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.
this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025
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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.
I was about to say the same thing until I thought "well, what if the person who lost it actually goes to the police seeing if it was found?"
It might not be too uncommon if it's a small town for there to be a lost and found thing there. The small town I grew up in had one.
I am 99% certain the police would just say the cash was probably going to be used for drugs and then they would just take it themselves.
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.
Agreed. Giving it to the police means it will never find its owner.
Counterpoint. I once found about £80, handed it in to the police, got a receipt, a few weeks later got a call, no-one had claimed it, was allowed to come and claim it.
From your use of the £ I'm going to assume you are not American. America has legalized theft if it's the police doing the taking. Look up civil forfeiture. You turn over money to cops, they'll just say they "think" it was involved in crime and pocket it.
The cops won't even bother with civil forfeiture. There's a court case (a shitty one, more of a hearing, but it's there) involved in that and the prosecutors will roll their eyes for $200. They'll just put it in an evidence locker, put up a notice in a newspaper that no one will ever see, then 30 days later say that no one claimed it and then they pocket it.
Not sure about now, but in 98 the hostess at the restaurant I worked at found ~$200 and turned it into the police. 3 months later, no one claimed it and she got it back.
Fair point, and yeah, I'm in the UK.
$200 bucks is definitely worth trying to find the owner. That could be someone’s week of grocery money
I’d say 50-100 or less don’t even try.
$100 could be a week of grocery money too. $50 for a frugal individual, even.
You’re totally right! Point being it’s a lot of money, especially if they have a family
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.
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.
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.
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.
Very simple: if you lost $200, what would you like the person who found it to do?
videogames and pizza
Whoa whoa whoa
Consider the feelings of others???
Put it towards rent, shit's insane these days
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.
This is the answer. If the money was in a wallet, then find the person and return the wallet. If the money was by itself, give it back to the kid or take them out for pizza or something.
I'm assuming there was no ID or contact info with it, since you probably wouldn't be asking if there was.
Hypothetically, if you were to give it to the police, how would the police know that who the rightful owner is? If I walk into a police station right now and say I lost $200, do you think they would hand over $200 to me? No, I have no way of proving thats my money, and they wouldn't believe me for a second.
Keep it. Lord knows everyone could probably use an extra few hundred bucks these days...
Bruh it's $200. Just let her keep it lol. Not like it was $200K. The police won't give a single fuck about $200. The cop would probably just pocket that anyway.
I agree with this. It's cash. If I handed it in and the police called and told me they found the rightful owner I'm not sure I'd even believe them. Let the girl keep it!
No clue where your downvote is from but there isn't a single cop who wouldn't pocked $200 lol. Don't give it to the kid though, OP. Take the group out for ice cream or something and pay yourself for your time spent cleaning the park.
If I was that kid, the lesson I would learn from that is to not tell anyone in the future.
Children do not need $200, simple truth, especially not $200 that's by all accounts not really theirs. It's time for OP to give a white lie that they tracked down the original owner and buy Timmy & Co. some ice cream cones and call it a day
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If you find cash, keep it. If you find a wallet with other items (ID, personal stuff) hand it in.
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.
Give the finder $100, and use the other $100 to buy pizza and soda for the crew.
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.
I can hold onto it for you
Legally, in most jurisdictions, you report it.
Ethically, if there no ID or any identifiable infomation nearby, its very unlikely for the owner to be found, I think it's fine to keep it. (If there is an ID, you should give it to the authorities.)
If it were any amount above $1000, I wouldn't touch it, it could be drug money, don't want to get caught up in some drug cartel bussiness.
Keep it mind, cops could pocket it. So if you really want to find the owner, you should probably try to find them yourself, at the cost of your time and potentially getting falsely accused of being a thief.
TLDR:
Options:
- Pocket it
- Give it to the authorities
- Find the owner on your own time
- Leave it where you found it
Your choice.
That could be someone's grocery or bail money.
try having sex with it
Keep it.
Keep it.
Dr. Zoidberg? More like Bender.
Just keep the dough. Finders keepers.
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.
Lmao. If it was a poors money, just keep it, but if it was a Rich's then find them and ask for more.
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