Would you return a winning lotto ticket?Prev TopicNext Topic

• RJOh

  

  100

  mid-Ohio
  United States
  Member #9
  March 24, 2001
  20,272 Posts
  Offline
  May 31, 2006, 7:53 pm

  ▲▼

  If it's a winning ticket that signed then it's a no brainer, return it to the person that signed it.  If it isn't signed, I would wait to hear if any person was prepared to prove they lost it and depending on the proof and its value, I would return it or negotiate its return.  Failing to find the real owner I would just consider myself the new lucky owner, cash it and move on with my life.

   * you don't need to buy every combination, just the winning ones * 

         
  
• ryanm

  

  Morrison, IL
  United States
  Member #4,657
  May 13, 2004
  1,885 Posts
  Offline
  Jun 2, 2006, 12:05 pm

  ▲▼

  I would return the ticket if it was signed or if I saw it fall out of someone's pocket. However, if I found the ticket just lying around and it was not signed, I would cash it in for myself. If the purchaser of the ticket did not sign the back of the ticket, it is his or her own fault if he or she loses the ticket and it becomes a winner.
• chasingadream

  

  United States
  Member #38,686
  May 3, 2006
  315 Posts
  Offline
  Jun 2, 2006, 12:24 pm

  ▲▼
  Quote: Originally posted by bellyache on May 30, 2006

  I think it would be a different situation if you found an unsigned ticket and you couldn't track the person down.

  in this instance I wouldn't really try to hard to find the owner...but when I have to go claim the money I would mos def let the commission know that I found the ticket......wouldn't want another incident like the guy who thought he found a winning 2nd tier ticket and it turned out to be a fake ticket placed by buddy as a practical joke.  He didn't tell the commission that he found it, he told them he purchased it....huge mistake

    waiting patiently for my jackpot
• Fibonacci

  

  New York, NY
  United States
  Member #39,470
  May 16, 2006
  2,820 Posts
  Offline
  Jun 2, 2006, 12:29 pm

  ▲▼

  I would because it is the right thing to do. But also I think the owner would be only too grateful and offer a reward. Whatever the aomolunt of the reward I would sleep better spending it than the full amount that I knew was not really mine....

  Having said this if I found a winning ticket with no markings, no indication that someone tried to put an identifying mark on it...I would not go looking to make someone else think they lost a ticket! 

  $$$
  
• Rip Snorter

  

  New Mexico
  United States
  Member #12,305
  March 10, 2005
  2,984 Posts
  Offline
  Jun 7, 2006, 11:06 pm

  ▲▼

  I mostly agree with Four4me. 

  I've returned a good many expensive things I've found (I've been bad about finding things for some reason).  However, on a number of occasions I've found things that could not possibly be identified with an owner.  Those I made no attempts to return.

  I've never regretted not trying harder to return those items where no owner was likely to be found.

  But I'll confess, a number of things I did return, for one reason or another I've sometimes given myself a mental kick in the backside.

  The line between stealing a ticket and finding a ticket is fairly well lit.  If it's signed, and if it is valuable, I'd make some effort to locate the owner.  If it's unsigned, I probably wouldn't.

  I don't care how it fits into some abstract definition of honesty.  I mostly just know myself and try to keep in mind I've got to live with me.

  Jack

   

   

   

  Absorb the good, ignore the bad, weigh the ugly.

  It's about number behavior.

  Egos don't count.

   

  Dedicated to the memory of Big Loooser

   
• Rip Snorter

  

  New Mexico
  United States
  Member #12,305
  March 10, 2005
  2,984 Posts
  Offline
  Jun 8, 2006, 11:50 am

  ▲▼

  Ethical issues get fairly foggy in lost and found matters.

  During the late '70s an acquaintance of mine named Mike, who was teaching school up in the Panhandle was sitting on his porch one summer evening when a kid he knew of 10 or 11 years old walked by carrying three bricks (pounds) of a green, illegal substance.

  "Look what I found!"

  "Hmmm.  How much will you take for them?"

  "A quarter."

  Mike forked over his quarter, figuring the kid needed to be relieved of the stuff as quietly and easily as could be without a lot of hoopla.  He had visions of someone wanting to get the stuff back fairly badly.

  So, once it was secured on his kitchen table he asked himself, "What now?"

  After some consideration Mike donned a pair of rubber gloves, wrapped one brick in brown paper, addressed it to a late-lady friend who'd done him badly wrong, broken his heart, and moved off to New Orleans. Those were the early days and they were just getting sniffer dogs in the larger post offices.

  Mike put a false return address on the package and drove over to a nearby berg to mail it.

  The other two bricks, he turned over to a policeman acquaintance, who came back a few days later and presented him with a $100 bill.

  So far as I know he never made any effort to find the original owner of this property, but he figured justice was done, anyway.

  Lost and found issues and ethics can travel off in a lot of different directions.

  Jack

   

   

   

  Absorb the good, ignore the bad, weigh the ugly.

  It's about number behavior.

  Egos don't count.

   

  Dedicated to the memory of Big Loooser