I would say I'm 80% honest - it depends on the circumstance as to just how 'honest' I am.

If I'm given incorrect change, I always let the cashier know. It doesn't happen very often now that computers tell them how much money to give back.

I'm very honest in cases like this. Depends on circumstances, but it may get donated to some charity, etc, instead.

Years ago, I walked to our local Five and Dime store to buy plastic placemats.....$1 a pc. When I got home, I found I had 5 instead of 4, but had only paid for 4. I walked back to the store and handed it to the gal who checked me out. She not only didn't thank me, she was silent and glowering the entire time. I just walked out with a smile on my face.

Shirley

I'm very honest. To a fault. I've known people who find money or objects of value and consider it a windfall...their own good fortune. I'll be darned if I'll benefit at the loss of others.

In return, I've had money returned to me (300 bucks) that I dropped out of my pocket in the bank's parking lot. A young Marine from Parris Island found it and returned it to the bank. I've also left my pocketbook in a shopping cart in Beaufort and Huntsville. Both were waiting for me behind the counter.

What goes around, comes around.

I, too, think I'm honest to a fault, but then I never have to have a guilty conscience where money, etc. The above PO posting reminded me of having received about six dollars too much from the postmistress here. I didn't notice it until I had left the PO, so I went back in, handed her the money, telling her it was more than I should have had. She said, "Oh, really?" and that was that. I didn't expect her to grovel, but I think a "thank you" would have been nice!!!

I think I'm pretty honest, but like you, I wouldn't have waited another 15 minutes to return 27 cents. I'd rather round it out and put it in my "doggie can". I keep a can I put any monies I win in and donate it to our local animal shelter when it gets to be sizable. It's amazing how fast a dollar here and a dollar there adds up.

Rhizo - I'm thinking you're more honest than me. I have found wallets, a passport, even a suitcase and have returned tham all, because in each instance there was a name, address, phone number or some other means of identifying the owner. BUT if I find money by itself - like the $30 outside a Sears in the parking lot - I keep it with a clear consience. That's because in my heart I know that if I asked 20 people 'Did you lose $30?' 15 would say yes. How would I know which of those 15 unfortunate souls who lost $30, lost the $30 that I found? ;)

Let's just say I get accused of being "too honest".

Actually, I would've waltzed right up to the counter and plopped it down saying to the worker, "This belongs to you because too much change was returned". I wouldn't have waited in line though. I don't think anyone else would mind that happening, since I was going around them. I know I wouldn't mind since it wouldn't interfere with what was going on, anything more than a nod.

spelling error corrected

This post was edited by rob333 on Wed, Feb 20, 13 at 14:30

I think most of us are pretty honest. Any found money, either on the street, in a store etc I put in a jar at home and then at Christmas time empty all this into the Red Kettles. Some years it is more than others. I have found wallets at Walmart and both had government ID but with the base 15 minutes away, not surprised. I just turn them into customer service,never even look in them. I just hope WM contacts the people. Never quite sure!

I'm honest. Today at the store I was putting bagged things into my cart and noticed I had left a bottle of vanilla beans in the cart. I could have easily just covered them up and no one would have known. And those things are expensive. I handed them to the checker. I really do believe in karma, so let's just say karma keeps me in line.

I am very honest. To tell the truth it is frustrating. Lots of times waitresses don't add correctly or only charge for 1 beer instead of 2, etc. I cannot tell you how many times i've heard "oh, thanks, but just leave it the way it is" or something similar. They're to lazy to write up a new ticket or something!
Once when my son was young I practically had to arm wrestle a cashier at Walgreens because she undercharged me. I finally told her "look, I'm trying to teach my son an honestly lesson".....

I'm known for being so honest, that when my Mom appointed me her executrix and told the siblings, they all said they were fine with it, because they knew if there was one penny left over, I'd cut it in quarters to make everything come out even. Terrible burden--years later, when I was handling mom's estate, it turned out there were 2 pennies left over (4 heirs), so I made poor DH cut 2 pennies in half so I could give them each their half cent--they all appreciated the joke.

Just last weekend, we were at the Farmer's market early in the morning--the place was almost empty, but there was one fellow ahead of us at the salad counter. He dropped a wad of money (at least 2 $20's were visible, but there may have been more folded inside). We both thought he was going to finish his transaction then pick up his cash. Then we realized he hadn't noticed--we were both yelling at him, "Sir, you dropped money". He didn't get what we were saying at first, but was glad we pointed it out when he realized.

As to the .27? I wouldn't have stood in line--I'd have walked in, gone to the window, and slid the change across saying "You gave me too much change"--no one would have objected to that. Problem is, the way you handled it was definitely honest--but that didn't help the clerk at the end of the day when her drawer was short. It's always best to immediately return overage so the cashier doesn't get into trouble.

I do enjoy metal detecting--and often go to public parks, just because they're pleasant places to wander. I mainly do it because it's fun. Most years, I find in the $300-400 range. But it's not my money--in many cases, it probably fell out of a child's pocket, I figure. So I toss it all in a jar, and every year, in Dec. I count it up and write a check to a children's charity for the amount I've found (well,, I usually up it a bit, as well). I can't even keep that found money in good conscience.

So yes, I think I'm pretty honest.

The last time I turned in something I found was when I found an MP3 player or something laying in the parking lot outside a taco joint. I told the cashier and expected to keep it with me while I ate, hoping the person would return looking for it. The cashier insisted that I give it to him to return to the person if they came back. The whole time we were there eating, I did not see anyone come in looking for it. When we were leaving, I asked the cashier and he said a girl came in and got it. I think he kept it.

I gave a cashier a $5 bill, she gave me change back for a $20. When I tried to give her the money back, the conversation was over heard by her manager working the next lane over.....and I essentially got her in trouble.......by my "honesty". The cashier was fuming mad at me!.

Found a wallet lying in the street when we were jogging. DH & I ran it over to the police station a half mile out of our way. They wanted to see out ID...? Wanted our names and address and the agent raised her eybrows when she opened the wallet and found "cash" still in it. We were treated like criminals!

I'm not THAT honest any more.....:0)

Im very honest, I really don't want to profit at the expense of another. If found something of value (($$ or something ) I would only keep it if there were no possible way to find the owner. There is no way I would ever let an error by a cashier go because they really have to balance at the end of the day. Found money would be passed onto a deserving person, place or thing. Satine

I've turned in wallets, check books, purses etc., to whoever was in charge. If I get too much money back and realize it right away, I'll give it back. If it's a significant amount and I've left, I'll get it back to them. If it's minimal, I'll probably donate it rather than spend the gas.

I only remember one time finding cash, other than the proverbial penny, which of course we all know that "See a penny, pick it up. All the day you'll have good luck."

Some time ago, checking out at the grocery store, I saw a $10 bill and a dime on the floor in front of me. There was no customer there. After I checked out I picked up the money and went to the Customer Service and told the clerk I had found some cash, gave her my name and phone #, and told her if someone came in saying they had lost cash, to ask them how much, and to call me, and if the amount was right they could come and pick it up.

Yes, I am honest, but I don't know how honest everybody else is. Unfortunately the customer service clerk could have just kept it. No one ever called about it, and I don't remember what I did with it.

Sue

At Christmas time I went grocery shopping. There was a lady in front of me that seemed to be having a difficult time. She paid and the cashier took care of me. I finished , took my groceries to my car and was preparing to leave when the cashier knocked on my window telling me I had left a bag. I started to leave but decided to check the bag. It was a good sized ham. I had not bought one. I pulled back in the parking spot and took the ham back in the store. I sure hope that lady got her ham.

Last week I was walking on the golf course that is adjacent to my house. I found $$ in folded bills on the cart path.

I have tried and tried to find the owner - made phone calls, told the golf superintendent, etc. and no one has claimed it yet. I have purposefully not announced how much $$ - whoever lost it can claim it by telling me how much they lost!

It's not mine and I don't feel right keeping it. I've put it in the kitchen cupboard, awaiting its owner.

I'm pretty doggone honest. :)

I always let the cashier know if I think I've been given too much change or if I think I've been undercharged. It's not always easy either. On several occasions, it has taken a while to convince the clerk that I'm trying to give them money back or trying to pay them more rather than the reverse. Several years ago, I found a $100 bill in a convience store restroom and gave it to the manager and told her exactly where I found it. She wanted my name so if it wasn't claimed she could give it back to me. I just told her it wasn't mine and to give it to charity no one claimed it. I think she probably did.

DH has had two sizable experiences. The first was years ago at a little bank in a small village in the French Alps when DH cashed some travelers checks. The teller spoke little English and DH speaks limited French. After he left the bank, DH realized that she had converted the currency incorrectly and had given him far too much. He had no trouble understanding her gratitude after he went back, explained the error, and returned the overage.

The second experience was on Christmas Day a few years ago. DH bought some skis and new bindings and had the shop mount the bindings to the skis. A couple of hours later when came back to pick up the skis and pulled out his cc to pay, the clerk told him that he had already paid and the receipt taped to the skis was marked paid. DH argued but the clerk insisted that he had paid. All afternoon, it kept nagging at DH and he called the cc company to check if a charge had gone through. It had not, so he went back and finally convinced the owner that he really needed to pay for the skis. He given a nice discount for his persistent honesty!

I do have a thought, softball_80, did you put a stamp on the envelope? ;) If not, it technically should be returned for no postage. No return, it should go to dead letter office. Then eventually would be absorbed after costing them a lot of labor! Now that's IF they're doing their job properly! I'll just stop there. :) I think your heart was in the right place, I too though would probably not wait in line, just go up and lay it on the counter and quietly say you gave me too much change. Just a different path to the same intended destination.

If I ever heard a manager give a cashier flak like that over a customer being honest, I'd rip him/her a new vent. Knowing how many cashiers are held accountable for their tills I have a special spot in my heart to look out for them.

I pride myself on being far more honest than most. I've had people be honest with me and I appreciate that. I feel like I'm returning a favor or something and just doing "what's right". Obviously there's times where you can't do what might be wanted, for instance I've found money in a parking lot before, blowing around and there's no way to tell its owner and can't really tell where to turn it in. I could turn it over to the police but for a small amount, I doubted the possibility of someone going to the police for a few dollars would be very high. And the odd change found in a vending machine or phone, back when there were payphones, no, I didn't return that and don't see an honesty issue.

I see honesty as being much more than found money. Lying, cheating on your income taxes, the extra few cents on a gas purchase that most customers tend to "round down" etc, for me it all comes under a category of "what's right" than simply honesty.

In the original example, don't wait in line for the same clerk, just walk up beside the customer being served, place the difference on the counter and say "You gave me the wrong change, this corrects it." Then walk away.

If you got too little in change by the same amount, just eat it. Not worth the trouble of standing in line for 27 cents.

To a fault!! I can look myself in the mirror every day :-)

Several years ago, a very minor acquaintance bragged about $9 worth of canning jars that were missed at the checkout and she went home with them, knowing she wasn't charged for them. I thought later that I should have told her that was THEFT. Made me mad then and still, after i ran into her yesterday.

I find it is the little things that build our character. Keeping extra change here, keeping things not charged for there, cheating a bit on taxes, and so on. These are not little things, but steps towards bigger dishonesty later on.

If I find money in an empty parking lot (let's say up to $20.00) there is nobody to return it to (unless it is right next to the door of a car or something, then it gets put under the windshield wiper). If I am walking through a field and find money, I do keep it. Now, if it is a LARGE sum of money, that is different.

I also will not buy, borrow, or watch bootleg movies (either taped at the movies or copied from a DVD) nor download bootleg music. I do not "jailbreak" my devices. I buy legal versions of my software and do not overinstall past the license amount. I do freelance work, and claim every dollar on my income tax.

SOMEBODY has to be an example ;).

Dances.

Cynic - I put neither a stamp nor a return address on the envelope. Since the amount was so small (less than the COST of a stamp). Some postal worker somwhere had to have seen it at some point. My guess is either he will think it's funny and tell everyone else on the job about it and they'll all have a good laugh, or he might rip it open and pocket the change. Either way it's on him; I've done my bit.

Oh, BTW in this day and age there is an element of danger in bypassing a line of people even to do a 1 second transaction, at least where I live. They might shoot first and ask questions later.

Speaking of walking thru a field and finding money-DD once found a Sears GC in a field. Her friend thought she was crazy picking it up-it couldn't have any value left. She brought it home and called the number and the balance was $100! We kept it for months while scanning the lost and found ads-no one was looking for it. Eventually I gave DD $100 and used the card to buy myself clothes.

omg..my x and i had a fight when we found a business type bag on a freeway entrance...told him i'd return it, he said if has cash he's keeping it...just one of several reasons he became an X, lol...(it had papers, no cash)

and i did trun a $50 bill at target..the clerk looked at me as if i were nuts...

I return overrpayments ... and sometimes check the change, which they just hand you in a lump.

Also things of value, if owner identifiable.

I've called people's attention to dropped money .. and have had people do that for me. When I find small amounts of money, without any way of knowing the owner, I just keep them (and I check coin slots on telephones: not sure whether the money should be the phone co.'s, or the store in which the phone's located - seldom find any money, but one time is was one of our dollar coins).

I give substantial amounts to a half dozen churches and upwards of a couple of dozen charities ... enough so that, along with political donations, I had zero federal income tax liability for the past couple of years - haven't figured this year's, yet (not all documents have arrived ... but the income ones are pretty well all here).

ole joyful

This is nice! I'm so glad to see many of you are as honest as one could possibly be.

I'm one among you. I don't like to keep anything that is not mine. Sitting in a wheelchair, I often use my wheelchair as a shopping cart. One time, I found an unpaid pack of battery on my wheelchair as I was getting ready to put the chair in the van. Right away, I felt uneasy. I went back to the store, explained that it was overlooked and paid for it.

The funny thing was, people just don't know how to deal with an honest person. They have this "lost" look on their face. Oh, I'm sure they would know exactly what to do with a dishonest person.

One time, I was taking money out of an ATM at the bank. The ATM spit out more money than I requested. I went into the bank to return it. The teller checked my account and didn't see any overdrawl. She checked and checked on the computer and didn't see any error. She looked at me and told me I can keep it. I refused. I explained to her that eventually, it will show up a lost somewhere at their end. She talked to other tellers and no teller knew what to do with the money. So, I requested for the manager. He came out, apologized for the error and accepted the money. Although, he too, didn't know what to do with it. The whole ordeal was so odd to me. A bank that wouldn't accept their money because at the time, there was no record of a lost in their computer system. I'm sure they eventually found it when they started looking in the ATM machine. LOL....

This is nice! I'm so glad to see many of you are as honest as one could possibly be.

I'm one among you. I don't like to keep anything that is not mine. Sitting in a wheelchair, I often use my wheelchair as a shopping cart. One time, I found an unpaid pack of battery on my wheelchair as I was getting ready to put the chair in the van. Right away, I felt uneasy. I went back to the store, explained that it was overlooked and paid for it.

The funny thing was, people just don't know how to deal with an honest person. They have this "lost" look on their face. Oh, I'm sure they would know exactly what to do with a dishonest person.

One time, I was taking money out of an ATM at the bank. The ATM spit out more money than I requested. I went into the bank to return it. The teller checked my account and didn't see any overdrawl. She checked and checked on the computer and didn't see any error. She looked at me and told me I can keep it. I refused. I explained to her that eventually, it will show up a lost somewhere at their end. She talked to other tellers and no teller knew what to do with the money. So, I requested for the manager. He came out, apologized for the error and accepted the money. Although, he too, didn't know what to do with it. The whole ordeal was so odd to me. A bank that wouldn't accept their money because at the time, there was no record of a lost in their computer system. I'm sure they eventually found it when they started looking in the ATM machine. LOL....

Pretty honest. About a year ago I had a dentist bill that was over 500.00. I was making small payments on it every two weeks. I received my billing statement one day and it showed 'paid in full'

I called the dentist's office and argued and argued with that poor woman that there had been a mistake and they had accidentally credited my account with someone elses payment. I couldn't make her understand that I DID NOT make that payment and "I still owe you", however much it was. DBoss was hiding around the corner LHAO, because he had paid the bill for me.
When I hung up the phone, he said, "You really are honest to a fault, aren't you? I almost felt bad for Gloria (the gal in billing I was arguing with), but I made her promise not to tell!"

I attempted to withdraw $10 from an ATM once and out came a a $20. I found out later that the tens and twenties had been transposed the last time the machine was loaded. I returned it and the teller looked at me like I had 2 heads!

Honest? I just know I wouldn't have gone to the trouble to mail back 26 cents when the cost of a stamp is 20 cents more. If I find a small amount nowhere near anything with no ID, I'd keep it. Of course I'd return any large amount to the police station or put an ad in the paper.

Hmm. I found a dollar in a parking lot recently and I just pocketed it, although there wasn't anyone else around. In the last few years I found two credit cards. I called the stores to say I had found them and they stopped the cards and told me to cut them up, which I did. I also found an ATM card recently so I just cut it up.

On the other hand, I scraped the side of my car on a delivery truck (no damage to the truck), but I told the insurance car that someone hit me in the mall parking lot. Bad me, but I have paid that insurance company thousands over the years.

Sometimes I don't answer the phone when I see it's someone I don't want to talk to. If they ask me where I was I lie and say outside or in the shower. Guess I'll burn in hell.

Yeah, we've all paid thousands of dollars in insurance. Anyway, who am I to gripe really - one time I threw away a bunch of my kids stuff and acted like I didn't know what happened to it.

I see myself as honest but I also see myself as "normally" and "acceptably" dishonest on occasion.

softball, hate to tell you, but there's no such thing as a "heavenly bank account." But you knew that!! LOL

I recently was shopping at Save-A-Lot and when I got to my car & started to unload, I noticed a jar of mushrooms that weren't mine. I didn't go back in & looked at the slip when I got home & wasn't charged for them so they must have belonged to the person ahead of me. I decided to donate them to the Goodwill Kitchen along with some other canned goods I had. Had they charged me, I still would have donated them as I don't like mushrooms! :)

Vannie - call it karma, then.

It may have been an urban? (rural?) myth ...

... but I heard somewhere that there may be streets of gold in heaven.

I remember that when I began riding my bike, down a rural road, I thought how great it would be were all of the gravel on the road ... gold!

But it didn't take me long to conclude that, were it gold for me, it'd be gold for everyone else, as well ...

... so soon it'd take a wheelbarrow load to buy a loaf of bread (well - a shovel-full, at least).

(In any case ... do you figure that they'd be using U.S. money?)

o j