I was helping my friends kids do a park clean up and one of them found a large wad of cash (less than $200). I told the one who found it that I need to check with the police before she can have it, just in case it belongs to someone in need.
But is that a thing? I didn’t want to say she could keep it right away because I want to set a good example. But it isn’t a ton of money so I assume the police would not be interested. So what do?
I would say, put a reasonable effort into finding the owner. If the owner cannot be found, it’s finders keepers.
Key thing about trying to find owners of lost things: You cannot just say ‘is this your $200’. You need to do something more like, ‘I’m trying to find the owner of some lost money’ and if they claim it is theirs, ask them how much it was. This way you filter out grifters.
I would also say going to the police over $200 is well beyond reasonable effort. It just isn’t enough money to justify using their time.
Not to mention they may just “hold it” for you
So then who is the person who lost it supposed to ask if not the police? You expect them to go on some random Facebook group?
This is exactly what the police are for. But if you don’t utilize them the system doesn’t work and it’s “not worth the bother”.
In addition, this is how you legally acquire found property. You report it found, get a receipt, and then claim it after a set amount of time…works for MANY things, including abandoned vehicles.
If it has no identifiable information the police won’t be able to return it.
Like someone else said, the best way to get it back to its owner is to set up signs saying that you’ve found “something” and that if someone has lost anything in the park around certain date to contact you.
If after a few weeks you haven’t found the owner just let the kid pocket it.
Where do you live? That matters, unless you’re just asking from an ethics perspective. I’m not asking you to dox yourself, country/state is plenty.
Assuming you’re Canadian(based off your instance being lemmy.ca) technically speaking you should report in to the police, and they’ll hold it for 6 months. After that if someone hasn’t claimed it you’re free to claim it yourself. At least in Vancouver. Maybe the laws are different in other parts of Canada. Your local police probably have a non-emergency number for pretty much exactly this purpose if you wanna double check.
Realistically, it’s not even $200. Probably keep it for a week or two and then tell the kid the cops couldn’t find the original owner.
The above is actually similar for the US. If no one lays claim to it, it becomes yours. It’s really hard to prove the source of a wad of cash with no evidence of ownership (like not being in a wallet), so it actually often ends up going to the person who found it.
I assumed. I know it’s similar where I live, but for all I know Montana has some strangely restrictive finders keepers law where if you drop your wallet and someone else finds it you can only legally reclaim it via a duel to the death.
Put posters signaling you found something (do not mention it’s cash) and would like to return it if the person can say what it is on the phone.
If someone hasn’t claimed it in 2 weeks, I’d give it to the kid (or well probably her parents).
I’d also ask the kid were exactly they got it. If it was in a tree hollow or something similar, it might have been hidden and meant to pay for a drug deal or something. You never know, I just wouldn’t want that person having my contact info.
Yeah, if it was just naked cash, no envelope, no wallet, no indication of who it belongs to?
If I lost money in that fashion, I know it is gone.
My ex and I once found nearly $500 in cash in a Lowe’s parking lot. What did we do? We put it in our pocket, and used it to help pay that month’s rent.
Check if there’s a local Facebook page. I don’t use it myself but my daughter lost her phone recently and my wife had someone contact her before she even realised it was gone.
Keep it.
Keep it.
Dr. Zoidberg? More like Bender.
Where I live you actually don’t go to the police. Anything left of on the street belongs to the municipality so you’d have to go to the municipalities office. That said, I’d think it’s quite hard to track down owners of cash… You can inform the appropriate body in your country that they can contact you if they find the owner. Then after some time (maybe documented somewhere?) you can keep it.
Watch local social media to see if anyone reports losing money. If nothing, and you’re trying to set a moral example, donate it to charity.
Your story needs a lot more context for anyone to provide reasonable advice on here.
If it’s a nice clean park in an affluent neighbourhood, chances are someone accidentally lost the money.
If it’s in a sketchy part of town with higher levels of crime nearby … chances are it was drug money that was tossed for one reason or another because something bad happened.
So the resulting answers will be different … if this all happened in a law abiding neighbourhood, then you should take your time and official avenues to figure out if someone lost their money. If it’s in an obviously rough place where drug dealing or other illegal activity is happening, then I would probably say to just keep the money and don’t talk about it too much. It’s not easy or advisable to return money to criminals or people engaging in criminal activity.
