If you found a wallet full of cash...

I guess everyone has a breaking point (price), but I believe I would find it's rightful owner. I did find a fifty dollar bill once, wrapped in a receipt. I thought I was picking up a piece of trash while walking into a very fancy hotel for a corporate event. The hotel was so nice, that the paper on the ground was out of place and I wanted to preserve their clean look. Before I threw the paper away, I noticed the green and realized there was cash in the folded grocery store receipt. It appeared that someone had gotten cash back and then dropped the whole thing.

The receipt had a discount card number listed. I contacted the chain, told them the story and gave them the number from the receipt and my contact phone number. They could not give out the personal information, but they did contact the person and gave them my number.

A woman called me in shock that I would go through so much trouble to return her lost cash. She is a school teacher and had been to the hotel for a training conference. My act of kindness restored her faith in mankind, so she said. I mailed her the money, and she returned 20.00 for a reward. I thought that was nice of her, but I was just happy to have done a good deed.

Here is the interesting part of the story. Her husband is an astronaut who works for NASA. I missed the chance to meet them both, but did have an invitation. Cool things happen to people who do the right thing.

The cost of giving back the money? $50.00
The cost of the good feeling for doing the right thing? Priceless

Good Luck,
James

not to sound greedy or needy but I would take the money out the wallet, and return the wallet to customer service in walmart or a police station, saying someone before me picked up your wallet and took all your money

I would keep all or most of the cash as a finder-fee and then mail the wallet back to the owner (with a false return address).

I would take the cash and return the wallet to customer service.

If I lost my wallet, I wouldn't care if someone took the cash, just return my wallet and I'd be more than happy.

I'd take it to customer service, honestly! I wouldn't be willing to spend the time to drive it to a police station, but I just couldn't take that money either.

I'd probably try and find the owner myself first. Maybe google the name and find a phone number if it's available. All else fails I'll take it to the police station so they can handle it...if they do that kind of thing. I wouldn't trust most Wal-Mart employees. ;-)

Best thing: Return it. I wouldn't want to be in that position and lose my $$$$$.

take half the cash and take the wallet to the police stationit might be all the person has

I would maybe take something from it if people aren't around. But totally depending on my mood I would most likely feel guilty about taking something from it. I feel guilty about a lot more minor things so I can't see myself taking something from someone and not feeling guilty about it.

I would give it back. I wouldn't go to customer service, because you never know some of the people who work there might pocket it themselves. I'd use the information in the wallet and try to contact the person and give it back myself, or go to the police station.

True story, I was in the Walmart parking lot putting away my cart when I found a purse sitting in one of the vacant carts. No one was around and there were no cars near so the person had to be long gone. Inside that purse was regular purse things except they didn't have ID but they had a digital camera, cell phone, check stub and some other items. They also had $300 cash folded up inside. The angel and devil on my shoulder had a little battle but the devil won that one by a landslide. I was so excited that I got $300 extra dollars that I left immediately and pocketed it. That money was now mine. I enjoyed it for a long time and was thrilled...$300 is a lot of money to an 18 year old okay.

A few months later I started having a string of bad luck and set backs. The used car I'd recently gotten turned out to be a lemon. I was actually on my way driving home from Walmart when the car stalled on me! I was without transportation for a really long time. I lost my job. And I had some family issues. Now some people might think those are coincidences which had nothing to do with the money I'd found at Walmart but I have a strong feeling it wasn't. I got $300 really quickly but ended up losing out at least 3 times that much. Looking back I know I should have returned the money to the owner. I could have easily gotten in contact with her. She probably needed it a lot more than I did. For all I know that could have been that lady's rent money and I just spent it on frivolous things I didn't need. I believe I had bad luck (karma?) because of the selfish choice I made. I honestly feel ashamed of what I did and I hope I didn't cause any lasting harm to her situation.

it would be very tempting to take the money, but it would never feel sound in my mind. so my conscience would definitely get the better of me in that situation and I would bring the wallet to a police station.
however, if I had just found the cash on the ground, with no wallet or ID number or anything, that cash would be in my savings account so fast that Speedy Gonzalas couldn't catch me.