Man finds $2,000 in a wallet and gives it back to its owner. But he only cared about a piece of paper inside
According to NewsNinja, Finding a wallet brimming with cash can feel like hitting the jackpot. While the impulse might be to keep the money, many choose to act honorably. This was the case for a Reddit user who, in 2001, found a wallet outside a store and made a surprising discovery beyond the cash it contained.
The Unexpected Value of a Piece of Paper
Redditor u/whiskeyfordinner recounted the story, revealing that while leaving a store, he spotted a wallet on the crosswalk. Upon picking it up, he found it stuffed with $100 bills, totaling nearly $2,000. Despite his initial excitement, he didn’t delve deeper and missed a crucial detail.
As he was heading to his car, he overheard a man urgently searching for his wallet. The Redditor approached the man and, after confirming the wallet’s description, returned it. The grateful owner offered a reward, but the Redditor initially refused. Eventually, he accepted the reward money, which he used to buy a Valentine’s gift for his girlfriend, delighting in the fact that he essentially got paid to shop.
The Value of Honesty
The story prompted others on Reddit to share their own experiences of returning found money. One user, u/WhyGamingWhy, described finding a bank envelope with £1,000 (~$1,300) written on it and returning it to an elderly man who had dropped it. The elderly man was immensely grateful, though the actual amount inside remained unknown.
Are People Still Honest?
A 2019 study published in the Science Journal explored global civic honesty by distributing 17,000 wallets with varying amounts of money across 355 cities in 40 countries. Despite challenging economic conditions, the study found that people were more likely to return wallets containing larger sums of money. This finding supports the idea that, contrary to popular belief, a significant level of civic honesty still prevails worldwide.
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