Bad Samaritan

[halloweenjack]

A guy who lost his camera on vacation in Hawaii contacts the people that found it, but they refuse to give it back:

"Well," she said, "we have a bit of a situation. You see, my nine year old son found your camera, and we wanted to show him to do the right thing, so we called, but now he's been using it for a week and he really loves it and we can't bear to take it from him."

The comments are especially interesting. Several people advise him to contact the finders' local police department, even though he's already said that he did so and they blew him off. Some people try to guilt-trip him (as did the child's mother) because the kid has diabetes. Many people say variations on, "You (or the finders) could afford a trip to Hawaii, therefore you (or the finders) can afford a new camera." It's called living on a budget, folks, look it up. And just a few people get it right by saying that "finders keepers" is not a law.

P.S. Anonymous below pointed me toward his/her/its/their blog, which in turn pointed me toward a link to a Gizmodo article which I hadn't previously seen, which also uses "Bad Samaritan" in the title. Great minds &c.

Comments

[mary-mayhem.livejournal.com]

"We wanted to show him to do the right thing so we're gonna let him keep your camera."

????????

WTF?

[(Anonymous)]

yeah, i blogged about this too at http://idreaminred.wordpress.com
i couldnt believe the nerve of that woman.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link to the Gizmodo article; their title used "Bad Samaritan" as well. Heh.

[a-nightengale.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just... wow.

[a-nightengale.livejournal.com]

The story's made it onto both Fark and boingboing; in fact someone claiming to be a "lawer" is threatening to sue boingboing (http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/20/mysterious_lawer_thr.html) over it. Maybe with all this publicity the poor woman will get her camera back.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

I should have credited BoingBoing in the first place; that's where I read this. I loved Cory Doctorow's comeback to this guy:

"You're a lawer? Nice to meet you. I'm a ritter."

[a-nightengale.livejournal.com]

I know, I loved that too. I may start telling people that I'm a freelance editor and ritter. ;)