Kate Hackett
Finders keepers or is there a moral obligation elsewhere?
That was the question @bebe1969 posed to the Internet when she posted on Twitter. Her 30-year-old-son bought a copy of A Clockwork Orange at Goodwill and found $500 within its pages once he got it home.
So here’s the war on morals she poses: “what would you do if you discovered money in a book you bought?”
And Twitter took right to the debate, leaping in with thoughts. Some said it was luck, some said it was fate, others thought the money should be donated.
It also begs the question of how on earth he could even return it—Goodwill doesn’t keep records of who donated what.
Some people pointed out that keeping it would be taking advantage of a mistake.
Finders keepers. I mean is this any different than buying a $5 silver teapot at Goodwill, taking it to antiques road show and finding out it’s a $5,000 Victorian-era antique? I’d probably donate $200 for karma’s sake, but I wouldn’t begrudge anyone keeping it.
Others said, hey, just keep the cash.
Keep it. Goodwill doesn’t have a way to track who donated the book to begin with, so it’s unlikely it’d ever go back to the owner. And you can’t really say the money was ever Goodwill’s. So why not treat it like the blessing it is?
If Goodwill sold $500 for 50 cents, and threw in a book to seal the deal, that’s just his good luck. That being said, it is his property now, paid in full. If the universe bestowed him with cash, celebrate the moment. If he donates some back, even better. Even if its just $5.
Aaaand because it’s the internet, we get comments like these:
You can check out the entire thread here:
