Finders keepers?

[AldiBag4Life]

My DD18 told me last week she found an item of jewellery in a grass verge randomly one day when she was out walking to work - 6 months ago.

I recently complemented her wearing it and asked about it - she told me she found it and said she assumed it was just junk jewellery, but it turns out from my research when I looked at it the markings, it’s worth quite a lot of money.

It has no personal inscription on it (its not a ring) and I haven’t seen a post on our local group from anyone who has lost anything although I did tell her she could put a post up and if anyone described it then she should give it back.

She hasn’t put a post up and she is planning on keeping it, not cos it’s worth money she just likes it, she isn’t selling it.

I’m kind of feeling weird about it because it might be sentimental to someone. WWYD?

I thought you said it was glass? A notice on social media if there's one for the area, maybe a sign on a tree - use a temp email address.

is it even real gold? It's quite a leap to go from gold markings to thinking it's £500 worth of gold markings.

Don't worry re the comments, honestly, I think some users have been hacked.

She never said it was glass.

No, I just read it again

apologies OP

MNetters are obsessed with contacting the police. Anyone who thinks Police forces have the resources to deal with minor incidents and lost watches and rings are seriously disillusioned. In many cases, even outright theft and burglary are not actively investigated as they are stretched so thin.

The amount of posters saying go to the police when the police don't even deal with lost property.

I do think it’s gold I looked up the markings, yes. But the style of it I understand why DD thought it might have been junk, you can buy this sort of style in like, Next. it wasn’t till I held it that I thought it was more expensive, also I have touched more gold than her in my life she wouldn’t have known

I don’t think it’s helped with maturity, she hasn’t had a lot of those experiences that teenagers need to have in order to learn and mature. She has been in school all her life and not really experienced ‘real life’ yet and being trapped in our house for pretty much 2 years doing nothing, or A Levels via Teams wasn’t a particularly fulfilling experience, she got really depressed. When she did go back to school grounds all the new freedom she was expecting as a 6th former completely vanished as they were trying to get them through exams so they were actually treated like year 7’s all over again. A lot of the friendships collapsed as we don’t live very near school and she couldn’t find a driving instructor for a long time so in terms of comparison of my life experience to hers, she’s kind of delayed and has some catching up to do. I had a car, full time job etc at 18, holidays, put having fun she’s still figuring life out after what she found to be a depressing, sad couple of years in the time that's meant to be the best bit.

She’s a nice kid, thoughtless in this situation, Im here to help her learn

As mentioned many times it is against the law if you do not make reasonable (and that does not mean hiring a private detective) efforts to find the owner.

No one is getting at the daughter, simply explaining her responsibilities

My local police force say two relevant things, that - at least for them - £500 is the threshold for 'valuable', and at that threshold and above you should contact them for advice.

They also recommend using one of the online databases, like the secure asset register. They tell people to go to this also to see if something they have lost is registered. Using Facebook/WhatsApp/Instagram can be helpful but bear in mind that many people do not use them.

I can almost guarantee that your local police force will have information online about this.

And for all the people, presumably older that the finder, saying 'keep it': is that what you want if you lose something valuable, and potentially of even irreplaceable sentimental value?

Empathy? Did she snatch it off the person and leave them for dead? Get a bloody grip.

You do realise that it's perfectly possible, and quite normal, to just leave something that doesn't belong to you? Some people on here are making out that your choices are either to make no/a very half-hearted effort to find the owner or nab it.

If it's not possible/convenient/feasible to take it to the police station, just do what you do with everything else in life that you see that isn't yours and leave it.

As people have said, sadly, the police often don't have the resources to deal with low-value lost items; but they also frequently don't come out or do anything more than issue a crime number following a burglary, where the thief has already left. Does that mean that burglary isn't really bad?

The value is a red herring anyway, as you have no way of knowing how well-off the owner is and how much sentimental value it has. If you found a grubby teddy bear in the park, most people would know that it means a lot to somebody and would either put it somewhere easy to spot or try hard to track down the owner's parent. You can't arbitrarily change the moral rectitude, just because it happens to be something that you would quite like to have yourself.

It's interesting how, otoh, something is "just a piece of old rubbish/junk" that nobody could possibly want (even though they were obviously wearing/carrying it with them; it's not an empty crisp packet), but otoh, somebody finding it is nevertheless very keen to keep it. Make up your mind: it can't be both.

It comes to something when people saying "It isn't hers, OP, she's wrong to just keep it as that is theft" are called nasty!

I don’t think it’s helped with maturity, she hasn’t had a lot of those experiences that teenagers need to have in order to learn and mature. She has been in school all her life and not really experienced ‘real life’ yet

Kindly, though, most young adults (barring very severe learning difficulties) know full well that you don't just take something that doesn't belong to you. It's a basic life lesson to learn when young, along with cleaning your teeth and turning off the light when you leave a room.

There was a thread a while back - someone found a considerable amount of cash - inn the low five figures - sewn into a blanket they’d bought in a charity shop. The amount of people saying just keep it was staggering.

No big deal. She thought it was crap jewellery that no one would care about. Now she knows better, she can put something on SM. End of. So much drama about nothing.

That’s an interesting one. I’d go back to the charity shop and tell them about it (not the cash amount) but I’d keep the blanket/cash at my house for safekeeping.

No! Me too.

Honestly some of these responses are ridiculous! You’d think she’d robbed someone at gunpoint. Jeez. Take a chill pill.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

i don’t understand your comment - did you want to ‘kindly’ imply the daughter is a lost cause and can’t redeem herself by doing the right thing now? And that the OP really needs to see her in a bad light? It’s not good enough/it’s too late to try to teach her? What do you think should happen?

the idea that sometimes doing the wrong thing is only forgivable if someone has ‘severe learning disabilities’ - huh?

Sorry, I don’t mean to sound hectoring to you personally at all. Just found this thread really odd and it’s looking like no matter what the OP says or does she’s a bad mother with an immoral daughter.

She picked up what she thought was junk jewellery from a grass verge, she hasn’t gone into Tiffany’s to steal.

There was a thread a while back - someone found a considerable amount of cash - inn the low five figures - sewn into a blanket they’d bought in a charity shop. The amount of people saying just keep it was staggering.

I can only think that a lot of people lack the basic ability to put themselves in that position and think about how they would feel if somebody found their possession and just decided to keep it.

Then again, a family member did some community service in a charity shop (as part of a college-wide scheme; not ordered by a judge!) many years ago, and she found £70 in a side pocket of a handbag when sorting through some donated goods. She told the manager and his instant response was that "they obviously intended to donate it to the charity" and he took it. Whether it did actually make it to the charity coffers is far from certain; but some people's morals really are like playdough.

Thank you for posting this.

My local police station (town of more than 50,000 people) was closed in 2016 as 'buildings don't solve crimes'. In the past two or three years, we've had three murders.

I recognise that the National Police Chiefs Council has unilaterally decided that the Fraud Act and the Theft Act no longer apply, that cannabis use in public is entirely acceptable and now that lost and found property are not their problem.

Presumably, my Council Tax is just paying the pensions of long-retired 'real' police officers who actually did something for their wages.

i don’t understand your comment - did you want to ‘kindly’ imply the daughter is a lost cause and can’t redeem herself by doing the right thing now? And that the OP really needs to see her in a bad light? It’s not good enough/it’s too late to try to teach her? What do you think should happen?

the idea that sometimes doing the wrong thing is only forgivable if someone has ‘severe learning disabilities’ - huh?

Not at all - I was purely focusing on this one situation and in no way making any kind of assessment on the DD's character otherwise. I was responding to OP apparently trying to find excuses as to why an adult might never have learned right and wrong, or choose to ignore it, by somehow linking it to lockdown.

I obviously don't know her, but I'm sure she's basically a decent person; but she made a very bad call on this one - as can any of us (and we would also be wrong if we did). She's made it much harder to maybe find the rightful owner, now she's kept it for 6 months, but it's not too late to at least try to do the right thing even now.

She picked up what she thought was junk jewellery from a grass verge, she hasn’t gone into Tiffany’s to steal.

She helped herself to something that had clearly been lost by its owner, regardless of its value. It was obviously worth something, otherwise she wouldn't have wanted to take it; if it had been a discarded empty Coke can, she wouldn't have popped it in her bag to keep. Would it be OK if she'd gone into Ratner's or H Samuel to take something with a relatively low value?

It was obviously worth something, otherwise she wouldn't have wanted to take it

By which I mean it was a wanted, desirable item - even if it had been worth very little in terms of market value; although it's quite 'convenient' that, now she does know it's worth some cash, she still hasn't changed her perspective on it.

Yeah I mean I am not sure how people have reached this conclusion from me explaining that a young person may have something to learn about life. You do not wake up one day knowing everything. Sometimes you make mistakes. She’s not thrown it away or sold it so it still has a chance to be reunited with its owner. I’m quite sure she would be upset about losing something, and she understands this now I just don’t think she had joined the dots up. She didn’t really think about it in that way when she found it.

That link to the WYP says they don’t even accept jewellery and they encourage the finder to keep hold of it and ask around.

OP’s DD found what she thought was cheap tat on a grass verge. My daughter found a hair scrunchie when tidying up after an event. Similar presumed value. She wore it. I am not branding her a thief

OP’s DD now knows, because OP looked at the hallmarks and presumably weighed it to get a rough idea of the value, that it’s a significant item and not a necklace from Claire’s.

She can now take steps to reunite it with the owner through Facebook groups or otherwise.

Some posters are assassinating the character of a 6th former, ffs.

Those saying the police won’t be interested - if they have already had a report of it being lost, they won’t have thrown that report away because it’s been 6 months, they will reunite it with its owner.

given it’s worth around £500, then it’s more likely someone will have reported it.