Earlier this year, a "mystery woman" in California took an old box of wires and computer parts to be recycled. Her husband had died not long before and she was clearing out the garage, she told CleanBayArea when she dropped the boxes off at its warehouse.
It works, but does it work well?
Steve Jobs's Apple-1 prototype computer sold at auction for about $700,000. Paul Terrell, the proprietor of one of the earliest computer stores in the world,
As the old saying goes, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
California-based E-Waste recycling firm Clean Bay Area came across a one in a lifetime discovery after they were sorting out boxes of electronics dropped off by an unidentified woman. She had dumped the items after husband passed away some weeks ago and decided to clear out after.
The company keeping half that profit is a pretty big finders fee if you ask me and morally they are being greedy. If they told her at the time she would of kept it n they would of got nothing.
They must've had to verify what it was etc themselves which clearly happened a while after she left. They're actually being generous tbh, they have no legal obligation to try and get back in contact with her.
They could have easily kept quiet and pocketed 100% of the money.
Don't know how you can say they was being generous because they didn't do something morally wrong and keeping it quiet.
Let's not forget without her donating it they would of got nothing, she could of just thrown it in the trash but she did the right thing by recycling. Obviously this was a mistake and a vulnerable old lady who knows little about technology.
Right thing to do is give her all her money minus a finders fee. When something is sold at a auction they don't keep 50% or if i accidentally leave my wallet in the recycling box i expect all my money to still be there not half taken for finding it. Of course there is no laws for this, it's just about doing what is morally right.
She gave it to them. It is theirs. Finders fees don't come into it, really.
Regardless of how tech unsavvy she is/was, it's her responsibility to check the value of something, and neither party knew that to begin with. They are giving her 100,000 dollars. That's pretty damn cool of them. To her the item was worthless, this is all bonus. If they can even find her.
Now if she takes issue with the money that they've made, then it gets more interesting, but if this scenario happened to me? Where I'd given something away with no strings attached, and they went out of their way to reimburse me with $100,000 I'd be happy.
Pretty much textbook glass half full/empty scenario.
No way she would of given that away knowing it's value and you kow that full well.
No way can you expect a old woman to become tech savvy n know what she's dealing with lol. It's the responsibility of the the business to go through the items anyway, if they told her then n there she would of took it back, what a coincidence they waited till she was gone and sold it.
If the situation happened with you knowingly giving away a item super rare and worth life changing money then yes i agree that's your own fault. But that never happened in this case.
The right thing to do was for them to contact her and inform of the situation and ask if she still wants to proceed still or take it back.
Nobody can justify 50% finders fee at the end of the day, without her and her husband they wouldn't have got the item to start with.
Yeah, but she *did* give it away. The situation is completely different to the one you're talking about with "finders fees."
They're doing more than their bit. Personally I'd give her a third, keep a third, and donate the final third to a charity of some sort. Because - it'd be my money at this point.
Then again they may never find the woman, and if so, they shouldn't feel bad about it. They've done their job.
