A buyer is facing a moral dilemma after finding $26,000 inside an item purchased on eBay. Now the seller wants the cash back. Would you keep the money or return it? Or is it “finders keepers?”
Buyer finds $25K in eBay purchase
A buyer doing some shopping on eBay had the real-life experience of the proverbial “getting more than you bargained for.” The buyer made a shocking discovery after receiving the item, the Express reported.
The seller, James Labrecque of California, decided to sell a heavy-duty safe he owned on eBay. After all, he didn’t have the combination to open it, so it was essentially useless to him – or so he thought. He had never opened it.
“I shook it, and I didn’t feel anything inside of it,” James told local news outlet WMC-TV. “So I figured, well, maybe it’s just a locked safe, you know. So I put it on eBay.”
He listed the safe for sale, and it was quickly snapped up.
An unidentified buyer in Bartlett, Tennessee, received the safe and pried it open. When the buyer looked inside, they were presumably surprised to learn the safe was not empty, the Mirror reported.
The safe contained roughly $26,000.
News of the lucky find made its way back to James.
He contacted the buyer and asked for at least some of the money back, but the buyer refused, saying it was “finders keepers.”
“I made a mistake, you know,” James said in an interview. “That’s what it boils down to, and it cost me dearly.”
“I told my friend, I won the stupidest idiot in the world award the other day,” James continued. “You know, I gave away a safe with $26,000 in it.”
James regrets not prying open the safe and calls the loss a “life-altering” amount of money.
Finders keepers? Would you return the money?
While the buyer did give James a good review on eBay, the buyer is not willing to return any part of the money.
James shared a text message exchange with the buyer.
Many people online feel the issue is a moral dilemma. But apparently, the buyer sees no dilemma at all – and is keeping the money.
“What you see is what you get, no returns, and no money back,” the buyer replied to James.
Nonetheless, opinions online are mixed.
Some feel the buyer should give James at least some money back, like 10-20 percent, as a kind of “finder’s fee.”
However, many feel it is entirely James’ fault for not checking in the first place and, therefore, an expensive lesson.
What would you do?
Keep the money or give some or all of it back?
