tonyh29 Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Heard on the radio today that a couple found a lottery ticket on the floor of a shop that had winning numbers to the tune of £30k. They cashed it in as their own but have now been found out and given suspended sentences .A court will rule next month if they should give the money back or not. Despite the nursery rhyme I believe it's actually called 'stealing by finding' and legally they are supposed to have handed it in and then if it wasn't claimed within 28 days they would be entitled to keep it I wonder though , If any VTer's found the ticket would they have handed it in or kept it ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 I posted a similar poll question about a hypothetical situation whereby if you were to find a briefcase stuffed with $1 million but with the owner's name on the case..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MMFy Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 This is a tough one. I'm not sure what I would do. How did the 'real' owner of the ticket prove it was theirs, and how was it tracked? I understand it should have been handed in, but it is a lottery ticket after all, it's not like anyone can really stake a claim to it. I'd liken the situation to that of a found wallet. You wouldn't advertise the details, you'd say 'wallet found', then return it to the person who accurately describes it. What would you do with a winning lottery ticket? "If you can tell me what numbers were on it you can have it"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted July 24, 2009 Author Share Posted July 24, 2009 I posted a similar poll question about a hypothetical situation whereby if you were to find a briefcase stuffed with $1 million but with the owner's name on the case..... i remember that thread ..as it was $1 million i decided to just leave it where it was as I was convinced it was drug money and wouldn't take any chances on being whacked ... I think with lottery tickets they know the time and date the winning tickets are bought ,it's possible that somebody knew they had lost a winning ticket and came forward ..maybe the store has CCTV and can verify ? I'm sure I recall cases over the years where they have traced some of the unclaimed big winners ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulTheVillan Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Theft by finding. Just because you find something doesn't mean it's yours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trimandson Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 If someone is dumb enough to lose it, they don't deserve it, natural selection really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 I'm no angel but I'd hand it in and trust in Karma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amsterdam_Neil_D Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Advertise the fact I have found it anonymously on the Internet and offer 70/30 split in my favour. Get something done in law and get them to sign it or they get nothing. Any funny business about grassing me up should be covered by the contract and in worse case scenario I would just eat it in front of them if they don't agree to my terms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDon Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 It's an odd decision, as theft by finding is when you reasonably believe the original owner could be located. I think most people would think a lottery ticket is untraceable, so I don't see how this passed the reasonable person test. I guess a lot would depend on if the ticket was also a lucky dip, if it was then there's no chance the owner will know the numbers, and know they've won to be able to go through the hassle of trying to claim it, whereas if they were set numbers then someone will know they would have won, and there's a chance you could find them. Handing it into the police would be a big waste of time, as the time before they'll return an unclaimed item to you is 6months, and the claim time on a lottery ticket is 180 days, so chances are by the time you get it back the prize is already expired. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Handing it into the police would be a big waste of time, as the time before they'll return an unclaimed item to you is 6months, and the claim time on a lottery ticket is 180 days, so chances are by the time you get it back the prize is already expired. Ha, ha. Was the theft of the lottery ticket itself or the prize? As it was theft by finding and they found the ticket then I suppose it was the ticket. If so, I wonder how they would have got on if they had cashed it in and then turned the prize over immediately to the rozzers (bearing in mind the quandary you have suggested above)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MMFy Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 I'm just thinking about this one with fresh eyes. If I was walking down the road and I saw a valid lottery ticket on the floor, I would pick it up. If I checked it, and it was a winner, I would cash it in. As trim said, if someone is so **** stupid that they can't keep hold of a lottery ticket they don't deserve to win. It's not hard to keep a piece of paper safe. People just don't throw money away, and that's almost what this is. Wasn't there someone detained/sectioned in London a few weeks back for throwing their money around in a Station? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted July 24, 2009 Moderator Share Posted July 24, 2009 If someone is dumb enough to lose it, they don't deserve it, natural selection really. Yes, let's call it a 'stupidity tax' which just happens to equal the exact amount on the ticket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troglodyte Posted July 24, 2009 VT Supporter Share Posted July 24, 2009 What others have said really with regards to whether the person who actually bought it could prove it was theirs. I'm not sure what I'd do about it, as handing it to the police would probably leave me with a much smaller chance of winning the money. I think it's different to the briefcase scenario; I certainly wouldn't take that. Advertise the fact I have found it anonymously on the Internet and offer 70/30 split in my favour. Get something done in law and get them to sign it or they get nothing. Any funny business about grassing me up should be covered by the contract and in worse case scenario I would just eat it in front of them if they don't agree to my terms. I can't see that being legal either, just because you're offering some of their money back, the law of theft by finding would probably still apply. They wouldn't necessarily have to grass you up, and if they could prove it was theirs, they'd probably contact the police before signing your contract. Also, not everyone uses the internet, and you've also once more got the problem of someone proving it's theirs. Several people would try and claim it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MMFy Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 I friend's girlfriend won the McDonalds Monopoly game a couple of months ago, without knowing. Her mom threw the Pall Mall and Mayfair stickers in the bin thinking they were rubbish. By the time she found out, she rummaged the bins but they had already been collected. The prize for these stickers was £250,000. If a binman found them and cashed them in, would that be theft? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted July 24, 2009 Moderator Share Posted July 24, 2009 I think it's different to the briefcase scenario. Agreed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted July 24, 2009 Author Share Posted July 24, 2009 Wasn't there someone detained/sectioned in London a few weeks back for throwing their money around in a Station? was an airport in Spain .. they were drunk and taken away for their own good as the police assumed they didn't really want to be giving away all their money .. but they weren't detained If a binman found them and cashed them in, would that be theft? I would imagine so Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 This is just based on knowledge picked up from a time when my mum worked in a shop that happened to sell lottery tickets. 1] Legally, the owner of the ticket is Camelot. Any lost ticket belongs to Camelot, so anybody who finds a ticket knows they can hand it in to an agent of Camelot (ie, a shop that sells lottery tickets.) 2] Its easy to verify a lottery ticket. It has the time, date and location where it was bought on the bar code. You can trace it to a shop. You might be on CCTV buying it. The clerk might remember you, which is more likely to happen if you are a regular in the shop. Even more likely if you have the same numbers every week. You also might have a credit card transaction in the shop at the same time/date as the ticket was bought if you bought other things too. I dont know what I would do if I found the ticket. I probably wouldnt even pick one up, let alone check it. Supposing I did then it depends on the amount. If it were a tenner or a hundred quid then I would probably just cash it and count myself lucky. Any more, and I know the person on the other end might ask questions which I will be unable to answer, especially if somebody else legitimately disputes what I have to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDon Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Handing it into the police would be a big waste of time, as the time before they'll return an unclaimed item to you is 6months, and the claim time on a lottery ticket is 180 days, so chances are by the time you get it back the prize is already expired. Ha, ha. Was the theft of the lottery ticket itself or the prize? As it was theft by finding and they found the ticket then I suppose it was the ticket. If so, I wonder how they would have got on if they had cashed it in and then turned the prize over immediately to the rozzers (bearing in mind the quandary you have suggested above)? The ticket and the prize are linked though aren't they, so who knows. Knowing the police though if you claimed it and handed it in they'd probably get you on an obtaining money by deception charge or something. If a binman found them and cashed them in, would that be theft? I'd say no. Theft by finding is only if you could take reasonable steps to find the original owner and don't bother. The law also states that anything abandoned is a free for all, you could take the assumption that as they were in the trash that they had been abandoned, and so it would fail the reasonable test, a reasonable person would think that seeing as it's in the trash, it's abandoned and not lost. That they were thrown away accidently shouldn't come into it, as a reasonable person could not draw that conclusion. However how the law works with regards to ownership of rubbish on the public highway would then come into play, does it belong to the refuge company? And if so, are you then not commiting theft against them rather than the person who threw them away? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDon Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 I'm no angel but I'd hand it in and trust in Karma. What if finding the lottery ticket was karma's way of repaying you for things you've done in your life? And punishing the people who lost it, because they're gigantic assholes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 I'm no angel but I'd hand it in and trust in Karma. What if finding the lottery ticket was karma's way of repaying you for things you've done in your life? And punishing the people who lost it, because they're gigantic assholes? I'm already in negative equity, Karmically speaking.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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