Wallet Test for Roosevelt Island - Passed With Flying Colors!

Wallet contents image from Wallet Test

A feel good story to start off the work week. On several occasions this month, wallets lost by Roosevelt Island residents have been found by their neighbors and turned into the Public Safety Department where they were kept until retrieved by their owners. For instance:

April 2 Public Safety Report:

Found Property - RIOC bus found wallet. Owner contacted and property returned.

April 3 Public Safety report:

Found property - Person returned wallet to PSD. Owner picked up wallet.

April 13 Public Safety Report:

Found Property-F/O 549 Main Street a woman's wallet with $260.25. It was secured at PSD. Later the owner came and retrieved the wallet.

April 19 Public Safety Report:

FOUND PROPERTY- Black wallet, returned to owner

Public Safety Director Keith Guerra elaborates a bit on the return of the wallet containing $260.25:

The wallet was given to Officer Walker by a resident. She then turned the wallet in to Sgt. Rivera, who vouchered it for safe keeping. The owner came in to our Headquarters and was happy to get the wallet back in tact.

It's gratifying to know that Roosevelt Islanders did the right thing and helped get a lost wallet to its rightful owner. Acts of kindness and good deeds do get returned.

Why are some people more likely to return a lost wallet than others? Times on Line asked the same question.

Here's the conclusion of Charles Munger:

Man’s excess of self-regard typically makes him strongly prefer people like himself. Psychology professors have had much fun demonstrating this effect in “lost-wallet” experiments. Their experiments all show that the finder of a lost wallet containing identity clues will be most likely to return the wallet when the owner most closely resembles the finder.

At Wallet Test.com a hidden camera experiment was conducted in which 100 wallets were placed in a variety of locations to determine if people would return a lost wallet or keep it.

...Each of the 100 lost wallets contained $2.10 in real money, a fake $50.00 gift certificate, some miscellaneous items and a clearly written ID card identifying the lost wallet's rightful owner. We were curious as to how honest people would be and wanted to see how different groups would compare to each other.

The results? Of the 100 lost wallets, 74 were returned and 26 kept. Here is a You Tube video that describes the lost Wallet Test experiment.



What would you do in similar circumstances? Keep the wallet or return it? Here's a You Tube video showing a news report of a homeless man returning a lost wallet he found.

If you do lose your wallet here are some tips from Bank Rate.

In these days of burgeoning identity theft, industry insiders insist you pick up the phone instantly. Cate Williams, vice president of financial literacy at Money Management International, lives by a more real-world time frame. If you're in public -- as in you had it at Macy's but not JC Penney's -- she imposes a 15-minute rule, just enough time to retrace your most recent steps. If you're at home, she increases that limit to an hour.