reason I mentioned the wallet belonging to a Mexican is that the only id was from Mexico. Sending cash to Mexico gives me pause.

You need to calm down. ;)

This is what I was thinking although I am leaning toward Dave's 30 day policy. .

You'd hear from the family. Then you wire them the money.

Yeah that definitely is the right thing to do.

I am going with the 30 day rule. :p

I was with you until that last line..... :D

I am calm.

Why would you even consider sending anything to Mexico when it likely the owner of the wallet is in the vicinity the wallet was found?

Your options are the same no matter whose wallet you find. If in a place of business, you could bring it to the lost and found. If on the street, you could bring it to the police station.

You donate them to your favorite charity, the Potter Benevolent Fund....

You don't use it to help the Mexican economy by buying $182.00 worth of Corona Familiars? What's this world coming to.

Pete

It actually did go to the police station in the end.

In a year it is mine. Not to be a cynic but in a year I don't expect the cash will still be in it.

Freakin' Pete, always with the reasonable solution.

You should really become a Dem. You can keep your guy if you come over!

LOL!

I'd consider it but the rainbow baseball caps don't appeal to me :elbowrib: :p

Pete

I once found IIRC $300 in $100 bills on the ground next to a gas pump off the interstate, nothing else to ID. Other then the clerk the place was basically mine alone, nobody else in sight. I really had no idea at the time what to do with it and ended up keeping it, I still don't know what I should have done with it.

You place it in your pocket, say nothing and act casual while walking away quickly but not conspicuously.

It's cash. No owner. Not at all like finding cash in a wallet.

Anyone can and will say it's theirs if you ask.

You hear that Pete? If you like your guy, you can keep your guy!

I think I would send a nice letter to the Mexican address, asking for a photo copy of the person's legal right to be in the U.S.
If they provide it, I'd then send another letter telling them where they can find the wallet and cash (under the big rock next to mile marker 133 on Hwy X).
If they don't provide proof the individual was here legally, I keep the money and the wallet and the ID.

Famous last words...:D

Yep, it's anonymous and whomever dropped it could have been in the next state or anywhere when they missed it. Apparently it was loose in a pocket or purse and not in a wallet or billfold. Still, it's not a trivial amount and may have been someone's bill-paying money or road money and they missed it big-time. There were times that extra $5 saw me thru the last week to end of the month, $20 was much better if I wanted to splurge with a motorcycle ride out-of-town day trip and cover house-hold needs if it didn't have to go elsewhere.
Another time I found $40 on the ground in a parking lot outside a restaurant in Ga. going to the Honda Hoot in Ashville, N.C., it made a huge difference as I was on a very tight budget to make that trip happen. The Hoot got moved to Knoxville a few years later and then was discontinued permanently in the recession, so that was over for good and still sorely missed as a great destination ride/ get-together into and thru the Smokies.

LOL!

Pete

I'm of the mind that if one is so careless with that much money, the amount must be trivial to that person or he/she would have been more careful with it.

Is this a test? Is testing a requirement for membership?

That's the way people rationalize doing something they pretty much know is wrong.

The last thing like this that happened to me was finding a pair of $5.00 bills on the ground beside a parked car. Before I'd gotten more than 20 yards away, a young, fairly cute homeless woman approached me and asked whether I thought the neighbors in the area would object to her sleeping in a vacant lot nearby.

I said I didn't know but pointed to all the Teabagger type bumper stickers on the cars in the neighborhood and suggested that camping there might not go down well with the owners of those cars. Then I split the money with her.

John

I've never been lucky in the "finding money or winning the lottery" way.....

Well, that ten bucks is my all-time big score..............

John

Lost and found office

So, if you can tell me the serial numbers of the $100 bills, you get them. Otherwise tough luck.

Regards,

D-Ray

That's what I do with found keys, cellphones, ect, if there is a logical place that is somehow connected with where I found something identifiable where it might be traced back. Otherwise I may turn it over at the town hall or nearest police station. The problem with anonymous items like money is that it's frequently lost as in my instances in place and in a way that the person cannot know with certainty where or how they lost it to back-track the loss, nor can identify the find specifically as theirs.