When i was about 9 yrs old
I was walking along the side of the road on the way home from school. I noticed a brown lump in the middle of the road. At first i thought it was a cat's eye. But on closer inspection it was someones wallet.

Upon retreiving it and showing my friends i had a look inside and found ~£100, a few credit cards and personal cards. My friends were soo excited... imagine what you could do with £100?

When i got home being the good natured boy i am, i (stupidly?) told my mum.

We did some phoning round using what details there were in the wallet. Eventually we managed to track down the owner. He was over the moon, and hadnt even noticed he had lost it. (apparantly he left it on the roof of his car at the petrol station and drove away).

When he arrived to pick it up he looked in the wallet (no doubt to see all the money had gone) he looked up astounded... "I only thought there was £50 in there!" so he took out £50 and handed it to me...

at which point the hand of my mum reached over my shoulder and turned it away. "he wont accept anything, thanks"

So the guy took out a £20 note, again my mum refused. I was shocked. I could have done with at least £20. Imagine how many bags of sweets i could have got with that!?!?

the rather confused man then shrugged his shoulders with a wierd look of disbelief on his face got into his car and drove off... as soon as the front door was closed i went off like a ballistic rocket at my mum... but i can see now what she was trying to do.

Funny thing was about 2-3 years later the exactly the same thing happened again... with the same result...
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Tue 7 Oct 2008, 15:10, 4 replies)

I can see what she was trying to do...
...but that's no reason not to accept anything. £50 might have been a bit much, but rewarding people for honesty and helpfulness is no bad thing. I know we should expect that behaviour without hope of reward, but at the same time we ought to show were grateful to receive it.

I fix my neighbours' computers occasionally and I offer to do it for nothing. But if they insist on handing over a bottle of wine, as sometimes they do, then it'd be rude to refuse them the chance to express their gratitude.
(annexed, Tue 7 Oct 2008, 16:10, closed)

I hope you sulked all week,
then kicked her up the duff.
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Tue 7 Oct 2008, 16:56, closed)

My son once lost an expensive mobile phone
and a few hours later I had a call from the woman whose 5 year-old son'd found it. They'd cleverly rung 'Mum' on it.

My son raced round to theirs to collect it and gave the little lad all he had on him, which was £5.

Little lad was over the moon. Riches beyond compare!

I bet he just SWAGGERED into the sweet shop next day.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Tue 7 Oct 2008, 19:28, closed)

Wallets
Something similar happened to me a few years ago. I found a wallet in the street containing £40. Nobody stepped up to claim it immediately so I fished out a business card and called the owner's office. He wasn't at work, but his workmates passed on my number and the wallet's owner called me. I told him I'd drop off it off at the lost-property office of the station I was walking to because I didn't have time to turn around.

Not only did the guy in the lost property shake me by the hand and say that I was a "gent", the owner of the wallet later sent me £10 in the post encouraging me to go and have a drink on him and to continue being "one of the good people." That made me feel pretty warm and fuzzy (and the drink was very nice too).
(flimflam_machine, Wed 8 Oct 2008, 17:23, closed)