So if there's a 20 dollar bill on the ground, or even a penny, you wouldn't help yourself to it?

The way this seems to be setup, was there even a way for these people to track down the "original owners" of the new ipod?

A better test of people's honesty would be something like putting an item in the open in an obviously unlocked car, or leaving the bag at a foodcourt, with the owner getting up only to order some food.

Well, I found my iPod (it was used) on the streets of Prague, just lying on the ground. Had there been a hidden camera around, it would have recorded me asking around for a good 1/2 hour or so. They probably would have edited that part out.

Good thing the Czech Republic doesn't have a Chris Hansen. It could have gotten ugly.

I didn't see the show.

What concerns me here is less the crime that these people may have committed by not turning in the property to the appropriate authorities and more that NBC is at least arguably fraudulently inducing people to install malware on their computer systems. Are they next going to send people a fraudulent version of Quicken and Turbotax so they can steal their financial data to see if they're committing income tax evasion?

Oh, also, if NBC thinks it's so simple to reunite people with their lost property, why the hell don't they do that simple public service themselves? If they'll swear they will make their very most to reunite me with my electronics, I'll give them the serial numbers of my iPod, digital camera, notebook computer, desktop computer, DVD player, and even karaoke machine.

Chris Hansen has something to tell you.

If I see a grocery cart in the lot and there is something left behind in the cart I want, and it's been left behind, I am taking it. If Chris Hansen showed up to confront me about it I would NOT be nice.

Finder's keepers, loser's weepers. I take it Chris Hansen had a rough childhood.

That and he probably is molesting children in his spare time as well.

I think it's totally different if you find something that you can trace the owner. I've found wallets and credit cards and check books in the past and NEVER once thought of taking anything from them or using the credit card or the check book.

But damn skippy if I find a random $100 bill on the street or a 2 gallon bottle of Tide on the bottom of a shopping cart left in the parking lot or an Ipod laying in the middle of some busy mall I am taking it. No questions asked, no guilt. I didn't steal it, I found it!

And, yes, I did find those wallets and such...but those were things I could locate the original owner of them and it was all good. If I could locate the original owner of those other items, I would likewise return them.

I'd be interested to see a wallet test where there was NO identification in the wallet at all..how many people would keep the cash then?

You really think there are a good number of people who don't work and make a LIVING off of finding random stuff laying around????

REALLY????????

I guess it might be possible, but I can't imagine it.

They might make a "living" intentionally seeking out victims to steal stuff from, but not working to walk around all day to find money abandoned on the floor and other products just discarded and lost?

REALLY?????????

In the wallet example, I wouldn't feel bad about taking the $2.10 as compensation for postage and packaging, assuming that cost $2.10 or more. I'd only want actual cost, and I'd note my use of the funds in that way.

If the person were in the same town and I didn't have to mail it to them, I'd leave it as is.

ETA: It really annoys me that would be considered "dishonest" if I'm reading the results of the site right. I'm happy to return your property, but I'm not footing the bill to do so when I know you have the money to cover it.

I found a money clip by the subway ticket machine with sixty bucks in it and had no idea what to do. So I bought my Dad lunch.

The problem is that there are too many people in this world willing to "make a living" off of taking other peoples stuff whether it be robbery, burglary, using stolen credit card numbers or picking up a bag/item that simply doesn't belong to them. The funny thing is that instead of realizing that it is still wrong people justify these actions and say that it is okay because of this or that. Don't put the blame on Dateline for people "falling for the trap". Ipods get stolen at school quite often and if a show like this can make headway on it being alot easier to track one down it would be one less huge problem we would have.

the stupidest show. as someone said, if i leave my ipod on a bench, leave and return to find it missing, i am not gonna say "someone stole my ipod"...I will say "I lost it." Although I would have returned it, I cannot blame people for taking it. The real show would have been someone on a cell phone not looking at their ipod which is sitting unattended seeing if anyone snagged it from them. That is a thief.

I thought of that site too, Save Ferris. I heard the guy who did it interviewed on the Keith and the Girl podcast. He said he had several media outlets interested in doing stories on his experiment but they all become disinterested when they find he broke it down by race in addition to age and gender.

I watched this on my DVR last night. I can't believe they actually called it "To Catch an I-jacker". Give me a break. Hansen is really milking this shit. NBC seems perfectly content to practically entrap people by sticking an ipod up their ass and being surprised they keep it. Granted, some situations were obviously stealing, like taking it off someone's dashboard. But if it's sitting on top of a TRASH CAN in Vegas? I'd take the fucking thing. Who the hell would I give it to? The local lost and found? A $7.50/hr security guard? And to make it even lamer, most of the people he talked to didn't even take it. Someone took it for them so now we've got interviews with people that are clueless and are now linked to a thief on national tv.

Stick to pedophiles, Chris.

I understand that but to lump somebody in with that group because they keep a lost Ipod is really taking things a tad too far in my book.

Maybe she just saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers.



You're a POD!

A friend of mine found a beat-up 80GB ipod inside the clearance bin $4.99 game at CC. The surface scatch to hell, but he check on the content, which has tons of music/movie in there. So he took the ipod home and order the new faceplate or whatever it's call.. look like new.. i kept teasing him that the cop will go after him or something. Well.. I guess.. some kid drop the ipod from his shirt pocket into the bin or whatever.. haha.. the NBC show sound stupid though

I once found a case of soda under a grocery cart in a store parking lot, I turned it back in to the service desk. I asked if I could come back tomorrow and if it hadn't been claimed, take it. They said no, anything turned in that is unclaimed goes back on the shelf.

That was the last time I've turned in anything I've found in a shopping cart in a parking lot.

Found a case of soda just like that a couple of months ago. Free soda for me, made my day.

The last time I saw anything abandoned under a cart in a grocery store, it was a big bag of potatoes these two 70+ year olds neglected. I noticed it just as I was about to put my cart in the return corral because they were a few seconds ahead of me. I grabbed the bag and just made it to their car before they got in. I think the husband had no idea what was going on, but the wife seemed happy. Of course, I'm a pretty scary looking guy to a 70+ year old. She may have just been happy I wasn't trying to mug and/or rape her.

Just this past Memorial day I found two twelve packs (?) of Gatorade under a cart (kept them of course). If I can (and I have), I stop people and tell them that they left something, but I'm not going to turn it back in to the store. Unless it's something like a purse, prescription sunglasses, medication, etc etc. But not a case of gatorade.

And I was thinking more about the iPods. If it's just an iPod sitting by itself on a park bench with no way of identifying the owner, sure, I'm going to keep it. Especially a new one. If there was a receipt to a store I might return it to the store, depends on the situation. These would be for abandoned iPods - of course I wouldn't take one from inside a convertible or from a table where people were still sitting (like in the i-Jacker story).

The problem I have with this test is that it assumes that people are either honest or dishonest, but I think there is also a bit of an 'honesty curve'... meaning that some people who might return a wallet with $2.10 in it might be tempted to keep a wallet with $100 in it.