Many years ago I read and article in Readers Digest about an experiment made by a group of people in a number of countries worldwide. They were testing honesty by dropping off wallets in busy public places. Each wallet had the same amount of money, $100 if I'm not mistaken and the address and phone number of the owner. $100 may mean nothing to you but there are countries where $100 is a fortune.
The result was somehow what I expected, we all know which countries would be first on the list of honesty. Scandinavian countries had 100% return rate, which means all the wallets were returned to the owners or to the police station without missing anything from them.
In other countries some of the wallets were returned wile in some countries none of the wallets made it back to the owner. Some of the wallets were empty, except for the address card, people returning the wallets told the owners that is how they found it. It's up to you if you believe them.
My country was not among the tested ones but if it would have been, I bet it would came among the last ones. Pick pocketing is very popular here, you have to be careful all the time and watch your pockets and purse. Once your wallet is stolen, you can kiss your money goodbye but there's a slight chance you can recover your ID in the nearby trash bin.
Thieves are usually throwing away ID's or they send an underage kid to your address with the ID, instructing him what to tell you. They know exactly underage kids can't be charged. Some people give these kids money as appreciation as it takes a week or so to get a new ID plus you have to pay a fine as well. In these cases thieves earn double.
People are more honest than they think they are says an article published by The Economist.
As the team report this week in Science, from Canada to Thailand and from Russia to Peru Dr Cohn’s research assistants entered public buildings like banks, museums and police stations. They handed in a dummy wallet to an employee in the reception area, saying they had found it on the street outside, before making a hasty exit. Each wallet was a see-through plastic card case containing three identical business cards (with a unique email address and a fictitious native man’s name), a shopping list (in the local language) and a key. Crucially, some wallets also included $13.45 in the local currency, while some had no cash. Then, the team simply waited to see who would email the “owner” about returning the wallet.
In 38 of the 40 countries, the wallets with money in them were returned more often than those without (51% of the time, compared with 40% for the cashless). While rates of honesty varied greatly between different places (Scandinavia most honest, Asia and Africa least), the difference within individual countries between the two return rates was quite stable around that figure of 11 percentage points. In addition, wallets containing a larger sum of money ($94.15) were even more likely (by about another ten percentage points) to be returned than those with less, although the “big money” experiment was done in only three countries. source.
Scandinavian countries are leading again, looks like people haven't changed much over there.
More money in a lost wallet means it is more likely to be returned. source.
This may be true in some countries but highly unlikely to happen in poor countries. Why do you think they done in only in three countries? Because they knew what would happen.
What about in your country? How likely is for a wallet containing money to be returned to the owner?