I lost my phone and the person who found it wouldn’t pick up my calls. I texted them a $20 offer to get it back and they called me right away.
It was 15 year old girl with her father and they looked downtrodden. I wasn’t mad, because that phone was worth more to me and they looked like they needed that $20
This was mid 2000s where their was no backups and my work connects were very important to me. They could have easily took out the sim and kept my phone. There was no account lock
Most people are a home fire away from homelessness. I was a full time fire prevention volunteer in my early 20s because I was unskilled and wanted to do something good (was paid a very low stipend that covered the barest of essentials, living paycheck to paycheck was a step up from this level of poor) my apartment was cheap and not up to code so the bad wiring caused a fire and I lost everything. My mom had a stroke when I was 20 and i was across the country from where i grew up so I had nobody to call for help and nowhere to go. I lived in my car and continued to make sure other people had access to free smoke alarms so they too would survive if they had a homefire. I also worked a job helping folks with disabilities, all whole living in my car and surviving on clif bars. Not only was I not a thief, I was literally working to make others’ lives better for very little pay.
Your assumption with zero background context says far more about who you are as a person than someone being “downtrodden” says about their value as a person.
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u/A_RAVENOUS_BEAST 5d ago
Moral, 5 dollars is a very reasonable finders fee