View Full Version : Hiker finds $1 million in jewels
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/29/PURSE.TMP
It's really nice to read about people doing the right thing. Even I want to thank that guy personally.
What kind of morons carry $1million in jewels around on their persons? Who even needs that much jewelry? ahhh...vanity.
wow, what an awesome kindness and the ability to do the right thing...........right on!
Sunday, I walked out of Walgreens with a small box of Tide that I didn't pay for. I went back in and the guy didn't even thank me for being honest.
Once at Kroger's, I noticed an item was rung up at the wrong price...I did not pay enough. I always look at my slip. When I went back to make amends they about *****...said no one had ever tried to correct an "underpayment."
I think hikers are basically honest...don't you? Like putting money in the envelopes at hostels "on the honor system." Or supporting websites they use, like Whiteblaze. Now, sometimes they put it off and forget, but they usually come around.
What the percentage of support do you guys get here at Whiteblaze?
But a million dollars worth of jewelry...of anything...Damn!...I don't know:-?
Once at Kroger's, I noticed an item was rung up at the wrong price...I did not pay enough. I always look at my slip. When I went back to make amends they about *****...said no one had ever tried to correct an "underpayment."
I tend to do that, too. I've been in retail in the past. I know what it is like when your drawer is short a few bucks at the end of the night. You start to wonder. Sometimes you made the mistake, sometimes the co-worker did. No matter..it is not pleasant.
By being honest, hope to save a clerk some aggravation!
As my great-grandmother said (and grandma and Mom still say) "It's nice to be nice".
Simple..but very true!
Just Jeff
03-29-2006, 13:19
Did you hear about the woman whose daughter stole a candy bar from a grocery store? (I don't remember which store or where.) She took her daughter back in to return it and apologize, and they arrested the mother for shoplifting. Nuts...it was on the news a while back.
I was hoping there was more to the story that wasn't in the report - like maybe she had a history of it and this is the time she got caught or something.
I wonder how the people thanked the guy who returned the jewels.
Alligator
03-29-2006, 14:18
Did you hear about the woman whose daughter stole a candy bar from a grocery store? (I don't remember which store or where.) She took her daughter back in to return it and apologize, and they arrested the mother for shoplifting. Nuts...it was on the news a while back.
I was hoping there was more to the story that wasn't in the report - like maybe she had a history of it and this is the time she got caught or something.
I wonder how the people thanked the guy who returned the jewels.
Returning the family jewels should be well compensated...
Tha Wookie
03-29-2006, 15:49
Actually, for someone in the San Fran area to have 1 mil in her purse is not highly unusual. It was probably rent.
Almost There
03-29-2006, 16:12
Almost took a teaching job in San Fran...and my wife could take a promotion in her company immediately if we would move there...but even with the 20k raise she would receive....you can't afford to live in anything but a van down by the river.
The jewelry in the purse would have allowed me to buy a two bedroom townhome in San Fran!!!
....Once at Kroger's, I noticed an item was rung up at the wrong price...I did not pay enough. I always look at my slip. When I went back to make amends they about *****...said no one had ever tried to correct an "underpayment."....
It's improved lately, but at the supermarlet near me for awhile it was almost impossible to shop without being ripped off. Wrong prices posted on the shelves. Great stacks of non sale items stacked near obscure piles of the correct item. Identical items stacked together. Some with sale prices. Some without. Invalid cost per unit signs. It became a game. Sometimes I would win. Sometimes they would.
I think I'm more honest than most. But I found myself keeping an informal accounting. I rarely found myself significantly far enough ahead to have any good reason to correct rare store mistakes in my favor. I'd just go home and tell my wife, "well, we had a small victory today."
Weary
It's obvious they can afford it, the guy deserves a minimum of 10% as a finders fee.
Exerpts from Weary...
it was almost impossible to shop without being ripped off....It became a game...I rarely found myself significantly far enough ahead to have any good reason to correct rare store mistakes in my favor.
Do you see what you're saying here?
Please don't take this wrong but one can always, and I mean always, rationalize things to their own way of thinking with generalities or even with a few specific examples.
It doesn't matter whether you believe you've been ripped off a hundred times. You don't get a "get out of jail free" card. If you take something without paying for it and you know it, it speaks directly to your honesty.
I'm not saying I never knowingly walked out with something in the bottom of the cart, or misscanned, or whatever that I didn't pay for. Maybe I didn't want to bother to go back and take care of it...but if I knew it, I was wrong.
And by the way, Kroger has a policy that if they overcharge you for something and you catch it...they refund you double the amount (it was double or triple as I recall) It happened to me on a jar of peanuts I bought once where the shelf price wasn't updated. (BTW I have always done all of the grocery shopping for our household...I was obsessed with saving... cutting coupons and watching sales and getting rebates)
Maybe I missread you, but you come across as someone who thinks businesses are all out to "screw you" anyway they can just to make a profit. Perhaps you think food cost too much and its okay to "balance it out'" I don't know.
Having said that, I do not see evidence that the "business world" cares anything about the environment.
On the other hand, many generously support some very good charities, like the new 4-H building on the campus at OSU and ST Judes Childres Hospital.
Maybe I missread you, but you come across as someone who thinks businesses are all out to "screw you" anyway they can just to make a profit.
I see marketing strategies all the time that make it look like a product is cheaper than it is before you bring it up to a register. While they may not being out to "screw you" they're certainly playing mind games.
Almost There
03-29-2006, 23:29
DAMM The Man!!!
Just Jeff
03-30-2006, 00:46
Well, stealing from capitalists isn't really stealing to liberals - it's financial redistribution in favor of the poor. Weary's a modern day Robin Hood! :p
(Just kidding...before someone accuses me of accusing all liberals of stealing, or of being a Robin Hood hater, or of being a stinking capitalist pig, or...)
....I'm not saying I never knowingly walked out with something in the bottom of the cart, or misscanned, or whatever that I didn't pay for. Maybe I didn't want to bother to go back and take care of it...but if I knew it, I was wrong.
Well, I never was that blatant a thief.
And by the way, Kroger has a policy that if they overcharge you for something and you catch it...they refund you double the amount (it was double or triple as I recall) It happened to me on a jar of peanuts I bought once where the shelf price wasn't updated. (BTW I have always done all of the grocery shopping for our household...I was obsessed with saving... cutting coupons and watching sales and getting rebates).....
So did my supermarket at one time. That policy represented 90 percent of my rare victories. They "quietly" dropped the policy, though when I asked they assured me that I must have missed the advertisement to that effect. One of the store's many lies.
I know all about "normal" trade practices. These are different from the deliberate rip offs I observed -- and incidentally complained about numerous times to the company headquarters.
The question that remains in my mind is whether my complaints got that store manager fired -- or promoted. I don't see him around any more and the worst of the practices have ended.
Weary
Interesting how you can fit a million bucks worth of stuff in a little purse. Talk about light-weight...