I recently watched your 'what would you do with a lost wallet?' video and I found it a shameless and tasteless attempt of gaining attention on the internet. It saddens me that people don't have anything better to do with their time than attempt to see whether a stranger would pick up a wallet they have found on the floor and potentially take 100 dollars.
The situation is usually an odd one for the person finding the wallet in the first place. My girlfriend recently dropped her wallet (it only had cards in and identification), we had hoped that it might be returned somehow - whether left at a shop or tube station or maybe be contacted online - but you end up cancelling all your cards etc anyway as a precaution. She didn't get her wallet back and it does make you question what happened to it as there is no real use that can come of it.
But if there was cash in it and someone had returned it then I'm sure the majority of people would just be thankful that their wallet got returned, usually these acts don't go unrewarded anyway, especially if someone has made the effort to come and return it to you.
My housemate made a good point in stating that you don't know peoples' current predicaments. Drop your wallet in America and watch to see if anyone picks it up 10 minutes later and chances are some of the people picking it up aren't going to be well off and they might genuinely need 100 dollars. For them this might seem like fate or divine intervention helping them out. God knows there are times when I'd have loved to have just picked up a nice sum of money to help me get by when I was younger.
Often it is one of those instances where you think 'hey, if I don't take it then the next guy will' and that line of thought will usually be right. It is of course dependent on the situation, if I see someone dropping a wallet or purse then I'm definitely going to run after them and return it, that's just an automatic response. But if I were to be in a park or somewhere similar and find a wallet with no identifiable means of returning it or just some change and an ID then depending on whether I needed it I'd probably take some of the cash and try and return it to the individual if possible.
At least in my head I'd think I might take the money, I see myself as a good and honest person and I still find these situations interesting as to see what I'd do. I've taken wallets I've found to police station's before and even handed them in to police men at a festival in London, with their response genuinely being 'what are we supposed to do with this?' (I had handed them a woman's wallet full of money, cards and other bits and pieces)...well if they don't know what to do with it then how is your average person?!
For me it completely depends on the situation...it's like the classic question; if you found a bag of cash would you keep it or take it to the police station? And for me, someone recording these results are both unfair and I genuinely find the intention wrong. Especially as the majority of the video was following a black man who picked up the wallet and it appeared he was using the guy's card, the immediate assumption was that he was rinsing his credit card (and fair play if you're dumb enough to leave your wallet intentionally on the floor). Only once he began walking to the guy's house did they realise he was returning it. Of course they still assumed he'd been spending their money and had probably gone to the house to rob them further, until he showed them his identical credit card.
I get that the video is meant to make you think 'oh don't judge people too early etc' and there's probably a bit about racial stereotypes too, but I came away from it thinking the video was a cheap shot at this guy and also a cheap attempt at trying to go viral. I like to think that people will do the right thing and act how they'd want others to act but I don't need some rich kids making videos to show me what would usually happen in that scenario.
I watched another of your videos to see whether it was just the wallet video that evoked this reaction in me...it wasn't. Your next video was how to pick up and kiss girls on the street. I was disgusted. Truly shameful behaviour that doesn't deserve the coverage.
