Hypoethetical situation involving lost wallet when the guy who lost it is an asshole

[Dan Druff]

Interesting moral question posted on Twitter by the mysterious "RachelLees69" account (who is also a PFA listener).

I'm going to modify it a bit and present two different scenarios.

SCENARIO #1:

You go into a cell phone store, looking to buy a new cheap phone and activate a rather basic phone plan. The salesman is very aggressive and keeps pushing you toward better phones and a more expensive plan. You repeatedly but politely turn him down, and he gets increasingly agitated. Then he tries to sell you on phone insurance and expensive cases. You again turn these down, and he gets even more agitated, at one point remarking, "You people think you're so smart turning down the phone insurance, but when you break the thing, you come back here crying and begging for us to help you." Finally you firmly inform him that you've already made up your mind, and simply want the basic phone and plan, and nothing else. He snaps back, "Yeah okay. I work on commission and always seem to get the cheapskates. I love it."

He walks away to get the paperwork. You're astounded at the guy's rudeness, but decide to simply finish it off and leave, without complaining. You sign everything, get your phone, and walk out.

After you get in your car, you google the store and see lots of complaints of aggressive upselling and rudeness when people refuse. While you're scrolling down the Yelp reviews, you see that same rude employee walk out and get in his car. He drives away, and then you notice a wallet on the grond where his car was. You go pick it up, and see that it's his wallet. Inside the wallet are his ID, credit cards, and $340 in cash. There's no phone number, but there's an address on the ID.

What do you do?




SCENARIO #2:

Same thing as above, but with this change:

After getting in your car, you scroll through Yelp reviews and see some accusations that people get signed up for things they don't want, after having refused them -- basically scamming customers in order to get extra commission. Remembering how nasty the guy was, you suspect that he might have pulled this on you. You walk back in the store, and get the manager, who looks up your account. Indeed, you've been signed up for a more expensive plan than you agreed to, and also been signed up for phone insurance. What an asshole! You complain, the manager claims it's an "honest mistake", fiexs it, and says he will talk to the employee you dealt with.

You walk out 100% certain that the asshole employee tried to scam you in order to get extra commission, especially given the Yelp reviews indicating the same situation occurring.

While sitting in your car stewing about it and reading even more bad reviews, you see that employee getting in his car, dropping the wallet described above, and driving away.

What do you do in this spot?



Vote once for EACH scenario above (you can click on an answer for both scenarios).

Be honest. Don't just vote the choice you think makes you the most morally superior.

[Dan Druff]

I'll put my own opinion in spoilers below, so you don't accidentally see it before you vote.

 

In Scenario #1, I'm just leaving it where I found it, without taking anything.

In this case, the guy was a complete asshole to me, but he didn't attempt to steal from me or hurt me in any way, so I don't want to steal from him.

However, there's no chance I'm doing him any favors after the way he treated me. Fuck him.



In Scenario #2, I'm taking the wallet home and keeping the money.

He had just attempted to steal from me moments earlier by intentionally signing me up for things I didn't want, so he could get extra commission.

Not only don't I help those who tried to scam me, but if the opportunity later comes up for me to steal back from them, I'll happily do it, even if I prevented the original theft attempt. I won't actively look for a way to re-scam the scammers, but if an opportunity falls in my lap to take something from them, I'm doing it.

You reap what you sow.

[sonatine]

uhhhhh use the ID in the wallet to contact the person who lost it and arrange its safe return?

what am i missing here?

[Dan Druff]

uhhhhh use the ID in the wallet to contact the person who lost it and arrange its safe return?

what am i missing here?

So when someone who tries to scam you loses their wallet, you dutifully attempt to get it back to them, completely intact?

That's one big, forgiving heart you have, my friend.

[sonatine]

no im just a normal, honest person so its the obvious choice.

[sonatine]

ok ok "normal" but you get the idea.

[Dan Druff]

no im just a normal, honest person so its the obvious choice.

I understand that for scenario #1. Even though the guy was super rude, perhaps you still don't think he deserves to go through the big hassle and moderate expense of a lost wallet. I can respect that.

I am floored by your choice for #2. The guy was super rude to you AND tried to scam you when you wouldn't let him pressure you into buying stuff you didn't need, all so he could pocket extra commission he didn't really earn. How is he deserving of ANY kind of favor or kind treatment? The guy deserves much worse than a lost wallet or what he did here. He actually belongs in jail. Why would you want to do something nice for him?

[limitles]

Hypotheticals have to be realistic, for me anyway and I would be out of that store as as soon as
I heard, "you people think you're so smart". If it was just a an up-selling sales person I would certainly take the wallet in to the store. (easiest move)

Scenario two would never happen. It wouldn't get that far.

Former salesmen speaking. Nobody gets away with service like that

No fun I know

[jsearles22]

So you have his wallet and his ID but you give no more nefarious options? Send the guy huge black dildos with his own credit card, etc?

Also, thief Druff, what amount of cash would you take since he tried to scam you? Say he had $500? $1500? $5000?

[Dan Druff]

Story I've told before about something on Donkdown which is a little related:

We hired a web design company to improve the ugly look-and-feel of the standard phpBB site.

This was a foreign based company run by an expat American. They were incompetent, though. They misstated or overestimated their abilities to modify forum software and interfaces, and after several months of back-and-forth, we realized that the entire thing was going to have to be thrown in the garbage. At this point, we had to figure out what was fair to pay them. They spent a lot of hours and seemed to try in earnest to do the work, but they were also not competent enough to do the job, despite what they had claimed.

We decided that we would pay them 60% (or something like that) for the incomplete work, and were obviously canceling the SEO job which hadn't begun yet.

Then I got the bad news. One of the DD partners (not Micon, in case you're wondering) prepaid them for both jobs! Crap!

So now we were at their mercy as to what they were going to refund to us. We sent them a very nice and polite letter thanking them for their effort, but clearly stating why they were unable to do the job, and offering to pay the 60% and asking them to refund the rest.

At first, we were happy to see that the owner seemed reasonable. He thanked us for our feedback, and even acknowledged that their was "some fault on their end" regarding the failure of the project. He said that 60% seemed fair. However, he also said that he was holding back 50% of the money for the not-yet-started SEO job for a "kill fee"! He said he would be happy to complete the SEO project for the original price if we didn't want to pay the 50% kill fee.

Well, we looked through all of the agreements, and there was nothing about any kill fee. Additionally, they hadn't done a stitch of work on the SEO effort. It was simply the next job slated to begin after the design was completed. The guy was just holding that money back because he could get away with it, and felt it was the only way to pressure us into still using them for the expensive SEO job.

We tried to reason with him back and forth, and he wouldn't budge. He couldn't explain why he had the right to hold back 50% for work never started, especially since we were only canceling because the second job because they failed at the first job -- something he admitted! Still, nothing further. He held firm. The fucking guy was stealing from us, and we were powerless.

But actually we weren't. See, we realized that the bill was paid via American Express. And, at least at the time, American Express had a very generous-to-the-customer 180 day chargeback policy. It had only been about 4-5 months since we paid, so this was within the chargeback window. Then we had to figure out what to charge back.

Should we charge back only the portion we originally asked to be refunded? Or should we charge back the whole thing, and say "Fuck this guy" because he had just tried to steal from us?

Initially, I was the one stating we should charge back the whole thing. Surprisingly, Micon, who had not always acted ethically in business transactions with others over the years, stated that he felt we should only chargeback the original refund amount, and let him keep that 60% of the first job.

"Even though this guy was an unethical asshole who tried to steal from us, we are going to act like gentlemen and do the right thing," said Micon on our four-way phone call of DD owners.

I responded, "He doesn't deserve for us to act like gentlemen. You said it yourself. The guy tried to steal from us. He would have gotten away with it, if it hadn't been for that weird 180-day chargeback policy. He deserves nothing. We can't even use the work he did. We were paying the 60% in a good faith attempt to be fair, but once he decided that he wasn't going to treat us in good faith, that's all the window. We should charge it all back."

The other two owners agreed with me, and Micon was outvoted. Micon then decided that I was probably right, and agreed we should charge everything back. It still wasn't guaranteed we'd win the chargeback, though.

So we did the chargeback, and when the guy got notification of it, he sent us another e-mail, after having ignored our last two e-mails about the matter (prior to knowing we could charge back). Nervous we would get all of the money back, he offered to work out a "deal". Laughably, the guy even half-heartedly apologized for trying to rip us off, claiming he was "emotional" -- something which wasn't true, because the discussion about this lasted for about 1-2 weeks before he finally ignored us. He was only looking to "deal" because he knew he was probably going to lose the chargeback. What a fucking snake.

Despite his previous inclination to not fully charge back, this "deal" e-mail pissed Micon off. Micon stated that the guy was a disingenuous piece of shit, and responded by basically telling the guy that we don't negotiate with scammers. Indeed, we won the chargeback.

I still feel great about that decision to this day.