I found a gift card while I was walking on the sidewalk

[swalsh411]

When you buy a gift card, It usually shows the card number on your receipt. If the card number has been reported stolen and OP uses it, without obtaining confirmation to do so by police, OP may find themselves in court for fraud if the card was swapped.

How many dozens of police departments would you advise the OP to contact?

Just give it to a charity. They will get to use it and you will get karma.

 

[quincy]

How many dozens of police departments would you advise the OP to contact?

Just give it to a charity. They will get to use it and you will get karma.

swalsh, the gift card is NOT Jeran's to give - and I am sure no charity wants to steal $100 from its rightful owner. Jeran should turn the card over to ONE police station and leave his identifying information so the police can contact him if the gift card is not claimed (and this only after he has spoken with Trader Joe's).

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

How many dozens of police departments would you advise the OP to contact?

Just give it to a charity. They will get to use it and you will get karma.

I was thinking more along the lines of avoiding a theft/fraud charge.

 

[Sloop John D]

A penny is considered de minimis under the law.

Is it though? I understand under the statute that OHRoadwarrior found, anything below $50 is de minimis, but only under those limited circumstances in the statute, which clearly don't apply here. Is there a statute or case that gives an exact number of the amount where you don't need to concern yourself with trying to return it?

I understand that retailers can track gift cards and gift certificates to the purchaser. The purchaser can track the gift card and gift certificate to the person who lost it.

That could be true if the purchaser paid with a card and if Trader Joe's tracks your purchases. I think it's unlikely, but it's certainly a good point and it wouldn't hurt to ask. Of course, if they say they can't trace the card to the purchaser, what's the next step? Is the inquiry over? To what extent do you believe a person needs to go before they are no longer liable under the law?

No. You did think that holding onto it and not telling anyone you had the card was a good plan, though.

Certainly, because in my experience, the best way for the original owner to get the card back is to show up at Trader Joe's with a receipt. The card itself is unnecessary. There's no name on it. Furthermore, the funds exist electronically, with or without the card. The important thing, if she wants to return the funds, is to simply make sure they aren't spent. As long as they don't get spent, they can be recovered.

The $100 gift card is not de minimis. The dollar bill found on the street is. There is a difference.

But again, is there an applicable law that defines this?

$100 is a lot of money to a lot of people. It is never going "overboard" to recommend that someone do what is the legal (and right) thing to do.

It's a shame, it really is. Anytime someone loses something, especially something important, it's terrible. If the OP could find a way to return this gift card to the rightful owner, that would be amazing. I do not believe, however, based on everything I've read so far, that there is any legal duty on the OP to attempt to locate the owner. I've seen nothing that suggests it would be criminal for her to spend the money today. If she had found a wallet with an ID, or a backpack with an address sewn into it, then sure, maybe she would be responsible for making an inquiry, but a gift card with absolutely no name and no clue as to who it belongs to? I just don't see that being reasonable. What effort would the OP need to go to in order to satisfy this duty under the law? At what point could she say that she did enough so that she wouldn't be criminally prosecuted? Criminal laws do not typically create a duty to act. This is why it's not criminal, no matter how morally reprehensible it might be, to sit back and do nothing as you watch a person in grave danger when you could easily provide assistance.

The only thing I've seen that is certain, is that if the OP spends the gift card, she could be liable to the original owner for its replacement. Apart from that, I don't see any other legal consequences. If she wants to make an effort to find the original owner, I think that is wonderful, but if she doesn't, I don't see any legal dilemma arising for her.

 

[justalayman]

OP should simply contact trader joe's and ask about it. Maybe they will give him a good boy reward and send him something like a cranberry goat cheese log since they are seasonal and with a name like that, I can't see them selling out so they probably have a ton of them to get rid of.

 

[TheGeekess]

OP should simply contact trader joe's and ask about it. Maybe they will give him a good boy reward and send him something like a cranberry goat cheese log since they are seasonal and with a name like that, I can't see them selling out so they probably have a ton of them to get rid of.

I wouldn't bet on that. Cranberry goat cheese can be very interesting.

 

[justalayman]

I wouldn't bet on that. Cranberry goat cheese can be very interesting.

for some reason, the words: goat and log and having something of the composition of, well, cheese, just kind of turns me off. All I can think of for the cranberries is Howie Mandel and his routine about his son Jimmy.

 

[Jeran]

I agree with all who say it is illegal.

Now, find the guy who spends it.

Yes, possible. In Big Brother land. Sure, we are IN Big Brother land. But, the only reason people are not outraged is "they" don't use the power as such.

Can The MAN put the OP in jail? Yes.

(He won't.)

I think the MAN has better things to do with their time than chasing down someone who found a lost gift card and used it at Trader Joes.

And if no one comes forward with a receipt after an extended period of time to get the card cancelled and to get a new card issued, then it probably means either they have lost the receipt, or they don't care about it, and either way, without the information on the receipt, there is no way the cops would have the necessary information to be tracking the purchases made with the card anyways. If they have the receipt, they're not going to just let that hundred dollars just sit there on that card for a year. They will do something about it by then. And that would be easy to find out by just calling the phone number on the back of the card a year from now.

So, from all the responses, which were very interesting by the way, it seems to boil down these choices:

1. Give the card to the police and let a crooked cop use the card to help himself to my goat cheese log.

2. Give the card back to Trader Joes and either a crooked cashier will use it to help himself to my delicious goat cheese log, or the store will simply destroy the card and keep the money in their system, and then no one gets to eat that goat cheese log.

3. I could destroy the card myself, and the result would be the same, no one gets to eat the goat cheese log.

4. I wait long enough to give the buyer of the card or the recipient plenty of time to take their receipt to Trader Joes to cancel the lost card and get a new card issued, and then one of them gets the cheese log. And if after all that time, no one bothers to do that, I go ahead and use the card to get my delicious goat cheese log. Either way, someone's gonna get cheesed. This seems fair to me.

What have we learned from all of this?

People, please use cash from now on instead of gift cards, so when I find it on the street or in a parking lot, I can spend it immediately without having to go through all this trouble.

Or be more careful with your gift cards and cash so I have nothing find on the sidewalk and pick up.

I still wonder if the gift card recipient didn't like the gift card (maybe didn't like Trader Joes) and maybe didn't realize how much money was on the card, and they just threw it out on the sidewalk for someone like me to find.

 

[quincy]

... What have we learned from all of this? ...

What have WE learned from all of this? I am guessing YOU didn't learn all that much.

 

[swalsh411]

To me this is one of those times when the real world answer is better than the legally correct answer.

 

[quincy]

To me this is one of those times when the real world answer is better than the legally correct answer.

I guess this is why those who go a little bit out of their way to return lost items to their rightful owners are always featured on the news as being extraordinary people. I have always found it a little bit sad that it is considered newsworthy when someone does something that is not only the right thing to do but, in this case, the legal thing to do.

Trader Joe's, by the way, says lost or stolen cards are replaced upon notification when using the purchase number on the receipt. I only hope the one who lost the card contacts the purchaser before Jeran decides to do his shopping.

 

[LeeHarveyBlotto]

Giving to charity $100 is a nice idea.

Giving to charity $100 that doesn't belong to you is not such a good idea.

Even if there's effectively zero chance of finding the owner? Given the circumstances, it's the best solution. Yes, I'm suggesting that sometimes there are better solutions than those written into law (gasp! I'll get bludgeoned by the site amateurs).

 

[Zigner]

Even if there's effectively zero chance of finding the owner? Given the circumstances, it's the best solution. Yes, I'm suggesting that sometimes there are better solutions than those written into law (gasp! I'll get bludgeoned by the site amateurs).

We tend to avoid telling folks to break the law.

 

[LeeHarveyBlotto]

We tend to avoid telling folks to break the law.

Really? I tend more toward telling people what the law is, and let them make that call for themselves. Sorry if you believe that telling the OP he has a better chance of winning the lottery twice than something bad happening from this heinous crime will bring down civilization, but I'll just have to take that chance.

 

[Zigner]

Really? I tend more toward telling people what the law is, and let them make that call for themselves. Sorry if you believe that telling the OP he has a better chance of winning the lottery twice than something bad happening from this heinous crime will bring down civilization, but I'll just have to take that chance.

That's fine, but don't expect to last if you directly advise people to break the law. I've seen more than one poster banned for doing that. Just sayin'