I returned $275,000.00 and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/02/new.york.money.returned/index.html



Then at the end of the article



That just made me laugh.

So what's the largest amount of money that you have ever found?

I don't know the answer to mine, it was probably a twenty.

A few friends and I found about �200-300 scattered on the road once, blowing along in the breeze. The notes were ten and twenty pound notes, all torn in half.

We found the source of the money, a man and a woman having an argument further up the road. They seemed completely non-plussed by cash blowing away.

The argument looked like it could turn violent, so we called the police, helped the copper collect the money and left them all too it. As no crime had been committed, the police officer couldn't do anything. The pair claimed they didn't know each other, the man claimed he the money was his, and that the woman had torn it all up, but said this was fine.

Never got to the bottom of why this happened, but our best guess was that the money was the proceeds of some crime or other, and the two had a falling out over it. Not wanting to sound too judgemental, they didn't look like the kind of people who could afford to throw away that much cash (hell I know I couldn't afford to do that).

Well the reward was modest I think because they don't want to send the wrong message. Someone should return the money that isn't theirs because its the right thing to do and not because they may get a big reward.

The flip side of that is without any reward money their is less incentive to return it.
This may no longer be true but I seem to recall that by law you received a 5% or 10% finders fee for returning the money in Iowa.


Wheelsup

I wonder what the penalty would have been had they kept the money and gotten caught.

Good question. Most likely some jail time.

I'm thinkin' an all-expense paid trip to Leavenworth, Kansas

275 G's would have to make you think. Even the most honest of us have these thoughts.

It's like looking down into a cashiers drawer (no, not their underwear) and thinking "I sure could use that!". Which you could, but being an honest person and not a crook, you never do anything about.

Or the finding 500 thousand in a stack of small bills in the desert. I've thought about that as a little fun fantasy. Clearly a drug drop. What would I do? I think first I'd be very sure or sure as I could be who might be watching, if any strange vehicles were in the area. After all, it's one thing to go to jail over money and quite another to get executed over it.

ha yes, interesting moral conundrum : would you steal what has been illicitly gained given the chance?

the most I've ever found was $50 on the street outside of a bar while I was smoking...there was only 5 or 6 people in there and I asked but nobody claimed it so I bought drinks for everyone lol



Ah yes, reminds me of No Country For Old Men. I would have a hard time deciding too; but if I knew there was going to be some psycho loan-shark after me I think I'd leave it alone

Some 20years ago, in my hometown, Marseilles, some attacked an armored truck on the autobahn with a AT rocket launcher, killing two or three guards inside and blowing out the whole thing, with thousands of banknotes flying everywhere...a crowd of people living nearby just came and take the money before the police came...

Reminds me of what happened here in San Diego a couple of months ago:

Money on the Freeway

I know a lot of the money wasn't ever returned, even though most of the incident was caught on film. Knowing it's drug money, what do you do then?