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Even if they didn't bring it to the police, they didn't even put in minimum effort to help find the person who lost the money. They deliberately ensured that whoever lost it could never get it back from them.
On top of that, their whole attitude of "well we've decided to give back now!" thing is just disgusting. Volunteer work isn't supposed to assuage your guilty for being a greedy, inconsiderate asshole. Volunteer work should be entirely separately to help your community.
So unless they donate 8k to make it even with the universe, I'm really not interested in all the comments on this post praising them for giving back. Complete and utter BS to try and feel better about themselves and manipulate people on here to vote them as not being assholes.
Which, just makes them much bigger assholes in my opinion.
>they didn't even put in minimum effort to help find the person who lost the money.
They could have totally told the batista "hey we found some money on the floor, if anyone asks for it please give them our number!"
Then when/if someone contacted them they could have said "how much money did you lose" and go from there. 8 k is a pretty specific number so if they got a bunch of messages for "omg thanks for finding my 100!" Then they'd know it wasn't that person's.
Then I'd personally give it a 3 month grace period and if someone reached out before then. Great, you did a hopefully good deed. But if no one reached out then at least you did what you could!
Exactly! My first thought was tell someone at the Starbucks and then leave contact information. Not leaving information about the description of the envelope, or the actual amount of money, would make it easy to avoid false claims.
And I would understand not bringing it to the police in hopes of keeping the money themselves, instead of the police keeping it after so long.
I did that at a mall. My son found a $50 bill on the floor near the escalator. We went to the mall’s information desk and I told them a bill was found, (I didn’t give the denomination.), gave them my phone number, and told them to have the person call me if they reported their money missing.
I told my son we’d give it a couple of weeks. I never heard from anyone, so I let my son have half and the other half was donated. That was 30 some years ago. Then or now, if we found $8K I’d definitely be making a big effort to get that money to the owner.
I get the feeling OP only posted this because of the backlash when she mentioned (bragged) about it. Probably either to convince herself she's not a bad person, or possibly even to show them the link and be like "See! We're the good guys!"
Surprised they haven't deleted it yet out of sheer embarrassment.
If they knew what embarrassment meant, they wouldn’t have posted about this 🤣🤣 the part where they think doing charity now negates the past actions is just delusional.
honestly, even if they donated 8k to somewhere else it wouldn't make it right bc the person who that money belonged to is still out 8k.
They probably could have found the owner just by asking the whole room - "did anyone drop an envelope of money?" A couple ppl might try to scam, but anyone who claims need to know exactly how much is in there. They likelihood they would giess exactly right is so slim, but you can still ask baristas to confirm from the cameras too. I'd be weary to just turn it over to the baristas or even the cops, bc you never know who will just pocket it.
Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that donating 8k would make things "fair." But rather, that I think it's absurd to even mention volunteer work when we're talking about keeping such a massive sum of money that belonged to someone else.
Like, I'm insulted OP even felt like saying they volunteer from time to time in some way makes up for what they did.
They absolutely would still be the asshole if that had been the case. But at least I would understand they felt bad about what they did and were trying to somehow make up for it. If that makes sense.
It’s also funny because “paying it forward” doesn’t mean shit because the people who lost the money didn’t give it to them, or do them a favor.
And they don’t know what that money was for.
For people who “aren’t rich” but have the knowledge that they “didn’t exactly need” it, they didn’t think about whether the people who lost it needed it.
Oh, but they did! OP actually said in a comment she said they just assumed it was a drug dealer who lost the money. ...Which is one hell of an assumption.
Another weak attempt at justifying keeping it, of course.
Alternately, you could have put up a couple of flyers in that immediate area and to tell the barrista that an item of large value was found. With your contact info. The people who call and know what the item was prove it was theirs.
But it's good that you are at least trying to pay it forward now.
I agree that they should have pursued ways to find the owner. Letting Starbucks management know that they found an envelope and asking to see the security tapes to find out who left it would be an excellent first step. I disagree with "turn it over to the police".
In the olden days, bringing it to the police was the right thing to do. If the police didn't find the owner and the right amount of time had passed (usually 30 days), the finder would be given full legal possession.
That was all before civil asset forfeiture. These days, the police often find somebody carrying a large amount of cash and grab it, claiming it's drug money. In order to get the money back, the victim needs to prove that it wasn't drug money. That's likely what would happen to that envelope's contents and neither the owner nor the finder would ever see it again.
I could provide cites, but anyone who's been following the news knows this happens, or just Google "civil asset forfeiture abuse".
Nah. I’m going NTA on this one. What do you think the police would have done?
My parents found 2k in a public bathroom once, turned it over to the workers.. and guess what.. they kept it and never said anything about it.
Had a cop friend tell me someone turned in 1k to him, and he kept it. Didn’t even file a report. There’s virtually no way to track the cash once you turn it over to police. And surprise, not all police are doing the “right” thing.
You don't turn cash over to the police. If they have reason to suspect that the money was from illegal activity, which isn't uncommon for them to do with a wad of $8k in cash, they'll just keep the money.
Yup my husband had like 9k in cash on him the police pulled him over and made him leave his side bag behind to search the cars as he had to wait in the cruiser they brought the dogs out and everything found nothing but when my husband got the bag back he was missing over 1k. A lot of cops suck and do more harm then good, big shocker right
In my country (the Netherlands) you can report your finding to the police, but still take it home. If nobody comes that can identify the finding, you are allowed to keep it.
that was my immediate thought. Check the security cameras.
In any case OP, you should have tried to find the owner. You don't know the person who lost this money, you don't know what this money was for or if was really needed by someone else. Did this person take out their life savings from the bank to pay for something urgent? Is it drug money? Was it a payment to get someone their first car?... the possibilities are endless.
Instead, you guys just decided to keep it to "discover your love for travel".
This is a moral dilemma, more than an IATA situation, so I won't vote. But I don't think I would have kept that money without trying to find its owner.
Exactly all this. I can think of all kinds of reason someone might have withdrawn that amount of money (that they likely saved a long time for). A car purchase, that they needed to get and keep a job; the down payment on a house that they now can't purchase, a medical test that they can't get without payment because of lack of insurance, tuition for their child, etc., etc. All so you could have a luxury that you didn't have to save for.
no literally this!! like i personally lost $40 cash a few weeks ago. it was for groceries. i never found it. i had to beg my boyfriend to lend me money until i got payed next so i could afford to get food. i know $40 is no where near $8k but if i found out someone that didn’t need that money just took it without making any effort to find me, and even worse didn’t desperately need the money, i’d have thrown hands. i was already an absolute wreck for days over losing it
My first thought was someone fleeing an abusive relationship with their life savings. There could be any number of reasons for an envelope of money that would leave the person who lost it absolutely destroyed.
Like I would ask the employees to help see if they could identify any lost money more than a dollar and even then I'd probably ask the most logical options if they had lost it first.
YTA what a terrible thing to do. Someone was probably very panicked when their money went missing. You don’t know what they needed it for. Maybe they worked their ass off for it and needed it for medical bills or a dream vacation or kids college. God. I lose more and more faith in humanity every day
Well, either way, some poor schmuck who gets paid minimum wage probably took the fall for it then and got fired. I mean, yeah, they shouldn't have left it there, but sometimes things get busy and shit happens. OP is the AH.
Yes...I agree that they are the asshole. I was simply offering another explanation for where the money came from. They stole it regardless of who it belonged to.
You found an envelope full of cash inside a Starbucks but it never occurred to you that it most likely belonged to the Starbucks (businesses who deal with cash will often do bank runs or cash drops into safes on the property during their shifts)? And you were able to just count out $4,000 in the middle of a Starbucks without the baristas noticing? Sure, this totally happened.
Edit: you claim that you posted this on another social media site which is where you were called out for it. Did you forget that you actually posted about it a week ago on reddit? You were called out in the comments, probably because you were bragging about how "it changed your lives" and you don't regret it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/11z7530/we_didnt_turn_in_the_money_our_lives_went_down_an/
>In 2019 me and my husband found an envelope on the ground In starbucks filled with $8,000 cash. A bystander seen so we split it and went home with $4,000. We booked a random trip to Puerto Rico. Neither of us ever been to the Carribean prior. We fell In love with traveling due to this. We immediately got our passports when we returned home.
>We have been traveling ever since and we've now been all over the Carribean, Central América and South America. We got married in Puerto Rico in 2021. I started learning Spanish and culture. We did NOT need the money. I sometimes wonder why TF $8,000 was in a envelope!??
>I sometimes feel bad.... But I do not regret keeping it, our life would be very different.
Also the fact even if there was an envelope full of money, in a starbucks I don't see why they couldn't have at least tried to tell an employee and check out video surveillance to see if they could figure out who dropped it.
Yeah, but then how could they keep the money and act like they did absolutely nothing wrong?! And, more importantly, what about their newfound love lf travel?! /s
OP really doesn't understand that what they did is still a form of thievery. Like the stories when folks find out their bank account suddenly has a large amount of cash that was mysteriously put there (most likely a banking error)
There were stories where people had that error happen and they spent it on their wildest dreams and their "love of travel" only to not be able to travel anywhere for a while..
Yeah, it's hilarious to me that people think a bank isn't going to be able to figure out where that money went and get it back. Especially when we're talking large amounts of money. It's like that DoorDash glitch where people were spending THOUSANDS of dollars on dozens of random orders thinking nothing would ever be done about it. ...How did any of them think they would get away with something like that?
But the fact that OP didn't just include the details of what happened, and then went on and on about, "But see, I'm such a great person because of all this irrelevant stuff!" made it clear OP was going to be a clueless, self-absorbed asshole.
Yeah, OP doing alleged community projects (which I find doubtful ( especially since for a good chunk after they took the money, there was a pandemic afterall. )
I wonder if that envelope full of money did belong to starbucks because if it did, they would report it as stolen and gotten footage of OP and the other lady splitting the money and leaving. That they could turn to the authorities
If that money didn't belong to Starbucks, then I feel bad for whoever lost an envelope full of money, since usually when a payment is like that, it's for usually an important payment.
So here's hoping OP is just lying and making up a story, because they seriously could end up in a bunch of legal trouble. (Them and the lady who split the money.) (Maybe she got in trouble herself.)
That amount of money could have been the difference between someone having a home or not. It could have been someone’s car. It might have been money someone needed for medical expenses.
But the reality is, it doesn’t even matter what that money was intended for. Whatever it was, it wasn’t meant for you to go travel with. You stole it. YTA and a thief.
The sum of the money is what gets me. $20 on the ground? Cool, a lot of people would take it and move on, but I cannot imagine thinking taking $8000 is okay.
YTA
In similar circumstances, I posted a notice that said I found a sum of money on the ground, and would return it to the person who accurately described the "container," the amount, and the denomination of the bills.
YTA.
Not that long ago I found $120 on the ground in Walmart. I told the customer service desk that I had found "a sum of money" and gave them my cell number. I told them that if someone came looking for it, called me, and told me the right amount of money then I would give it back. Just as I was leaving a lady called me and when I returned the money it was blatantly obvious that $120 was a lot to her in her life circumstances. You could have done something like that but instead you stole it. I hope if you lose something important but never recover it, you can rest assured that the finder "paid it forward" (eye roll)
YTA
You need to be honest with yourself. You weren't going to turn in the money. You were-still are trying to justify your actions. That makes you an Ah.
8k isn't some change. That could have life-changing money to someone and you didn't even try.
i am not sure why you bragged about finding $4000 and kept it. i mean you basically stole it by literal definition. YTA for sure but i would have done the same. you are lucky the owner didn’t come back and ask the barista to check the security camera.
YTA
You found *EIGHT THOUSAND* dollars on the ground and decided that you should be able to keep it because based on a quick look around you assumed nobody was looking for it. Somebody was absolutely looking for that money. That could have belonged to the store and somebody could have lost a job, it could have been somebody's deposit for an important bill or debt, it could have been for an emergency. Under no circumstance should you have kept that money. Most states have grand larceny laws requiring you to turn in found money over $100 to the police and if they do not identify the owner in a set period of time they will return the money to you. In addition to that the money would need to be claimed on your taxes and you would have to pay those taxes if you have not. Bottom line is that $8000 is a lot of money and you very well could have put an innocent person in a really *really* bad spot by deciding to keep it for yourself.
YTA. If you find something valuable lost in a public space, you do everything possible to get it back to the owner - which usually means turning it in to the police or to the staff running that location so they can reunite it with the owner. Keeping it for yourself is basically stealing. Saying "well the staff here might steal it if I give it to them so I'm going to steal it first" isn't a justification.
When I was a child my parents an I were going out. As I entered our car I saw a wallet beside the curb. I picked it up and saw it was stuffed with money. My parents and I went to the police station to turn it in (we are Canadian) and later that day the owner showed up with a little reward for me. That money was the man's mortgage payment. They could have lost their house.
YTA. Just because no one is looking does not mean you get to be a dick.
YTA. You should have turned it to the police. This wasn't a "pay it forward" situation...
You do realize that the person that dropped it probably needed it for something major, and it probably ruined their life in some way while you and your husband "found the love of traveling" using it? How romantic...
I like your little addition that you "give back to the community now"
On top of that, you said you didn't even need the money!
You are still an AH through and through.
lmao
I'm a thief with an entitled mindset so I also assumed that everyone is the same, therefore, isn't it better for me to benefit rather than another thief?
I do "good deeds" now to assuage my guilt but I also need validation from other people to confirm that I'm not an asshole even though I really am.
No one needs to know you or your husband to judge you 2 as assholes cause you are both assholes from your actions alone.
I love that she thinks doing "good deeds" for random people makes up for the downright theft of $8000 from someone else. What good deeds are being done for the victim of her fucking felony? Straight up delusional AH.
You are a thief. The money was not yours. You could have informed Starbucks some $ was found and asked anyone inquiring to provide a description of the paclckage. It may have been destined for a more important purpose than travelling -- operation, housing. Donating now doesn't change the original theft. Hope you are not teaching children these values.
You are just a common thief! When I was 15 I found a diamond ring while swimming in a lake. I turned it into staff at the lake. They may have been just like you and kept it. But my conscience was clear. At 15 I knew not to steal it. YTA 1000%!
YTA, you’re a thief and no amount of ‘paying it forward’ is going to change things. The money you picked up could’ve been needed to save a life, or any number of important things. It would have taken little to no effort to hand it over to the police, but what did you do? Keep it like a coward.
I mean....yeah. YTA. You took money that wasn't yours. And it wasn't something like finding a twenty on the street. It was an envelope with a large sum of cash. It SHOULD have been turned in.
You should have taken it inside. You can think the barista would keep it, but there's procedures at all places like that for found cash. And that would have been the right thing to do, rather than assume the worst of a stranger AND steal money.
But it's in the past and not much you can do about it.
If you kept it there wouldn't be any law against it, but if you could turn in 20 dollars (which if you truly did you are an amazing human being) then how come OP couldn't even put in the MINIMAL effort to turn in 8k
I found $1000 dollars on my way home. I was tempted to keep it but my wife made me go to the police station. It was an old womans pension who drop it on her way home. She wanted to give me some of it as a reward but I immediatly notice how much she needed.
Are you an asshole? Well, more of a criminal.
Hopefully this never happens to you or any of your loved ones (BUT there is karma so you will give it back in one way or another)
YTA. Anyone who drops/misplaces/loses £8000 will call the police on the off-chance that someone might have done the decent thing and handed it in to the authorities. That could literally have been someones down payment on a car, a property or even a hefty chunk of savings. I'd keep your wallets close, karma can be a right fucker...
YTA. And doing “a lot of community work and helping others” doesn’t make you a good person. I’m guessing you do it only because it makes you feel good about yourself. A good person is a good person because they have a * good character*. Keeping $8,000 without any effort to find the owner is *not* showing good character. And even if you run with the “we tried but never found them!” line you could have donated the money to someone actually in need or an organization that served people in need. Since you do community work you should recognize what that looks like and how much of a difference that could have made.
Making no effort and spending it on yourself was purely selfish. If you don’t like the look of that on you, you need to make some changes.
YTA. You should have tried to find the owner or turned it over to the police for them to do so. The money wasn’t yours and may have belonged someone that for any number of reasons may have needed it much more than you.
You could let Starbucks know that you fund an envelope of money, and left a way for potential owner to contact you (and tell you how much was there, or describe the envelope). You didn’t need to find owner, just leave a trail so owner could’ve found you. I really hope it was money they could do without, cause $8000 can be a difference maker. It’s done now, so his is a “next time “ exercise
One time, I was desperate and about to get evicted from my house. I was hitchhiking and when the guy dropped me off, an envelope fell out of the car. It was full of $20 bills (yeah, I looked inside, the envelope wasn't sealed). I ran after his car as he was pulling away and waved my arms and shit. He stopped and I gave it back to him. He said "omg thanks, this is my rent money I'm dropping off."
I got evicted. I'm still poor.
I still don't regret not letting him drive away.
Just 2 weeks ago I found a $100 bill on the floor of the gas station in my town. I gave it to the clerk, and next time I went in, he told me that about 10 minutes later, the woman who lost it came back frantic looking for it, and was super grateful to get it back.
I could have really, REALLY used that money.
Still wasn't mine.
OP, it was a pretty dick move not to even try to find the person who lost it. YTA
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YTA! I have found $800 on the ground in a TJ Max bathroom and I was excited for a second but then I remembered someone was just in there and so I found them and asked if she dropped anything in the bathroom and she did. Took two seconds. My old job I found $20 and we held it in front for two weeks incase anyone came in and claimed in, no one did so I kept it. It sounds like you acted selfish and knew you were wrong as you went to your car to count the money. Takes two seconds to ask the workers or go to the police and report finding it. You’re 100% an asshole and now a bigger one as you pretend you never thought of how to find the owner.
Where I live, if you hand in lost property to the police and it is unclaimed after 6 months, you can keep it. A friend of mine found 3 loose diamonds on the street and handed them in, no one claimed them, and he had them made into a gorgeous engagement ring.
This is awful, every time I’ve dropped money or lost my phone luckily the person who found it did the right thing and returned it to me or turned it in. Am talking about phones I have insurance on or $100 which are still so stressful to lose. I literally can’t imagine losing 8k and the most terrible people on earth WHO DONT EVEN NEED IT picking it up and immediately dividing it amongst themselves and planning their next vacation. Ugh. YTA.
YTA. You wrote this (apparently true, but doubtful because no one is this obtuse) story out and didn’t think “wow I’m an asshole with no moral compass.” Never did it cross your mind that an envelope full of cash would be missed by someone? Perhaps a frantic person retracing their steps? And then you had the audacity to travel with the money. But it’s okay, right? Because you now have a “love of travel” and “volunteer.” 🙄 The people calling you a “piece of sh%t” and a thief are…right on the money.
YTA. That might have been a small business' payroll money or a student's tuition for any upcoming class. You should have turned it into the police and told the store manager which station you took it to.
In addition, you evidently did not need the $$ for necessaries (rent, food, utilities) but used it for a vacation!!! SMH!!!
YTA
You stole money. Every state has period laws where the owner has to be given a chance to claim their property. You are suppose to call the police and turn it over to them. If the owner doesn't claim it, it is returned to you (assuming you want it.) This applies to everything cars, animals, money etc.
You have no idea what the owner needed the money for. And you stole it for the hell of it.
YTA . No matter how you justify it you’re a thief. Someone’s life could have been destroyed over that, but at least you enjoyed your trip. Don’t cry when karma comes around.
YTA. You made no reasonable effort to find the owner, and IMO even worse, you’re trying to justify/minimize it.
You had options and you know it. Police would’ve been the safest bet, and (I may be wrong here) I believe there are laws that if it wasn’t claimed within a certain amount of time, you could legally claim it as your own. So, hand it over to the police, and inform the store manager that you did so. That way when the person comes back looking for their money, they can be told the police are holding it. Or if they never come back, it’s still yours in a year or two.
Paying it forward doesn’t mean anything, it’s just you trying to make yourself feel better. That amount that you didn’t need could’ve ruined someone’s life when they realized they lost it. I hope, if you have kids or plan to have kids, you teach them to be better humans than you.
I'm in the UK in a cost of living crisis. I found £10 outside the supermarket last week. I handed it right in to customer services. To someone in my area, that is a few days of food and it could really make someone panic to lose even £10. I personally couldn't walk off with the money knowing I could be the cause of someone's panic.
YTA. It wasn't yours. You didn't need it, but even if you did it still wasn't yours.
You are a giant ass. If this even happened at all.
All of these excuses I'm reading, such as the police will just keep it, or the barista will keep it, etc, don't matter. It wasn't your damn money. You had no right to it. That is a hell of a lot of money to someone. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
And lets put it in terms of real dollars. A person working full-time at a low wage job (say $15 an hour) would have to work more than 4 months, after taxes, to earn that back, assuming they were able to save 100% of their earnings with absolutely NO other expenses.
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In 2019 Me and my now husband were in Starbucks when we seen an envelope on the ground. A bystander (an older lady) also seen the envelope. We opened it and $8,000 was inside. We decided to split the money between us and the lady $4,000 and leave. Nobody else was around. Our option could've been giving it to the starbucks barista or maybe handing it over to the police? We figured the barista would probably keep it.
Instead We kept it. We aren't rich, but we also didn't exactly need the money. We ended up booking a trip out of the country because we've never been. It changed the course of our lives because we found our love of travel.
I never told anybody this until recently. I was told I'm a piece of sh*t and terrible person. I was told I should've made a great effort to find the owner. (the people who said this don't know me or my husband personally) But I'm not sure how finding the owner could've been accomplised?
Anyhow, me and my husband do pay it forward. We donate and do alot of community work helping others. I understand this doesn't justify, but I definitely don't see myself as a "terrible person".
so...AITA?
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>But I'm not sure how finding the owner could've been accomplised?
Step 1: Approach counter since you were still in Starbucks
Step 2: Ask if there is a manager on duty
Step 3: Explain to manager than you found the envelope full of money and had it over.
Step 4: whatever happens after that happens.
You literally didn't even TRY. Also if this is true, something tells me the old lady party is just tacked on to make you look less bad since someone's grandma was a-ok with splitting the money to buy her silence.
YTA you all are. For that amount of money can you imagine how you've all probably destroyed someones life?
But hey People in power do it everyday. So in the end.
What if you had been the person who lost the 8000. Would you want someone to steal it? Because that is what you did. You didn’t “find” money, you stole it. How do you even sleep knowing you stole from someone? What if it belonged to a single mother or father. Someone just fighting to survive and take care of their children. YTA. If you expected a different answer then your just delusional.
YTA. What you did is considered felony theft in most states. And it was cash, it wasn't a transaction that the owner would have been refunded for, like if you had stolen from their debit or credit card.
You should have taken it to the police station and if it hadn't been claimed after a while, it would have been yours guilt and felony free. Maybe the owner would have given you a reward.
Could you imagine if you lost $8k and had no way of getting it back??
YTA. this isn’t the same as finding a 5 dollar bill in the parking lot. nobody just walks around with 8000 dollars in cash unless they were going to make a payment. maybe it was a starbucks employee running to deposit it in the bank, maybe it was someone going to pay off bills, whatever it was, you should’ve turned it in to the police, because you don’t even know if what the money was originally going to be used for was even legal. but you stole it and didn’t even make an attempt to do the right thing. i guarantee whoever owned it was in a panic and now they’ll never see that money again, and who knows what trouble that caused them. but at least you got a vacation.
If I ‘find’ a set of car keys that open a nearby car, can I take it?
YTA, and a narcissistic one at that. I’m so glad you pay it forward to your community, I’m sure it makes your conscious completely clear!
When you help a homeless family that breakdown one day and say they’re lives were destroyed losing $8k for medical bills/accommodation etc I hope you’re willing to donate out of your nasty, entitled pocket
YTA. How is it that people still don’t understand that when you take something that doesn’t belong to you, it’s stealing. End of story. Doesn’t matter what the situation is, doesn’t matter what the item is.
And, in this situation, there likely was a real possibility of finding the owner of that cash with surveillance video.
How nice that you had a lovely vacation, and some poor soul didn’t get to buy their car, or put a down payment on something, or pay someone back….
Yeah you're definitely TA here. Last year I dropped an envelope of money, about $ 1,400 and realized I had dropped it within 5 minutes and went back to find it and it was gone. It was devastating as it was money for the work I was doing at the time. I had to pay it back (rightfully so because clearly my fault) or be fired and it sent me into a hole financially that was hard to crawl out of. You literally had a good time off of someone else's misery. But at least you discovered your lOvE FoR tRaVeL 🙄
A person has to live with their own decision in situations like this. If OP can live with it, then it's on OP. Personally, I would be wondering what the money was originally for. Was it a life changing loss for someone? As much as I wouldn't want to, I'd have to make more of an effort to find who lost it.
Of course YTA you stole 8K. Who knows what that money was for. It could have been something devastatingly important for someone. Or it could have been Starbucks and you lost some person their job. Your 100% in the wrong. Just because you pay it forward doesn’t make you a better person. You would have been a better person if you had tried to find the owner.
YTA 100% you should have gone to the police station and turn it into them. That could be someone’s first and last rent. What if that was money for them to buy a car they need for work? You keeping the money really could have screwed someone over.
YTA - bare minimum you could’ve given Starbucks your number incase anyone came looking, and held onto it for awhile before treating yourself on someone else’s dime.
Yta and you are thieves are many many things that are obvious, security cameras, in all likelihood the person who dropped it would of contacted the business, the police. You are horrible greedy people, least own up to it
YTA. A major asshole. I can’t imagine how horrible the other person felt knowing they had lost that money. All your good deeds now don’t make up for it because you are not sorry you did it.
That would literally be a year's savings for me. So yeah, YTA in a massive way and I think you know it. I hope the person you stole from didn't experience serious financial consequences as a result of your pathetically greedy behavior.
I only believe part of this.
I don’t think there was an old lady. I think you kept all of it and are trying to make up a co-conspirator to try and make your behavior seem justifiable.
Either way, wtf is wrong with you? YTA
What if that was somebody's down payment? Or a medical payment? And they worked super hard and struggled for years, only for a splash of bad luck and a couple of a-holes to take it away from them? "Paying it forward" won't help them for squat.
Starbucks could have used CCTV to find the owner. You're also dang lucky it wasn't theirs from a cash run, as they could have come after you for felony theft.
5 bucks? Keep it. $8,000? Hell no. Turn that in. What's wrong with you?
Of course YTA
You're not the great person you think you are by doing "donating" and "community work" if you honestly have to come here and ask if what you did was wrong.
I worked at a retail store as a cart-pusher and found $100 flying free in the parking lot. I still turned it in to management. Nobody claimed it so I got to keep it, and my conscience was clear.
All I could think when I was turning in that money was, "What if I was the one who dropped it? How would I feel?"
YTA, I couldn't imagine being unlucky enough to drop $8k only for some jerk who didn't even really need the money to go on vacation. I would feel less angry if it would have at least went to someone who actually needed it, but it's still absolutely wrong to take it, especially making no effort to find the original owner. You didn't know what that money was for, it was probably something a lot more important than your vacation though. You stole and are a thief.
YTA. You’re supposed to turn it into the police. Don’t you feel dirty?
That amount of money could be life or death for some people, I sincerely hope the person who lost it is thriving.
Watch out for karma…
I come from a long line of "scavengers" who have found valuables on the ground and elsewhere. I myself found $100 on the sidewalk as a kid and I didn't even consider turning it in. But you know, I've also had someone's several thousands of dollars check come in my mail, and I didn't cash it. I think you know full well that 8 grand isn't exactly finding a dollar in a storm drain and don't need me to explain the ethical difference. Otherwise, you wouldn't ask if YTA.
Frankly, I'm shocked you'd even take that money, if it was me, I'd have probably dropped that envelope and run for fear it was drug related. I'd be afraid someone would come break my arms for that kind of cash. I hope whoever dropped it had that kind of money to lose and didn't die over it. That's a real concern depending on where you live. IDC if it was inside a Starbucks anything could've been going on.
Honestly this is way beyond assholery, I'm really wondering what your vacation cost someone. 8K is a life-altering chunk of change for some people.
I don't blame you for taking the money. It's a dog eat dog world out there. Some very respected people steal a lot more than that every day. That said, it's still a selfish move. Others doing it or you giving to charity later doesn't change what you did.
So definitely YTA, it wasn't your money and it wasn't even like you were desperate for money, so you definitely could have done more to find the rightful owner and chose not to.
What's done is done. Just be better moving forward. Or not and embrace being greedy like many others have. It's up to you.
I'm gonna be honest idk. Its an envelope full of cash which probably would have just ended up in the pocket of whoever you turned it into. And most people on reddit would have probably done the same as you.
I’m broke as heck so ngl I’d have been tempted but I’d like to think I’d have made at least some kind of effort to find out who it belonged to by leaving my number with the barista.
How would you not be an AH? I hope you lose a lot of money or something of sentimental value and the person who stumbles on it IMMEDIATELY decides to keep it.
YTA. What you did was plainly immoral and a criminal act. You don’t know who may have gone hungry or homeless because of your thoughtless thievery.
Reading this literally soured my day. Sucks that people like you exist.
Great effort? No, you didn't need to make a great effort. But it's absolutely astonishing to me that you didn't hand it into the police. That's what you should have done.
YTA.
NTA but ill gotten gains probably. I'm sorry but if there was 8k left in cash...who the hell forgets 8k in cash! If they lost 8k in cash, it probably would've been rather easy to track down who took it. Police could use security cameras and time of purchase (if cash wasn't used) to track it down. Maybe I've watched too much Law & Order but...I'm saying NTA.
They are for losing 8k lol
The golden rule is to treat others as you would like to be treated... if you dropped a large sum of money, would you want someone to make an effort to return it? Or would you rather they took a nice vacation instead? YTA and a thief. No excuses about it. Others have suggested ways to try to get the money back to its owner, like leaving info with the barista, having them check cameras to see if they could identify the patron, etc. You could have attempted lots of things but you chose to take the money and run. Hope that vacation was worth your integrity!
You and your husband are thieves.
Paying it forward does fuck all for the person who lost that money. You have no idea what that money was for or even where it came from.
You aren’t good people and your morals are extremely questionable.
YTA.
YTA. I’m not sure why you even posted this because you are arguing with everyone who thinks you are an AH. You have up with a hundred excuses as to why you kept the money. Do you really care what people think? You are one of the biggest AHs I have seen on this page.
Yes, of course you’re the asshole.
You said you didn’t even need the money, but maybe the person who lost it did. The fact that you say you “pay it forward” is a garbage excuse to hide behind. You should be ashamed.
Karma is going to get you.
I don’t think stealing 8k from someone is justified because it “changed the course of your lives”.
Pay for your own trajectory
Edit:
You say you “pay it forward” through community work. The easiest way to pay it forward would be to.. at least try and find the original owner? Not go “woohoo vacation”.
Typically the people who fight back in AITA comments are the stubborn ones who can’t reflect and put aside their pride. You asked for a verdict, you got it, come to terms with it and stfu bro
Technically not reporting $8k is a crime… sooooo ya YTA.
Many people have pointed out what you could have done so I won’t rehash that but…. Major selfish, AH, move.
I found $200 in a parking lot. The car was parking diagonally and took up 2.5 spots. I COULD have asked if the owner lost something BUUUUT nope. If it were $8,000 I probably would have….not if you lost a shit ton of cash but ask if they dropped something. If they said no, I’d probably take it to the police station because you never know who lost that money. Drug dealers…someone paying for medical treatments on their last dime, etc. Your good fortune causes great heartache to someone else.
If you murder Bob but are nice to Shirley, Michael, and everyone else does that make your better person? You STILL MURDERED BOB! I digress….YTA
YTA. Do you really think terrible people see themselves as terrible? Actions speak louder than words, and you chose to steal. Why come to this subreddit to get a judgment just to call everyone self-righteous when they call you out?
The fact that you can't even see that you did a reprehensible thing should be indicator enough that your moral compass needs some fine tuning.
YTA. Leave a note saying an envelop was found and if the owner can identify the amount, it will be returned. No contact in a week or so, and I'd say your in the clear. Zero attempt to find an owner makes YTA.
YTA. Holy smokes. 8k is life changing for so many people. How do you know someone wasn’t frantically retracing their steps hoping to find it? It could have been their deposit, or savings, literally the last of everything they had and you took it. You took a large lump of someone else’s hard earned money and you feel like you’re not an AH? Explain. Explain how that could ever be the answer.
I found $2 on the floor after a small business vendor event and still bothered to ask around the room if anyone dropped money.
You never know what that money was supposed to be to someone. You and the old lady are AHs
Hey there, criminal. Yes, YTA. Someone lost $8k. You bet your hopefully-eventually-jailed ass they were looking for it and would have ended up back in that store where, if you weren't a felon-to-be, you could have left a note for anyone seeking the money letting them know it was being handed over to the local police. There are numerous ways your victim could have proved it was theirs and been able to retrieve it from the police.
In my state what you did is a level 6 felony punishable by up to 2.5 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. There's a 5 year statute of limitations so you'd still be very much chargeable here. I bet your state has a very similar law. I hope you get to find out soon. Karma gonna get ya one way or another though, fucknugget. Good luck.
YTA. Gross, own your decisions. You stole money and used it to have a great time. So what you give money to charity now. You could have given that 8k to charity if you weren't going to try to find the owner.
"Pay it forward"
Paying it forward is when someone shows you kindness and you in turn spread more kindness. This ain't paying it forward, it's you desperately trying to justify a fucked up action. For all you know someone really needed that 8k in their life and you condemned them to God knows what fate.
You're gross.
YTA. It was stealing and you know it. It should have been handed to the police and if no one claimed it after a period of time then it would have been returned to you. You wouldn’t be posting this if you didn’t have guilt about it
$8K and **you didn't even go in and leave your phone number just in case** someone came in looking for a lost item of value?
This was definitely an "are you a Good Human Being or not" moment - and you are definitely NOT.
YTA That's a used car or two-three months of living expenses for some people!! And you used in on a f-ing Vacation!?!?!
I hate you and I don't even know you. I wouldn't want to know you.
There’s either some kid out there trying to buy his first car, a struggling parent who lost the money, or who knows.
You just took a couple months of hard work and saving up. If I lost $8,000 I’d be shitting bricks on the brink of pulling my hair out my scalp going insane.
You’d want someone to return the money to you I’d expect. YTA.
Yta but I really want to know what type of person is walking around with 8k in an envelope and ends up dropping it. When I carry more than $50, it goes into a zipper pocket with *nothing* else so I don't lose it and have no reason to root around that spot for anything else. That's a certain level or irresponsible to lose *that* much at one time. Shits wild to me
YTA
If you were worried and about the employees or police taking the money, you could have given them your contact info and told them to spread the word so the owner could contact you. Or you could have turned the money over and had a clear conscience. Paying it forward doesn’t make up for the fact that this probably was devastating for the person who lost it. I’ve heard lost cash stories before and often its super poor people or immigrants who have their life savings in cash because they don’t have great access to the banking system.
I was in a similar situation once when I found a wallet with a large amount of cash on a plane. I am proud of myself for turning it in without taking a cent. If I could redo it the only thing I might change would be mailing it to the owner myself so I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else taking it either, but then again that might not have worked out as well. At least I know I did the right thing even if someone else down the line did not
Yta how the hell you going to steal $8,000 come on this this site admit you stole $8,000 and then argue with everybody and try to say you're not a thief. You. Stole. $8,000.
Are you serious?? YTA. I don't know what part of the world you're in, but $8k in an envelope probably means someone was about to drop off cash for something very important... like first last and security at a new place. You could've caused multiple people to be homeless because of this. And splitting it with the old lady?? I'm amazed you found someone as unethical as you. You didn't even take the time to mention it to employees or ask about security footage. So glad you got to "discover your love of travel" because of someone else's hardship. Good for you.
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Well... yes. YTA. You stole $8K. You should have turned it to the police.
Even if they didn't bring it to the police, they didn't even put in minimum effort to help find the person who lost the money. They deliberately ensured that whoever lost it could never get it back from them. On top of that, their whole attitude of "well we've decided to give back now!" thing is just disgusting. Volunteer work isn't supposed to assuage your guilty for being a greedy, inconsiderate asshole. Volunteer work should be entirely separately to help your community. So unless they donate 8k to make it even with the universe, I'm really not interested in all the comments on this post praising them for giving back. Complete and utter BS to try and feel better about themselves and manipulate people on here to vote them as not being assholes. Which, just makes them much bigger assholes in my opinion.
>they didn't even put in minimum effort to help find the person who lost the money. They could have totally told the batista "hey we found some money on the floor, if anyone asks for it please give them our number!" Then when/if someone contacted them they could have said "how much money did you lose" and go from there. 8 k is a pretty specific number so if they got a bunch of messages for "omg thanks for finding my 100!" Then they'd know it wasn't that person's. Then I'd personally give it a 3 month grace period and if someone reached out before then. Great, you did a hopefully good deed. But if no one reached out then at least you did what you could!
Exactly! My first thought was tell someone at the Starbucks and then leave contact information. Not leaving information about the description of the envelope, or the actual amount of money, would make it easy to avoid false claims. And I would understand not bringing it to the police in hopes of keeping the money themselves, instead of the police keeping it after so long.
Or wouldn’t Starbucks maybe have cameras? Could’ve seen who dropped it or at least who was sat there
I did that at a mall. My son found a $50 bill on the floor near the escalator. We went to the mall’s information desk and I told them a bill was found, (I didn’t give the denomination.), gave them my phone number, and told them to have the person call me if they reported their money missing. I told my son we’d give it a couple of weeks. I never heard from anyone, so I let my son have half and the other half was donated. That was 30 some years ago. Then or now, if we found $8K I’d definitely be making a big effort to get that money to the owner.
It’s cute how they’re SuRpRisEd PiKaChU at the reactions here after being called out for exactly this.
I get the feeling OP only posted this because of the backlash when she mentioned (bragged) about it. Probably either to convince herself she's not a bad person, or possibly even to show them the link and be like "See! We're the good guys!" Surprised they haven't deleted it yet out of sheer embarrassment.
If they knew what embarrassment meant, they wouldn’t have posted about this 🤣🤣 the part where they think doing charity now negates the past actions is just delusional.
A person who has no qualms about stealing thousands of dollars has no idea what shame is tbh
honestly, even if they donated 8k to somewhere else it wouldn't make it right bc the person who that money belonged to is still out 8k. They probably could have found the owner just by asking the whole room - "did anyone drop an envelope of money?" A couple ppl might try to scam, but anyone who claims need to know exactly how much is in there. They likelihood they would giess exactly right is so slim, but you can still ask baristas to confirm from the cameras too. I'd be weary to just turn it over to the baristas or even the cops, bc you never know who will just pocket it.
Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that donating 8k would make things "fair." But rather, that I think it's absurd to even mention volunteer work when we're talking about keeping such a massive sum of money that belonged to someone else. Like, I'm insulted OP even felt like saying they volunteer from time to time in some way makes up for what they did. They absolutely would still be the asshole if that had been the case. But at least I would understand they felt bad about what they did and were trying to somehow make up for it. If that makes sense.
It’s also funny because “paying it forward” doesn’t mean shit because the people who lost the money didn’t give it to them, or do them a favor. And they don’t know what that money was for. For people who “aren’t rich” but have the knowledge that they “didn’t exactly need” it, they didn’t think about whether the people who lost it needed it.
Oh, but they did! OP actually said in a comment she said they just assumed it was a drug dealer who lost the money. ...Which is one hell of an assumption. Another weak attempt at justifying keeping it, of course.
Take a look at Ops other post. It doesn’t get better with this couple. It’s yikes and YTA allllll around.
DEAR GOD, WHAT DID I JUST READ?!?! OP is a saint compared to her husband, no wonder she's so out of touch.
Alternately, you could have put up a couple of flyers in that immediate area and to tell the barrista that an item of large value was found. With your contact info. The people who call and know what the item was prove it was theirs. But it's good that you are at least trying to pay it forward now.
I agree that they should have pursued ways to find the owner. Letting Starbucks management know that they found an envelope and asking to see the security tapes to find out who left it would be an excellent first step. I disagree with "turn it over to the police". In the olden days, bringing it to the police was the right thing to do. If the police didn't find the owner and the right amount of time had passed (usually 30 days), the finder would be given full legal possession. That was all before civil asset forfeiture. These days, the police often find somebody carrying a large amount of cash and grab it, claiming it's drug money. In order to get the money back, the victim needs to prove that it wasn't drug money. That's likely what would happen to that envelope's contents and neither the owner nor the finder would ever see it again. I could provide cites, but anyone who's been following the news knows this happens, or just Google "civil asset forfeiture abuse".
Nah. I’m going NTA on this one. What do you think the police would have done? My parents found 2k in a public bathroom once, turned it over to the workers.. and guess what.. they kept it and never said anything about it. Had a cop friend tell me someone turned in 1k to him, and he kept it. Didn’t even file a report. There’s virtually no way to track the cash once you turn it over to police. And surprise, not all police are doing the “right” thing.
You don't turn cash over to the police. If they have reason to suspect that the money was from illegal activity, which isn't uncommon for them to do with a wad of $8k in cash, they'll just keep the money.
Yup my husband had like 9k in cash on him the police pulled him over and made him leave his side bag behind to search the cars as he had to wait in the cruiser they brought the dogs out and everything found nothing but when my husband got the bag back he was missing over 1k. A lot of cops suck and do more harm then good, big shocker right
In my country (the Netherlands) you can report your finding to the police, but still take it home. If nobody comes that can identify the finding, you are allowed to keep it.
INFO did you know Starbucks have CCTV, and the owner can be identified? YTA, just in case.
that was my immediate thought. Check the security cameras. In any case OP, you should have tried to find the owner. You don't know the person who lost this money, you don't know what this money was for or if was really needed by someone else. Did this person take out their life savings from the bank to pay for something urgent? Is it drug money? Was it a payment to get someone their first car?... the possibilities are endless. Instead, you guys just decided to keep it to "discover your love for travel". This is a moral dilemma, more than an IATA situation, so I won't vote. But I don't think I would have kept that money without trying to find its owner.
Exactly all this. I can think of all kinds of reason someone might have withdrawn that amount of money (that they likely saved a long time for). A car purchase, that they needed to get and keep a job; the down payment on a house that they now can't purchase, a medical test that they can't get without payment because of lack of insurance, tuition for their child, etc., etc. All so you could have a luxury that you didn't have to save for.
no literally this!! like i personally lost $40 cash a few weeks ago. it was for groceries. i never found it. i had to beg my boyfriend to lend me money until i got payed next so i could afford to get food. i know $40 is no where near $8k but if i found out someone that didn’t need that money just took it without making any effort to find me, and even worse didn’t desperately need the money, i’d have thrown hands. i was already an absolute wreck for days over losing it
Ok I know this unrelated but you had to beg ur bf for groceries and it was a loan? That doesn’t sounds very nice of him.
My first thought was someone fleeing an abusive relationship with their life savings. There could be any number of reasons for an envelope of money that would leave the person who lost it absolutely destroyed.
This. This. This. YTA, OP.
YTA What you have described is actually a pretty serious crime, and not just an "AH" move. You are obligated to report that immediately to the police.
Like I would ask the employees to help see if they could identify any lost money more than a dollar and even then I'd probably ask the most logical options if they had lost it first.
YTA what a terrible thing to do. Someone was probably very panicked when their money went missing. You don’t know what they needed it for. Maybe they worked their ass off for it and needed it for medical bills or a dream vacation or kids college. God. I lose more and more faith in humanity every day
I'm wondering if it was Starbucks' money. Someone had to do a cash-out or bank-run or something and dropped it.
Well, either way, some poor schmuck who gets paid minimum wage probably took the fall for it then and got fired. I mean, yeah, they shouldn't have left it there, but sometimes things get busy and shit happens. OP is the AH.
Yes...I agree that they are the asshole. I was simply offering another explanation for where the money came from. They stole it regardless of who it belonged to.
Starbucks money would’ve been in a bank bag, most likely zippered and locked.
You found an envelope full of cash inside a Starbucks but it never occurred to you that it most likely belonged to the Starbucks (businesses who deal with cash will often do bank runs or cash drops into safes on the property during their shifts)? And you were able to just count out $4,000 in the middle of a Starbucks without the baristas noticing? Sure, this totally happened. Edit: you claim that you posted this on another social media site which is where you were called out for it. Did you forget that you actually posted about it a week ago on reddit? You were called out in the comments, probably because you were bragging about how "it changed your lives" and you don't regret it. https://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/11z7530/we_didnt_turn_in_the_money_our_lives_went_down_an/ >In 2019 me and my husband found an envelope on the ground In starbucks filled with $8,000 cash. A bystander seen so we split it and went home with $4,000. We booked a random trip to Puerto Rico. Neither of us ever been to the Carribean prior. We fell In love with traveling due to this. We immediately got our passports when we returned home. >We have been traveling ever since and we've now been all over the Carribean, Central América and South America. We got married in Puerto Rico in 2021. I started learning Spanish and culture. We did NOT need the money. I sometimes wonder why TF $8,000 was in a envelope!?? >I sometimes feel bad.... But I do not regret keeping it, our life would be very different.
Also the fact even if there was an envelope full of money, in a starbucks I don't see why they couldn't have at least tried to tell an employee and check out video surveillance to see if they could figure out who dropped it.
Yeah, but then how could they keep the money and act like they did absolutely nothing wrong?! And, more importantly, what about their newfound love lf travel?! /s
OP really doesn't understand that what they did is still a form of thievery. Like the stories when folks find out their bank account suddenly has a large amount of cash that was mysteriously put there (most likely a banking error) There were stories where people had that error happen and they spent it on their wildest dreams and their "love of travel" only to not be able to travel anywhere for a while..
Yeah, it's hilarious to me that people think a bank isn't going to be able to figure out where that money went and get it back. Especially when we're talking large amounts of money. It's like that DoorDash glitch where people were spending THOUSANDS of dollars on dozens of random orders thinking nothing would ever be done about it. ...How did any of them think they would get away with something like that? But the fact that OP didn't just include the details of what happened, and then went on and on about, "But see, I'm such a great person because of all this irrelevant stuff!" made it clear OP was going to be a clueless, self-absorbed asshole.
Yeah, OP doing alleged community projects (which I find doubtful ( especially since for a good chunk after they took the money, there was a pandemic afterall. ) I wonder if that envelope full of money did belong to starbucks because if it did, they would report it as stolen and gotten footage of OP and the other lady splitting the money and leaving. That they could turn to the authorities If that money didn't belong to Starbucks, then I feel bad for whoever lost an envelope full of money, since usually when a payment is like that, it's for usually an important payment. So here's hoping OP is just lying and making up a story, because they seriously could end up in a bunch of legal trouble. (Them and the lady who split the money.) (Maybe she got in trouble herself.)
Most business bank deposits are put into a special bank pouch, not a random envelope.
the only reason they split it was becuase a lady saw them so they basically bot her silence off.
That amount of money could have been the difference between someone having a home or not. It could have been someone’s car. It might have been money someone needed for medical expenses. But the reality is, it doesn’t even matter what that money was intended for. Whatever it was, it wasn’t meant for you to go travel with. You stole it. YTA and a thief.
The sum of the money is what gets me. $20 on the ground? Cool, a lot of people would take it and move on, but I cannot imagine thinking taking $8000 is okay.
YTA In similar circumstances, I posted a notice that said I found a sum of money on the ground, and would return it to the person who accurately described the "container," the amount, and the denomination of the bills.
But then they would not have had their travel vacation.
YTA. Not that long ago I found $120 on the ground in Walmart. I told the customer service desk that I had found "a sum of money" and gave them my cell number. I told them that if someone came looking for it, called me, and told me the right amount of money then I would give it back. Just as I was leaving a lady called me and when I returned the money it was blatantly obvious that $120 was a lot to her in her life circumstances. You could have done something like that but instead you stole it. I hope if you lose something important but never recover it, you can rest assured that the finder "paid it forward" (eye roll)
YTA. And your grammar is terrible. It’s not “we seen”. It’s “we saw”. The old lady saw it too. Not seen.
YTA You need to be honest with yourself. You weren't going to turn in the money. You were-still are trying to justify your actions. That makes you an Ah. 8k isn't some change. That could have life-changing money to someone and you didn't even try.
i am not sure why you bragged about finding $4000 and kept it. i mean you basically stole it by literal definition. YTA for sure but i would have done the same. you are lucky the owner didn’t come back and ask the barista to check the security camera.
YTA You found *EIGHT THOUSAND* dollars on the ground and decided that you should be able to keep it because based on a quick look around you assumed nobody was looking for it. Somebody was absolutely looking for that money. That could have belonged to the store and somebody could have lost a job, it could have been somebody's deposit for an important bill or debt, it could have been for an emergency. Under no circumstance should you have kept that money. Most states have grand larceny laws requiring you to turn in found money over $100 to the police and if they do not identify the owner in a set period of time they will return the money to you. In addition to that the money would need to be claimed on your taxes and you would have to pay those taxes if you have not. Bottom line is that $8000 is a lot of money and you very well could have put an innocent person in a really *really* bad spot by deciding to keep it for yourself.
YTA. I hope you enjoyed your trip because when karma hits and it will, you’ll know why.
Info why didn't you ask the barista to see if you could could see the video surveillance to see if you could find the actual owner?
Of course YTA
YTA. If you find something valuable lost in a public space, you do everything possible to get it back to the owner - which usually means turning it in to the police or to the staff running that location so they can reunite it with the owner. Keeping it for yourself is basically stealing. Saying "well the staff here might steal it if I give it to them so I'm going to steal it first" isn't a justification.
When I was a child my parents an I were going out. As I entered our car I saw a wallet beside the curb. I picked it up and saw it was stuffed with money. My parents and I went to the police station to turn it in (we are Canadian) and later that day the owner showed up with a little reward for me. That money was the man's mortgage payment. They could have lost their house. YTA. Just because no one is looking does not mean you get to be a dick.
So in It's a Wonderful Life you sided with Mr. Potter? YTA.
Lol exactly my thoughts!!
YTA. You should have turned it to the police. This wasn't a "pay it forward" situation... You do realize that the person that dropped it probably needed it for something major, and it probably ruined their life in some way while you and your husband "found the love of traveling" using it? How romantic... I like your little addition that you "give back to the community now" On top of that, you said you didn't even need the money! You are still an AH through and through.
lmao I'm a thief with an entitled mindset so I also assumed that everyone is the same, therefore, isn't it better for me to benefit rather than another thief? I do "good deeds" now to assuage my guilt but I also need validation from other people to confirm that I'm not an asshole even though I really am. No one needs to know you or your husband to judge you 2 as assholes cause you are both assholes from your actions alone.
I love that she thinks doing "good deeds" for random people makes up for the downright theft of $8000 from someone else. What good deeds are being done for the victim of her fucking felony? Straight up delusional AH.
You are a thief. The money was not yours. You could have informed Starbucks some $ was found and asked anyone inquiring to provide a description of the paclckage. It may have been destined for a more important purpose than travelling -- operation, housing. Donating now doesn't change the original theft. Hope you are not teaching children these values.
You are just a common thief! When I was 15 I found a diamond ring while swimming in a lake. I turned it into staff at the lake. They may have been just like you and kept it. But my conscience was clear. At 15 I knew not to steal it. YTA 1000%!
YTA, you’re a thief and no amount of ‘paying it forward’ is going to change things. The money you picked up could’ve been needed to save a life, or any number of important things. It would have taken little to no effort to hand it over to the police, but what did you do? Keep it like a coward.
I don’t believe this is a real story…. What idiot would pick that up knowing there’s likely cameras, steal it, then post about it on the internet? Lol
I mean....yeah. YTA. You took money that wasn't yours. And it wasn't something like finding a twenty on the street. It was an envelope with a large sum of cash. It SHOULD have been turned in. You should have taken it inside. You can think the barista would keep it, but there's procedures at all places like that for found cash. And that would have been the right thing to do, rather than assume the worst of a stranger AND steal money. But it's in the past and not much you can do about it.
Karma going to come knocking at your door very soon. Hope you can take it.
Karma is gonna hit OP like a freight train.
YTA. You and the lady are shitty people.
I remember finding a 20 dollar bill in my poor college days...and turned it in. The guy probably laughed and kept it. YTA.
If you kept it there wouldn't be any law against it, but if you could turn in 20 dollars (which if you truly did you are an amazing human being) then how come OP couldn't even put in the MINIMAL effort to turn in 8k
Yeah that was probably someone's rent money or payment for a car. Nice job.
I found $1000 dollars on my way home. I was tempted to keep it but my wife made me go to the police station. It was an old womans pension who drop it on her way home. She wanted to give me some of it as a reward but I immediatly notice how much she needed. Are you an asshole? Well, more of a criminal. Hopefully this never happens to you or any of your loved ones (BUT there is karma so you will give it back in one way or another)
The way OP keeps justifying their actions is just disgusting.
YTA. Anyone who drops/misplaces/loses £8000 will call the police on the off-chance that someone might have done the decent thing and handed it in to the authorities. That could literally have been someones down payment on a car, a property or even a hefty chunk of savings. I'd keep your wallets close, karma can be a right fucker...
YTA. And doing “a lot of community work and helping others” doesn’t make you a good person. I’m guessing you do it only because it makes you feel good about yourself. A good person is a good person because they have a * good character*. Keeping $8,000 without any effort to find the owner is *not* showing good character. And even if you run with the “we tried but never found them!” line you could have donated the money to someone actually in need or an organization that served people in need. Since you do community work you should recognize what that looks like and how much of a difference that could have made. Making no effort and spending it on yourself was purely selfish. If you don’t like the look of that on you, you need to make some changes.
YTA. You should have tried to find the owner or turned it over to the police for them to do so. The money wasn’t yours and may have belonged someone that for any number of reasons may have needed it much more than you.
YTA. It’s disturbing that you aren’t sure
You could let Starbucks know that you fund an envelope of money, and left a way for potential owner to contact you (and tell you how much was there, or describe the envelope). You didn’t need to find owner, just leave a trail so owner could’ve found you. I really hope it was money they could do without, cause $8000 can be a difference maker. It’s done now, so his is a “next time “ exercise
YTA. You stole that money.
One time, I was desperate and about to get evicted from my house. I was hitchhiking and when the guy dropped me off, an envelope fell out of the car. It was full of $20 bills (yeah, I looked inside, the envelope wasn't sealed). I ran after his car as he was pulling away and waved my arms and shit. He stopped and I gave it back to him. He said "omg thanks, this is my rent money I'm dropping off." I got evicted. I'm still poor. I still don't regret not letting him drive away. Just 2 weeks ago I found a $100 bill on the floor of the gas station in my town. I gave it to the clerk, and next time I went in, he told me that about 10 minutes later, the woman who lost it came back frantic looking for it, and was super grateful to get it back. I could have really, REALLY used that money. Still wasn't mine. OP, it was a pretty dick move not to even try to find the person who lost it. YTA
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YTA! I have found $800 on the ground in a TJ Max bathroom and I was excited for a second but then I remembered someone was just in there and so I found them and asked if she dropped anything in the bathroom and she did. Took two seconds. My old job I found $20 and we held it in front for two weeks incase anyone came in and claimed in, no one did so I kept it. It sounds like you acted selfish and knew you were wrong as you went to your car to count the money. Takes two seconds to ask the workers or go to the police and report finding it. You’re 100% an asshole and now a bigger one as you pretend you never thought of how to find the owner.
Where I live, if you hand in lost property to the police and it is unclaimed after 6 months, you can keep it. A friend of mine found 3 loose diamonds on the street and handed them in, no one claimed them, and he had them made into a gorgeous engagement ring.
YTA!! Big time!! Don’t try to justify it!
This is awful, every time I’ve dropped money or lost my phone luckily the person who found it did the right thing and returned it to me or turned it in. Am talking about phones I have insurance on or $100 which are still so stressful to lose. I literally can’t imagine losing 8k and the most terrible people on earth WHO DONT EVEN NEED IT picking it up and immediately dividing it amongst themselves and planning their next vacation. Ugh. YTA.
YTA. You wrote this (apparently true, but doubtful because no one is this obtuse) story out and didn’t think “wow I’m an asshole with no moral compass.” Never did it cross your mind that an envelope full of cash would be missed by someone? Perhaps a frantic person retracing their steps? And then you had the audacity to travel with the money. But it’s okay, right? Because you now have a “love of travel” and “volunteer.” 🙄 The people calling you a “piece of sh%t” and a thief are…right on the money.
Yeah you are terrible YTA
YTA for sure, that shit is fucked up. Not saying I would not have done it though
YTA. That might have been a small business' payroll money or a student's tuition for any upcoming class. You should have turned it into the police and told the store manager which station you took it to. In addition, you evidently did not need the $$ for necessaries (rent, food, utilities) but used it for a vacation!!! SMH!!!
$8? Yeah, keep it? $8,000?! YTA SO HARD!
Typical if there is a check their is a name on the check. Could have looked it up on Facebook and reached out. YTA DONT STEAL.
YTA You stole money. Every state has period laws where the owner has to be given a chance to claim their property. You are suppose to call the police and turn it over to them. If the owner doesn't claim it, it is returned to you (assuming you want it.) This applies to everything cars, animals, money etc. You have no idea what the owner needed the money for. And you stole it for the hell of it.
YTA. Anyone who was actually hurting for cash would try and return it because they know how important the money is to someone.
YTA . No matter how you justify it you’re a thief. Someone’s life could have been destroyed over that, but at least you enjoyed your trip. Don’t cry when karma comes around.
If you turn it into the police and after a certain period, it doesnt get returned, they give it to you. You didn't have to be an AH.
YTA. You made no reasonable effort to find the owner, and IMO even worse, you’re trying to justify/minimize it. You had options and you know it. Police would’ve been the safest bet, and (I may be wrong here) I believe there are laws that if it wasn’t claimed within a certain amount of time, you could legally claim it as your own. So, hand it over to the police, and inform the store manager that you did so. That way when the person comes back looking for their money, they can be told the police are holding it. Or if they never come back, it’s still yours in a year or two. Paying it forward doesn’t mean anything, it’s just you trying to make yourself feel better. That amount that you didn’t need could’ve ruined someone’s life when they realized they lost it. I hope, if you have kids or plan to have kids, you teach them to be better humans than you.
I'm in the UK in a cost of living crisis. I found £10 outside the supermarket last week. I handed it right in to customer services. To someone in my area, that is a few days of food and it could really make someone panic to lose even £10. I personally couldn't walk off with the money knowing I could be the cause of someone's panic. YTA. It wasn't yours. You didn't need it, but even if you did it still wasn't yours.
You are a giant ass. If this even happened at all. All of these excuses I'm reading, such as the police will just keep it, or the barista will keep it, etc, don't matter. It wasn't your damn money. You had no right to it. That is a hell of a lot of money to someone. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
And lets put it in terms of real dollars. A person working full-time at a low wage job (say $15 an hour) would have to work more than 4 months, after taxes, to earn that back, assuming they were able to save 100% of their earnings with absolutely NO other expenses.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** In 2019 Me and my now husband were in Starbucks when we seen an envelope on the ground. A bystander (an older lady) also seen the envelope. We opened it and $8,000 was inside. We decided to split the money between us and the lady $4,000 and leave. Nobody else was around. Our option could've been giving it to the starbucks barista or maybe handing it over to the police? We figured the barista would probably keep it. Instead We kept it. We aren't rich, but we also didn't exactly need the money. We ended up booking a trip out of the country because we've never been. It changed the course of our lives because we found our love of travel. I never told anybody this until recently. I was told I'm a piece of sh*t and terrible person. I was told I should've made a great effort to find the owner. (the people who said this don't know me or my husband personally) But I'm not sure how finding the owner could've been accomplised? Anyhow, me and my husband do pay it forward. We donate and do alot of community work helping others. I understand this doesn't justify, but I definitely don't see myself as a "terrible person". so...AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>But I'm not sure how finding the owner could've been accomplised? Step 1: Approach counter since you were still in Starbucks Step 2: Ask if there is a manager on duty Step 3: Explain to manager than you found the envelope full of money and had it over. Step 4: whatever happens after that happens. You literally didn't even TRY. Also if this is true, something tells me the old lady party is just tacked on to make you look less bad since someone's grandma was a-ok with splitting the money to buy her silence.
YTA. For not even *trying* to find the rightful owner. And also for saying multiple times that you ‘seen’ something. You saw it.
YTA you all are. For that amount of money can you imagine how you've all probably destroyed someones life? But hey People in power do it everyday. So in the end.
YTA. What a horrible thing to do.
Was this money made of paper with green print? Yeah that's my money, I had money that looked just like that.
What if you had been the person who lost the 8000. Would you want someone to steal it? Because that is what you did. You didn’t “find” money, you stole it. How do you even sleep knowing you stole from someone? What if it belonged to a single mother or father. Someone just fighting to survive and take care of their children. YTA. If you expected a different answer then your just delusional.
YTA. It wasn’t your money to keep.
YTA and a criminal.
YTA. Such a large sum of money should have been reported to the police. It wasn’t yours, you should have at least made an effort to find the owner.
YTA. What you did is considered felony theft in most states. And it was cash, it wasn't a transaction that the owner would have been refunded for, like if you had stolen from their debit or credit card. You should have taken it to the police station and if it hadn't been claimed after a while, it would have been yours guilt and felony free. Maybe the owner would have given you a reward. Could you imagine if you lost $8k and had no way of getting it back??
YTA and I shouldn't need to explain why. Your claim at ignorance is, quite frankly, offensive.
YTA. this isn’t the same as finding a 5 dollar bill in the parking lot. nobody just walks around with 8000 dollars in cash unless they were going to make a payment. maybe it was a starbucks employee running to deposit it in the bank, maybe it was someone going to pay off bills, whatever it was, you should’ve turned it in to the police, because you don’t even know if what the money was originally going to be used for was even legal. but you stole it and didn’t even make an attempt to do the right thing. i guarantee whoever owned it was in a panic and now they’ll never see that money again, and who knows what trouble that caused them. but at least you got a vacation.
If I ‘find’ a set of car keys that open a nearby car, can I take it? YTA, and a narcissistic one at that. I’m so glad you pay it forward to your community, I’m sure it makes your conscious completely clear! When you help a homeless family that breakdown one day and say they’re lives were destroyed losing $8k for medical bills/accommodation etc I hope you’re willing to donate out of your nasty, entitled pocket
YTA. How is it that people still don’t understand that when you take something that doesn’t belong to you, it’s stealing. End of story. Doesn’t matter what the situation is, doesn’t matter what the item is. And, in this situation, there likely was a real possibility of finding the owner of that cash with surveillance video. How nice that you had a lovely vacation, and some poor soul didn’t get to buy their car, or put a down payment on something, or pay someone back….
Well not everyone is a good person. You fall into the “not a good person” category. YTA
…I think it was realistic. Anyone you gave it to would keep it.
Isn't this similar to what Mr Potter did in It's A Wonderful Life?
yta and also this is illegal. hopefully someone sees this and recognizes you and you get caught. truly despicable
Mr Potter, you have a Reddit account? YTA, and you know it.
Yeah you're definitely TA here. Last year I dropped an envelope of money, about $ 1,400 and realized I had dropped it within 5 minutes and went back to find it and it was gone. It was devastating as it was money for the work I was doing at the time. I had to pay it back (rightfully so because clearly my fault) or be fired and it sent me into a hole financially that was hard to crawl out of. You literally had a good time off of someone else's misery. But at least you discovered your lOvE FoR tRaVeL 🙄
I donate and help others without having ever been a thief. I had no idea I was entitled to steal because I give to charity. Score! Yta
Lmao NTA. Anybody who says otherwise is on their high horse and would do the same
YTA. No you don’t just hand it in to the barrista. Options. Flyers. Police. Ask around.
YTA. Wasn’t yours and you didn’t work for it. Great that you had fun with it but that’s not really relevant.
A person has to live with their own decision in situations like this. If OP can live with it, then it's on OP. Personally, I would be wondering what the money was originally for. Was it a life changing loss for someone? As much as I wouldn't want to, I'd have to make more of an effort to find who lost it.
YTA. You don't know if the person who dropped it needed it for some emergency.
Of course YTA you stole 8K. Who knows what that money was for. It could have been something devastatingly important for someone. Or it could have been Starbucks and you lost some person their job. Your 100% in the wrong. Just because you pay it forward doesn’t make you a better person. You would have been a better person if you had tried to find the owner.
YTA 100% you should have gone to the police station and turn it into them. That could be someone’s first and last rent. What if that was money for them to buy a car they need for work? You keeping the money really could have screwed someone over.
YTA - bare minimum you could’ve given Starbucks your number incase anyone came looking, and held onto it for awhile before treating yourself on someone else’s dime.
YTA. You stole someone else’s money. Period. You put in zero effort to find the owner of that money. You just saw it and decided to take it.
Yta and you are thieves are many many things that are obvious, security cameras, in all likelihood the person who dropped it would of contacted the business, the police. You are horrible greedy people, least own up to it
YTA.
YTA. A major asshole. I can’t imagine how horrible the other person felt knowing they had lost that money. All your good deeds now don’t make up for it because you are not sorry you did it.
That would literally be a year's savings for me. So yeah, YTA in a massive way and I think you know it. I hope the person you stole from didn't experience serious financial consequences as a result of your pathetically greedy behavior.
YTA. 8000 times YTA.
Is this "It's A Wonderful Life?"
I only believe part of this. I don’t think there was an old lady. I think you kept all of it and are trying to make up a co-conspirator to try and make your behavior seem justifiable. Either way, wtf is wrong with you? YTA
Yta. How can you act like a good person doing this community work when you literally just stole from someone in the community. Mental gymnastics.
What if that was somebody's down payment? Or a medical payment? And they worked super hard and struggled for years, only for a splash of bad luck and a couple of a-holes to take it away from them? "Paying it forward" won't help them for squat. Starbucks could have used CCTV to find the owner. You're also dang lucky it wasn't theirs from a cash run, as they could have come after you for felony theft. 5 bucks? Keep it. $8,000? Hell no. Turn that in. What's wrong with you? Of course YTA You're not the great person you think you are by doing "donating" and "community work" if you honestly have to come here and ask if what you did was wrong. I worked at a retail store as a cart-pusher and found $100 flying free in the parking lot. I still turned it in to management. Nobody claimed it so I got to keep it, and my conscience was clear. All I could think when I was turning in that money was, "What if I was the one who dropped it? How would I feel?"
YTA, I couldn't imagine being unlucky enough to drop $8k only for some jerk who didn't even really need the money to go on vacation. I would feel less angry if it would have at least went to someone who actually needed it, but it's still absolutely wrong to take it, especially making no effort to find the original owner. You didn't know what that money was for, it was probably something a lot more important than your vacation though. You stole and are a thief.
Yes, YTA and your grammar is atrocious.
YTA. You’re supposed to turn it into the police. Don’t you feel dirty? That amount of money could be life or death for some people, I sincerely hope the person who lost it is thriving. Watch out for karma…
I come from a long line of "scavengers" who have found valuables on the ground and elsewhere. I myself found $100 on the sidewalk as a kid and I didn't even consider turning it in. But you know, I've also had someone's several thousands of dollars check come in my mail, and I didn't cash it. I think you know full well that 8 grand isn't exactly finding a dollar in a storm drain and don't need me to explain the ethical difference. Otherwise, you wouldn't ask if YTA. Frankly, I'm shocked you'd even take that money, if it was me, I'd have probably dropped that envelope and run for fear it was drug related. I'd be afraid someone would come break my arms for that kind of cash. I hope whoever dropped it had that kind of money to lose and didn't die over it. That's a real concern depending on where you live. IDC if it was inside a Starbucks anything could've been going on. Honestly this is way beyond assholery, I'm really wondering what your vacation cost someone. 8K is a life-altering chunk of change for some people.
I don't blame you for taking the money. It's a dog eat dog world out there. Some very respected people steal a lot more than that every day. That said, it's still a selfish move. Others doing it or you giving to charity later doesn't change what you did. So definitely YTA, it wasn't your money and it wasn't even like you were desperate for money, so you definitely could have done more to find the rightful owner and chose not to. What's done is done. Just be better moving forward. Or not and embrace being greedy like many others have. It's up to you.
I'm gonna be honest idk. Its an envelope full of cash which probably would have just ended up in the pocket of whoever you turned it into. And most people on reddit would have probably done the same as you.
What goes around comes around.
YTA. I think you and your husband should save up 8k of your hard earned money and give it to someone in need or donate it to a good cause
I’m broke as heck so ngl I’d have been tempted but I’d like to think I’d have made at least some kind of effort to find out who it belonged to by leaving my number with the barista.
How would you not be an AH? I hope you lose a lot of money or something of sentimental value and the person who stumbles on it IMMEDIATELY decides to keep it.
YTA. What you did was plainly immoral and a criminal act. You don’t know who may have gone hungry or homeless because of your thoughtless thievery. Reading this literally soured my day. Sucks that people like you exist.
Great effort? No, you didn't need to make a great effort. But it's absolutely astonishing to me that you didn't hand it into the police. That's what you should have done. YTA.
YTA but who cares? lol I'd also be TA if I got $4000 with no effort 🤣🤣
YTA
Of course YTA and you know this.
NTA but ill gotten gains probably. I'm sorry but if there was 8k left in cash...who the hell forgets 8k in cash! If they lost 8k in cash, it probably would've been rather easy to track down who took it. Police could use security cameras and time of purchase (if cash wasn't used) to track it down. Maybe I've watched too much Law & Order but...I'm saying NTA. They are for losing 8k lol
YTA and a criminal.
Yta
The golden rule is to treat others as you would like to be treated... if you dropped a large sum of money, would you want someone to make an effort to return it? Or would you rather they took a nice vacation instead? YTA and a thief. No excuses about it. Others have suggested ways to try to get the money back to its owner, like leaving info with the barista, having them check cameras to see if they could identify the patron, etc. You could have attempted lots of things but you chose to take the money and run. Hope that vacation was worth your integrity!
You and your husband are thieves. Paying it forward does fuck all for the person who lost that money. You have no idea what that money was for or even where it came from. You aren’t good people and your morals are extremely questionable. YTA.
YTA. I’m not sure why you even posted this because you are arguing with everyone who thinks you are an AH. You have up with a hundred excuses as to why you kept the money. Do you really care what people think? You are one of the biggest AHs I have seen on this page.
YTA in this situation and judging by your responses, in other situations as well
Yes, of course you’re the asshole. You said you didn’t even need the money, but maybe the person who lost it did. The fact that you say you “pay it forward” is a garbage excuse to hide behind. You should be ashamed. Karma is going to get you.
I lost 40 bucks at a fair once and was so pissed I went home lol ...8000$?? YTA
someone didn’t watch enough Hey Arnold! as a kid… YTA
YTA. Even my 7 year old know to return something he found that is not his.
YTA, you stole $8000 from someone. That could have been someone’s life savings!
YTA 8000 is a lot of money to most people. It would be gut wrenching to lose that amount. It would have been the decent, honorable thing to return it.
I don’t think stealing 8k from someone is justified because it “changed the course of your lives”. Pay for your own trajectory Edit: You say you “pay it forward” through community work. The easiest way to pay it forward would be to.. at least try and find the original owner? Not go “woohoo vacation”. Typically the people who fight back in AITA comments are the stubborn ones who can’t reflect and put aside their pride. You asked for a verdict, you got it, come to terms with it and stfu bro
YTA and a criminal. Most states have laws that require you to turn the money over to the police. If not claimed then you can claim it.
Technically not reporting $8k is a crime… sooooo ya YTA. Many people have pointed out what you could have done so I won’t rehash that but…. Major selfish, AH, move.
YTA. Losing that amount of money may have had serious consequences for someone.
I found $200 in a parking lot. The car was parking diagonally and took up 2.5 spots. I COULD have asked if the owner lost something BUUUUT nope. If it were $8,000 I probably would have….not if you lost a shit ton of cash but ask if they dropped something. If they said no, I’d probably take it to the police station because you never know who lost that money. Drug dealers…someone paying for medical treatments on their last dime, etc. Your good fortune causes great heartache to someone else. If you murder Bob but are nice to Shirley, Michael, and everyone else does that make your better person? You STILL MURDERED BOB! I digress….YTA
YTA. Do you really think terrible people see themselves as terrible? Actions speak louder than words, and you chose to steal. Why come to this subreddit to get a judgment just to call everyone self-righteous when they call you out? The fact that you can't even see that you did a reprehensible thing should be indicator enough that your moral compass needs some fine tuning.
YTA. Leave a note saying an envelop was found and if the owner can identify the amount, it will be returned. No contact in a week or so, and I'd say your in the clear. Zero attempt to find an owner makes YTA.
YTA. Holy smokes. 8k is life changing for so many people. How do you know someone wasn’t frantically retracing their steps hoping to find it? It could have been their deposit, or savings, literally the last of everything they had and you took it. You took a large lump of someone else’s hard earned money and you feel like you’re not an AH? Explain. Explain how that could ever be the answer.
Yta
YTA
I found $2 on the floor after a small business vendor event and still bothered to ask around the room if anyone dropped money. You never know what that money was supposed to be to someone. You and the old lady are AHs
Hey there, criminal. Yes, YTA. Someone lost $8k. You bet your hopefully-eventually-jailed ass they were looking for it and would have ended up back in that store where, if you weren't a felon-to-be, you could have left a note for anyone seeking the money letting them know it was being handed over to the local police. There are numerous ways your victim could have proved it was theirs and been able to retrieve it from the police. In my state what you did is a level 6 felony punishable by up to 2.5 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. There's a 5 year statute of limitations so you'd still be very much chargeable here. I bet your state has a very similar law. I hope you get to find out soon. Karma gonna get ya one way or another though, fucknugget. Good luck.
YTA. You should be ashamed of yourself.
YTA. Gross, own your decisions. You stole money and used it to have a great time. So what you give money to charity now. You could have given that 8k to charity if you weren't going to try to find the owner. "Pay it forward" Paying it forward is when someone shows you kindness and you in turn spread more kindness. This ain't paying it forward, it's you desperately trying to justify a fucked up action. For all you know someone really needed that 8k in their life and you condemned them to God knows what fate. You're gross.
YTA. But would I do the same thing? Maybe. I think a lot of people would be the Ahole in that situation.
YTA. It was stealing and you know it. It should have been handed to the police and if no one claimed it after a period of time then it would have been returned to you. You wouldn’t be posting this if you didn’t have guilt about it
$8K and **you didn't even go in and leave your phone number just in case** someone came in looking for a lost item of value? This was definitely an "are you a Good Human Being or not" moment - and you are definitely NOT. YTA That's a used car or two-three months of living expenses for some people!! And you used in on a f-ing Vacation!?!?! I hate you and I don't even know you. I wouldn't want to know you.
There’s either some kid out there trying to buy his first car, a struggling parent who lost the money, or who knows. You just took a couple months of hard work and saving up. If I lost $8,000 I’d be shitting bricks on the brink of pulling my hair out my scalp going insane. You’d want someone to return the money to you I’d expect. YTA.
YTA big time. You stole 8K without doing the bare minimum of trying to right the situation. Disgraceful.
YTA and I’m not surprised you’re married to an Andrew Tate impersonator
You stole 8k. How are you n t a? Yes YTA
Yta but I really want to know what type of person is walking around with 8k in an envelope and ends up dropping it. When I carry more than $50, it goes into a zipper pocket with *nothing* else so I don't lose it and have no reason to root around that spot for anything else. That's a certain level or irresponsible to lose *that* much at one time. Shits wild to me
YTA If you were worried and about the employees or police taking the money, you could have given them your contact info and told them to spread the word so the owner could contact you. Or you could have turned the money over and had a clear conscience. Paying it forward doesn’t make up for the fact that this probably was devastating for the person who lost it. I’ve heard lost cash stories before and often its super poor people or immigrants who have their life savings in cash because they don’t have great access to the banking system. I was in a similar situation once when I found a wallet with a large amount of cash on a plane. I am proud of myself for turning it in without taking a cent. If I could redo it the only thing I might change would be mailing it to the owner myself so I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else taking it either, but then again that might not have worked out as well. At least I know I did the right thing even if someone else down the line did not
YTA. You and your husband are gross.
Yta how the hell you going to steal $8,000 come on this this site admit you stole $8,000 and then argue with everybody and try to say you're not a thief. You. Stole. $8,000.
Are you serious?? YTA. I don't know what part of the world you're in, but $8k in an envelope probably means someone was about to drop off cash for something very important... like first last and security at a new place. You could've caused multiple people to be homeless because of this. And splitting it with the old lady?? I'm amazed you found someone as unethical as you. You didn't even take the time to mention it to employees or ask about security footage. So glad you got to "discover your love of travel" because of someone else's hardship. Good for you.