I remember that I found a laptop bag as an undergraduate student, some 15 years ago. The laptop was gone but there were some documents and a business card in it. When the owner came to collect his bag, he insisted on giving money as a thank-you. I gave my banking account and he transferred €200, a huge amount for a poor undergraduate. Still wonder what those documents were all about...!

Years ago, My father left his wallet on the car roof with all of his wages in it (I think around £150) He drove off and obviously it went flying off his roof, some notes came out of it. When he arrived home, a guy pulled in behind him. He gave him the wallet and told him that he saw it fly off the roof and he stopped to pick up the notes but he thinks it is all there. He was trying to get his attention but my father hadn't seen him. Over 30 years later and I still remember this. What an awesome dude!

Something that must be taken into perspective is that if the citizens of a country consider the Police corrupted, they won't return the wallet. If there is ID inside they will try to contact the owner directly (assuming they can read the card AND/OR have an Internet connection). That may explain the low scores of some countries.

Okay, I'm one of the dummies who doesn't understand the graph. The way I see it Mexico is the only country to return cashless wallets. What am I missing? I'm kinda used to being humiliated so have at it.

I'm grateful to everyone on this thread who have made efforts to return things. I worked in a bar and about six months into my job, a new manager asked for my help in straightening up the office, which was left a nest by the previous disorganized manager. We found two things: a bundle of lost IDs -- about 60-70 in a rubber band -- and a "lost and found" box filled with wallets and purses. I asked if I could send out my business card to let people know we had their item and to claim them at the bar. People were incredibly grateful, I explained their item was unearthed when we got a new manager. One woman said the pictures of her children were all she had left because a house fire destroyed the rest. Another woman said she had been trying to function without her driver's license, because her parents are both immigrants and to get another she needed to get a copy of her Social Security card and couldn't without her ID. It was a vicious cycle trying to obtain her identity items.d

Could it be that the worst scoring countries are poverty strikken? Where a little bit of money could make the difference in feeding your children? Honestly, I think it's appalling that you would devise a test like this.

Me and my dad found a wallet once. It had all kinds of documents in it and some money. The girl lived a few hours away, so we tried to find her number through the internet, however found two people with the same surname that lived in her city. So we called them, one was related to her and they gave us her number. We texted her and she came by and picked up her wallet. It was unnecessarily complicated but 10/10 would do it again.

If I ever find a wallet or purse, I try to see if I can locate the owner myself..(see if there is an ID in the purse and have the person paged at the place I found it.) If no owner is found, I turn it into the police department so they can locate the owner. I've left my purse behind on several occasions. I know the panic of thinking you will lose everything in it. I would never wish that on anyone else.

When I was 15, I found a wallet in nyc. Called the owner and returned it to her with all the stuff in it. She was an artist and mailed me a pretty original etching later.

Found a wallet at a car race once, at the bottom of the back side of a huge set of bleachers.Within a few seconds, guy at the top of the bleachers realized he’d lost it, looked down, & saw me w/ it. He asked me to throw it up to him. I was 8 or 9 at the time, & the height & angle made it really hard to do. I tossed it up, it didn’t make it, & I yelled up I couldn’t do it, come down & get it. He was likely afraid that if he went down the bleachers he’d lose sight of me & my friend & we’d take off, although we could have taken off at any time had we wanted. He said throw it again & I did, this time it hit the back of the bleachers on the way up, and about every support bar on the way down. The contents went everywhere, credit cards, money, fluttering down under the bleachers. Then he started swearing at us for not being able to make an impossible throw neither of us could make at that age. F him, we just left the wallet & the contents on the ground & walked away. Ungrateful prick.

My BF and I found a ladie's purse in an empty lot, 4 doors down. No money, but wallet with ID. I found her phone number, called, set up meeting at a local church as a place to meet her. Her purse had just been stolen about an hour before, out of her car, they busted her window, Took her money, dumped the purse. We were offered no reward, no thanks, for returning what we found. She acted like she thought WE did it because the purse had been found so quickly.

I found a wallet full of cash. Did think about keeping it, but the guilt was overwhelming. Returned it to its owner. Felt better.

someone found my phone once in a cab - i brought them chocolates when i went to pick it up and gave them a huge hug. Still appreciate the nice lady who saved my day!

I found a wallet on the sidewalk on Christmas day, loaded with cash and credit cards. Luckily there was also contact info. The guy was so very happy when I called him, and so was I. Guess we kinda made each other's Christmas even better. He insisted on giving me 200 dkr (~30$), even if I didn't want it. Oh, we're in Denmark btw..

Proud to be Danish right now

Where is Japan on this list? Oh, I know. They had 100% 100%. In my experience, the Japanese are the nicest people in the world when it comes to losing things. If you lose something on the subway there is a really high chance you can get it back. Even something simple as an umbrella.

I once found $400 cash on the floor of my local laundromat. Picked it up and continued to do my laundry. Lady starts freaking out about losing her rent money. I returned it no problem, no reward but I didn't really care about that. I certainly wasn't going to call out asking if anyone lost some cash lol.

In Denmark, if there's no contact info in the wallet, you can always drop it in a public mailbox. The post office will turn it over to the police. Source: was a postal worker in Denmark. We had a special box for turned in wallets, phones, credit cards etc. as it was a regular occurrence.

Proud to be Dutch for once.

So they recorded what was returned to the owner. How about if people took it to the nearest police station?

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Never ever I would steal the money - it is anothers money. In Germany it has been unimaginable to keep a wallet - nowadays with many foreign people coming to Germany the moral is going down and down. As a boy I wondered how people can be so very superficial to lie and cheat and it was striking that in other countries moral is so very unimportant. Nowadays I am more used to it - it took me a long time to accept that the world is full of lies. I also wondered why my nation is seen as dark while I saw that compassion and honesty were so much better in my country - the world is somewhat upside down

I found an elderly woman's wallet once with about $350 in it. There was no phone number, but the address was listed as the apartment building down the road. When I buzzed, I asked for her by the name in the wallet, but she wouldn't let me even get half a sentence out - she thought I was a sales person! I wound up waiting about a half hour, buzzed one more time and just yelled, "I found your wallet!" as soon as I heard the "click" of the intercom. She let me in that time. She hadn't noticed it missing yet, but it turned out to be all her Christmas money. She tried to give me a reward but I wouldn't take it.

In Portugal most people give these lost wallets to police officers or leave them in a post office mailbox, assuming you have real documents inside the wallet, police officers will contact you, and the wallet will be returned, if not, you have to go to the police station yourself. This wallet didn't have a single real document inside, there's not even a phone contact, how are you supposed to return this, send an email? XD This is just plain stupid.

I dropped my wallet getting out of a taxi in Chelsea, Manhattan. The next day a sanitation worker (garbage man) returned it to me. I gave him the cash inside it.

I was very pleased to see New Zealand up there at no 8 on the scale above. Awesome Kiwi's!!

I must keep this graph and remind myself where I wish to travel to first...Sorry, my dear Mexico and U.S. (I'm Mexican American) you must wait in line....ahahah ;-) I am so disappointed but proud of other countries that did the right thing I have even considered moving there.

I was going to say the same thing about Japan: Wallet would be exactly where you left it. Safe and sound.

One question is the amount in the wallet was equivalent to the average salary in each country. If the amount was the same it's not comparable in my opinion.

I found a wallet but luckily the owner didn't live too far from me. I also managed to catch a man's attention as he walked away from an atm leaving about $500 AUD in it. I grabbed it and handed it to him. He was really relieved as it was his rent money

My husband and I found a wallet on the road. We took it to the police, there was $175 in it and a bunch of cards and a card from another bank as well as the pin number. In our country if things aren't picked up from the police in 3 months you get to keep it. Long story short I went in to ask if anybody had picked it up, (I had a note inside with my name and phone number just in case he wanted to thank us. We the cop was acting a bite funny about it and I showed him the piece of paper the cops gave me 3 months earlier. He took the piece of paper and said it had been picked up. With his acting strange about it I am more than convinced he took the money. I hate cops that are dishonest. I know I could have found the owner, all I had to do was take it to the other bank and given it to them. I feel for the person who lost his wallet.

Yup Most people are pretty good--there are always some greedy jack asses-- I listened on the radio about a similar study where they paid attention to honesty based of how wealth people were---& the more well off people were the less Honest they were--