Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

"Our son really loves your camera"

  • 19-02-2006 6:40pm
    #1
    Mr.Nice Guy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 45,640 ✭✭✭✭


    There was a thread on After Hours recently about strangers returning items they have found. Sadly the following story is the exact opposite. Taken from here:
    I hadn't posted here in a while, because just after the last post, I got a call from an excited park ranger in Hawaii that "a nice Canadian couple reported that they found your camera!" She gave me their name and number, and I eagerly called to reclaim my camera.

    "Hello," I said, when I reached the woman who had reported the camera found, "I got your number from the park ranger, it seems you have my camera?"

    We discussed the specifics of the camera, the brown pouch it was in, the spare battery and memory card, the yellow rubberband around the camera. It was clear it was my camera, and I was thrilled.

    "Well," she said, "we have a bit of a situation. You see, my nine year old son found your camera, and we wanted to show him to do the right thing, so we called, but now he's been using it for a week and he really loves it and we can't bear to take it from him."

    I listened, not sure where she was going with this.

    "And he was recently diagnosed with diabetes, and he's now convinced he has bad luck, and finding the camera was good luck, and so we can't tell him that he has to give it up. Also we had to spend a lot of money to get a charger and a memory card."

    It started to dawn on me that she had no intention of returning the camera.

    "We'd be happy to return your photographs..."

    I was incredulous. "This is an expensive camera, you know."

    "Oh, we know, we looked it up."

    "I was hoping to offer a reward for it, but I was also hoping to get my camera back."

    Silence. It is now clear I will never see the camera again. I'm shocked at what seems like an utter moral failure on her part, despite her claim to want to "do the right thing."

    "Ok," I say. "Why don't you send me my memory cards, and, say, $50 and we'll call it even."

    I give her my address.

    I don't hear from her for nearly two weeks. Friends suggest filing a police report.

    Finally, I get a package in the mail.

    "Enclosed are some CDs with your images on them. We need the memory cards to operate the camera properly."

    I call, furious. "I was shocked to get your package today. Our agreement was that you were to send me my memory cards, not that you would keep an additional $120 worth of my property on top of the valuable camera you already chose not to return."

    "You're lucky we sent you anything at all. Most people wouldn't do that." We go back and forth a bit more. She eventually hangs up on me. I call the police department in her town (in Canada) but they tell me that it's a U.S. issue, since that's where the property was lost.

    I am out $500 and some measure of faith in humanity.

    I do, however, have the photos. Thanks again to the Flickr community for loaning me yours in the interim.

    Some people, eh?


Comments

Advertisement