moral dilemma

[maevele]

so, if you open a piece of mail, thinking it's yours since it came to your house, to find it's someone else's birthday card, with money. you've now committed a felony, and it's too late to write 'no such person' on it, so what do you do?

Comments

[seaya.livejournal.com]

If it had your address on it, you didn't commit a felony.

I would tape it up and then put return to sender on it and shove it in a post office box.

Leah

[phreakelove.livejournal.com]

If it's cash, spend it!!!

[lady-alyria.livejournal.com]

if it had someone else's address on it and the mail man stuck it in my box by mistake I would just tape it closed and stick it back in the mailbox. Since the stamp has already been used they'd probably send it back to the sender though.

[shemale.livejournal.com]

a) be a dick and keep the money
or
b) tape it up and write "return to sender" on it

this depends on how strapped for cash i'm feeling at the moment

[shemale.livejournal.com]

also on whether or not i know the person who the card was addressed to

What they said about return to sender, also

[unwoman.livejournal.com]

I would include a little note in the letter apologizing for having opened it by mistake, but look see the cash is still there so it's OK!

[chris462.livejournal.com]

Who sends cash in the mail?

Seriously.

[maevele.livejournal.com]

I know dude! and it's a 20, not like 2 bucks.

[maevele.livejournal.com]

it had my address, someone else's name. So it's never going to make it to the recipient, so best I can hope is back to sender.

[azzy23.livejournal.com]

You have no idea who this person is? If you can email me the info, I'd be happy to try and find them for real for you. As far as committing a felony, I don't think it's that big of a deal if you give them the card and money. Otherwise, I dunno. *shrug*

I've done the exact same thing once before, by the way, and the money was a check, and the check had the sender's phone number on it, so I called them and explained the situation, and they'd just reversed 2 numbers of the apt number. I went to the person's apartment and gave it to them, and asked them to call their Grandmother and tell her I did indeed give it to them. She sent me a thank you card!

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Me. All the time. It's way less annoying than standing in line at the fucking post office. It's much less fiddly for the receiver than personal checks. (I have so many uncashed personal checks. Sending me a check is like sending me an IOU.) And I've never had any stolen. At this point, if I did, I would still come out ahead over aggravation waiting in line and money order fees.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

I would tape it up, write "opened by mistake" on the back and "return to sender" "no such person" on the front.