To think my friend shouldn't have taken this money?

[Gracelet]

She was at a National Trust type place which had a second hand book section. As she was browsing she found £165 hidden in one of the books. Rather than hand it in she just kept it and looked rather shocked when I said it was theft.

My perspective - the book belonged to the shop and therefore so does the money.

Her perspective - just luck she came across it so decided to keep it/the shop should have checked the books.

Just for extra info, she doesn't struggle with money but does live payday to payday.

I would've kept it, but I wouldn't have told OP 😂

OP, what does she plan to spend the £165 on?

I'm sure she was absolutely correct. What do people think happens to money and other small valuables that are handed in to police stations after they haven't been collected for three months or whatever the time limit is?

WTF, ‘it’s not like she stole from a person’!

Are you a habitual shoplifter?

Going against the grain but I would have kept it 🤷🏼‍♀️

the police dont deal with lost property anymore
where is a police station anyway?

How would your friend react if you found £165 pounds in her house ? Laugh and say it's not theft as you walk off with it ?

A bit different isn't it? Walking out with money from a friend's house v someone who has carelessly thrown out a significant sum of money

I thought it was in a shop though ? a shop has to own books to be able to sell them or were they just display ?

Absolutely no way they wound find out who donated the book and if you handed it in the cashier or shift manager would probably have just kept it wouldn’t just go into the national trusts coffers so may as well keep it , no one lost out as it was lost to person who accidentally donated the book already .of it was charity chop I’d maybe say hand it in .

It’s not a matter of “perspective” it’s a matter of settled case law. There are reams of cases on this and I had to spend a year studying “finders” cases at law school. The money belonged to the second hand book shop and she stole it. If she had bought the book that might have been a different matter.

so she’s legally in the wrong (and morally too in my opinion, made worse as it was presumably some kind of charity she stole from).

I probably would of handed it in cos I’d feel guilty but it’s very unlikely that they’d track down the owner of the donated book so the money would probably just go as a donation to the trust…. So why would it be ok for them to keep it but not your friend? The book got donated to them but obviously the money wasn’t intended for them

@willowthecat yeah but the money was inside the book? Which has been donated therefore the money had been discarded

But if it's now in a shop, the shop own the book and its contents - it's a bit odd to think you can take money from a shop

Id have bought the book hoped it did not slip out at the till, and kept it!

That's awful. I'd have donated it to national trust even if I was on the bones of my ass

@willowthecat money discarded in a book is different to that in the till? I understand if it was a little business but the NT are huge, OP has said her friend struggles. It's understandable even if it's not right

It might be from one of these people who does random acts of kindness. That said if she didn't buy the book she stole the money as the book and it's contents belong to the shop.

I'm not a NT fan but legally they do own the book and its contents but opinions could differ on the moral question

It is theft. Theft by finding, which is a thing legally. It’s not some sort of moral grey area, it’s theft.

Our kids were performing at a local church fayre, nearly everyone there except parents are pensioners.
I bought a Bill Bryson book for 20p, sat in the pew and was flicking through and found £40.
My immediate thought was some one has donated the book who could possibly really need £40. Took it to the organiser and they found out it belonged to the vicar's husband.

Have to admit that wrankled a bit, because he's a good earner, but still was the right thing to do.

Unscrupulous dealers used to buy bookcases full of books because so many people uses to do this!

Finders keepers

That's scummy as fuck. I'd have a very, very dim view of any friend I have doing that.

I'm not sure I could class it as theft personally, it's not a product that NT had bought in, the books were donated to them for free to make money from the sale, the onus is on the shop to make sure they were fit for sale and had no hidden contents but they didn't bother.

And I think I can say with pretty much certainty that whichever staff member had found the money in those books or whoever the money was handed it to the proceeds would NOT end up in a national trust bank account.

I would see it that the universe wanted me to have it, I would have bought the book though, and probably some other stuff while I was there.

I would take it without a second thought