Boy finds $10000 in KC hotel room. Turns it in. Would you have done the same?
 

What would you have done?



http://www.kansascity.com/2013/05/29...otel-room.html


Ten-year-old Tyler Schaefer likes to find stuff.

He sticks his fingers in coin-operated machine slots, scans the ground for lost cash and looks for prize tickets hanging out of arcade games at Chuck E. Cheese.

But neither the boy nor his father was prepared for what Tyler would find in a drawer Saturday night in their room at the Hilton Kansas City Airport hotel.

It was $10,000, and for now no one has claimed it. If no one ever claims the money, it could some day belong to the Schaefers.

Cody Schaefer, Tyler’s father, said Tyler started looking for things a few years ago.

“He looks for stuff at random,” Schaefer said. “He’s very observant.”

About an hour after they checked into their room, Tyler began methodically opening all the drawers.

“What are you doing?” his dad asked.

“Somebody might have left something cool,” Tyler explained, while continuing his quest.

Then he announced: “I found money!”

Schaefer figured his son had stumbled upon a $10 bill or something. But when Schaefer looked closer, he saw neatly stacked bills totaling $10,000.

“Is that real?” Schaefer wondered.


The bills bore the appropriate water marks and appeared to have come from a bank, Schaefer said.

“We didn’t know what to do at first,” Schaefer said.

They contemplated various theories of how the money came to be abandoned. Maybe it was a drug dealer? Maybe it was someone who had recently sold a vehicle?

Schaefer told his son that they could not keep the cash because they didn’t know to whom it belonged.

“We need to call the cops,” Schaefer told him.

They found two off-duty police officers working security at the hotel and gave them the cash. The officers summoned Sgt. Randy Francis, a property and evidence supervisor, who logged and stored the cash at a police facility.

In 13 years working in property and evidence, Francis said, he has only seen one other instance of a large amount of cash being surrendered –– and it was about $1,000.

In that case, an older woman’s shopping cart ran over a wad of rolled up cash in a northeast area grocery store parking lot about five years ago. When no one stepped forward to claim it, the woman got it back, Francis said.

No one has called the hotel or tried to claim the $10,000 yet, which is surprising, Francis said.

“I think I would know I was missing $10,000 pretty quick,” he said.

Police don’t know how long the money has been in the room. They say it could have been hidden for months and they can’t track down every nightly guest who stayed in that room recently.

The hotel’s general manager did not return phone calls for this story.

According to Missouri statutes, lost money can revert to a finder after about seven months if no one can prove ownership.

Schaefer, a truck driver and mechanic who lives in South Dakota, meets his ex-wife in Kansas City every year to get his three children for summer vacation. It’s a central meeting point between their homes.

During their stopover in Kansas City this year, Schaefer and his kids visited the new Sea Life Aquarium and Legoland Discovery Center, where Tyler read every exhibit and completed the scavenger hunts. Tyler, a Cub Scout and fan of Pirates of the Caribbean movies, is always looking for clues and treasure, his dad said.

Schaefer told several friends and relatives about his son’s most recent “find,” and nearly everyone told him he did the right thing.

“But one person said I was an idiot,” he said.

The way Schaefer looks at it: “I didn’t come there with $10,000 and I didn’t leave with $10,000, so it was a wash.”

Dang. So that's where I left it.

Probably. Mainly because I would be too worried it was some sort of cop sting operation lol

Sounds like drug money

Thaaaaaaaaaaaat's gotta be drug money.

****, is Stanzi hiring a hitman to take out Bray?



**** you Stanzi!!!!!!!!!

No.

The ****ing drug dealer doesn't need to claim the money. He now knows the names of the people who'll end up with it.

I would have turned it in

Not because i'm such a good person or anything. But you gotta think anyone that left 10k just laying around is probably someone who could **** with your life.

They also could find out that your are the person that had the room after them.

if they aren't coming after you about the money then they probably aren't going to be claiming it either.

You just made me wince.

Fret not. $10k can buy a lot of protection.

wouldn't of agreed to the article either

Yes...I would turn in all $2000 of it.

This
Not too much legit business being done with that much cash lately.
And I would want it reported that I turned it in.

This times 6

I'd hold it ransom. Give me 10k or you'll never see that cash again.

I would put it in a safe place and not say shit. That's the logical part of me speaking. Realistically I'd fly to Thailand and end my life like Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas.

So you would put yourself and family in harm's way over a criminal's 10k?

Maybe it's a couple of lesbian drug dealers. Better?

How would his family be in danger? How would the criminal know he has it?

Id Turn it in and decline to be apart of a story for a newspaper.

No kidding, I'm sure he has plenty of filthy oil money already.

:spock:
You find that amount of money and don't turn it in it's basically stealing.
Think about who you would be stealing from.
And it wouldn't take long to find out who was next to have room.

So you think hotels just tell random people who was stayed in what rooms?

Two high paid hookers at the same time! After that who cares what happens because you've already lived the dream.

How is it stealing to keep a legitimately lost, untrackable/untracked object?

Not only that, but you would think some staff member would have found it. I would tend to think they would open the drawers to make sure there isn't stuff in there like lube, condoms, God knows what else. That would be a tough call, one would at least think about keeping it before deciding for sure.

You think somebody with so much money that they can just leave 10k laying around wouldn't have enough money to find out? If the person(S) that left the money remembers before you check out then all they have to do is knock on the hotel room door.

simply not worth the risk imo.

If the person doesn't remember the money at all then you get the money after no claim

If the person is a nice guy then you will probably get some kind of reward when claimed.

everything else just probably doesn't work out well for you if you don't turn it in.

Better, but still not good.

What if it turned out that the hookers were the ones who left the money in the room? That would be an unfortunate twist of fate.

What criminal?

The lesbian drug dealers, of course.

Well it wouldn't be the first time a couple of hookers have ripped me off I'm sorry to say.

I would turn it in but there is no way in hell I would allow them to do a story about it.

this
would be a little finders fee involved

If the money was really from some type of drug operation, I think the only person whose life would be in danger would be the dumbass who left it behind.

This.

****

and

No

When I find the 10K, I'm leaving with it. Goin to a nicer hotel.

no ****ing way would I turn that shit in

You would have been checked in under Matt Cassell, so no worries anyway.

I am not sure.

The hotel I checked into tonight I found stuff too.

The first room, I found the blankets sheets and pillows off of the bed, and blood and likely DNA on the pillow that were piled across the room from the bed, obviously not cleaned. The 2nd room I found something too. In some places it could be referred to as a nugget, but in this case, it was just a piece of turd that wasn't mine.

I'd love for something like that to happen to me. I'd be $10,000 richer..

wtf hotel are you staying at??! :LOL:

Seriously though. I'd take the money and I'd be checked out within 5 minutes.

I wouldn't even check out.

Hotels are all CC guaranteed...they'll check you out at check out in the AM....

I'd just take that money and get the **** out of there.

It's a well known "Inn and suites" type place. The king suites......

Last week I went to a similar(hundred a weeknight) type place......3 of 4 rooms had dirty toilets, beds, mold in the fridges.

Not dives, but based on the last 2 weeks I'd hate to see what a Dive would look like inside.


I'd rather find $10k than a turd.

I definitely checked out, and I left the clerk with some words for the manager that would probably make for a good thread here.

weird man

we have highly trained housekeepers

but

we also have our executive housekeeper who's entire job is to check every ****ing room they clean...as in, they leave all the drawers open, the lights on, the tv on, the bathroom seat up, etc...

if any of that happened in the hotel I work at...?

everyone would be fired

including me

You can wager that I'll be calling the manager and the manager's boss in the morning.

Never seen anything like it in what is supposed to be a decent place.

I forgot about the room I walked into after one of the others sucked and there were whole pecans and jelly on top of the refrigerator....and a skid mark in the shitter.

Lots of people should be fired for sure.

You gotta turn it in. I agree, it is theft. That is someone elses money. They didnt leave a note saying hey this is for you. Ive almost left 6k before somewhere but I sure as hell would have high tailed it back right away. Say, now that I think about it imm missing one hundred $100 bills. I was up north of the river by the air port and I dont know what I did w them

And I agree, you dont wanna be taking money from ppl that have 10k cash just laying around. I have no qualms with ppl doing what they need to do to get money that is rightfully theirs. Do you want that to happen to you? When the bank accidently deposits money into your account do yoy just close your account and hide out? Let me know how that turns out for ya

Walk, don't run.

Leave the room, money intact. Find another place to stay.

And sure as shit don't give an interview with a major media outlet.

The only problem with that is the hotel is not going to refund your money if you decide to find somewhere else to stay. You have to tell them about the money and they might let you move to another room.

Hopefully that article is a sting operation to get somebody to come forward and the names in the article are real.

EDIT

Well not exactly a sting operation but just a way to get the owner of the money to come in.

http://youtu.be/A939QRRSNV4

[IMG]<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/A939QRRSNV4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/IMG]

Gotta be able to sleep at night. Turn the money in.

The difference, as I see it, is Cage went and drank himself to death in Vegas. I can only assume you're going to Thailand so you can go out "death by ladyboy."

I would launder it at the casino.

All the sudden you're a criminal if you have 10K in cash? So all those poker players in Vegas are criminal I suppose. as to the questions. I'd keep the money.

dang.....this place is slipping.
way to pick up the slack. :thumb:

I'd take it. I don't have a family to worry about. Plus, like someone already said, the person really in trouble would be the one that left it there. Not all drug dealers are hardened murderers. A lot of them are paranoid dumbasses who are probably pooping themselves that the cops will find it. For a dealer, worst case scenario is someone turning the money into the cops and then the cops investigating and busting the dealer via hotel hall cameras or whatever.

If it's the type of dealer that would kill someone mob style, 10k probably isn't that big a deal to them.

Or I'm just talking out of my ass because I had too much coffee and it's early. Either way, I'd take it and leave. Maybe try to pay the hotel clerk to erase me from their records.

Turn it in and don't take part in an interview.

After all of this, it'd be funny if the $10,000 was owned by some 80 year-old man who was planning to surprise his granddaughter with college tuition.

Maybe someone just severely overestimated the MSRP on the Gideon's Bible in the drawer.

I used to go gamble in Tunica when I lived in Memphis (in my mid 20's). One night I went on a crazy heater and won like 12k in thirty minutes playing Blackjack. I cashed out in $100 and $50 bills and had them put it in an envelope with a rubber band around it. The following Monday I went to the bank to deposit it. I was unshaved, ball cap, sweat pants and a t-shirt that had a Starbuck stain on it. I fill out the deposit slip and drive up. The girl rolls the drawer out and smiles. "Thump" I throw the wad into the drawer along with the deposit slip into the drawer with the rubber band holding the bills.

She gets so nervous, says wait a minute. Then she tells me I have to come into the bank to deposit it. I'm like, no way I look like crap but I do it. All the buttoned up old ladies are staring at me when I walk in. They look at me and are thinking crazy thoughts about where the money came from. The bank Mgr. comes over to me and says I can't deposit more than $10K without filling out a form. I'm like, Ok whatever. Fill it out and deposit it. They all look at me like I'm going to pull out a gun any moment. I finally whisper to the Mgr. that I won the cash at the casino.

Later I found out that anything over $10K is a possible Govt. flag and you get taxed on it unless you can show other losses.

Heh, or some independently wealthy guy who just wanted to leave a gift for the next person staying in the room.

So did you put it on your taxes?

When you think about it, there's probably no more than 200 rooms in the hotel, and the odds are there are some high probability combinations of bills that make up the cash (all $100s, all $50s, all $20, etc.)

If there are 200 rooms and 5 likely combinations of bills, that's 1,000 combinations. How many members do we have on Chiefsplanet? I'll assign combinations, you guys put in claims, and we'll split any winnings - 1/2 winning claim, 1/3 donation to CP, 1/6 for me for bookkeeping.

i would've made 6, $2k deposits.

If I find a wallet I return it. If I find 10K with no name associated with it, I keep it.

thanks for 1 years worth of tuition papa.

is anyone else having a hard time calling hilton kansas city airport hotel? I keep getting a busy signal.
sec

they didn't pay their $10k phone bill

I kept "records" of all my gambling for that year. Did not put it on my taxes and the IRass never inquired.

reported.

This could be an interesting experiment. If you get audited within the next year, we'll know that the gov't scans CP.

I wouldnt have turned it in.

Clayton Wendler is my name.

Possession is 9/10's of the law.