Monte55 said:
I doubt there is any law against him keeping it. Can't compare it to a vehicle. I think he should at least try to find the owner. That would be the correct thing to do. People find things evert day that belong to others. Finding something is not theft. Selling him a tx is not against the law. The person was stupid to say he found it in the first place as far as trying to get a tx for it. I found a credit card a while back at a gas pump. It actually was a debit card. I could not use it at an atm for cash not knowing the pin number but I could have filled my tank and gone on a shopping spree. I would never do that. First I called the credit card company to report it. I figured they would not give me the name of person to reach them. So, I left my number for the person to contact me. I thought if the person could get the card back without the hassle of closing out the card and having a new one issued, it would be easier. The cc company said it's policy to stop the card and issue a new one. I did hear from card owner thanking me for calling it in. By the end of phone call, she was crying and couldn't stop thanking me. I didn't do anything special. I only did the right thing.
Monte, thanks for your reply,well written and I understand what you are saying. But according to the sheriffs deputy I spoke with this morning, it is theft to keep something that you find. The law requires the finder to attempt to find the original owner and different places have different ways to do that. Where I live, Modoc County, California I was told if it is worth over $250.00 (which surprised me) it can be a felony to keep it. To properly follow the law a finder would need to turn the item in to the Sheriffs dept and wait 30 days. If no body claims it, it is the finders. I like that we can call this law the
LAW OF FINDERS KEEPERS!
Here, think of a couple ways this could be slightly different. You are jogging and your wallet falls out of your pocket, can someone keep it, take the money out of it? If you drop something it is not "Up for grabs". It is still yours, you just dropped it. Now, here in California a couple found millions of dollars worth of coins buried on property they had bought. After years of lawsuits it was found to be theirs since they had bought the property. Now, there was another case of a person who hid money in his walls, he died, his family new he had hidden money so they looked and looked but no luck. So they sold the house and during a remodel the contractor found it. In the end the family that had hid it got it back. They had not abandoned the hidden money the court found.
All I know is that I have read so many sad stories of folks having a flyaway and I would love to help reunite those poor people. I have thought how can I help, can I give them a new quad.. nope, cannot afford it, so the best I can do is point out those are greedy and honor those who do the right thing. This story below is heart warming and reminds me of the good folks out there.
mpp said:
I had my lost Phantom 2 returned to me. I did something very stupid. I was flying over a wooded area from a 500ft bluff near where I live. It was around dusk. I brought the phantom back in to pack up and go home when the sky turned this awesome violet and purple and orange and it was just too beautiful. Even though I only had 1 light left on my last remaining battery, I thought, it's got enough for a quick out and back just to capture some of this sky. Stupid me. About 100 yards out, it goes into low battery mode and just started landing. I wasn't quite sure what it was going to do because the ground beneath was 500ft lower than the take off spot (I took off from up on the bluff). From where I was and because of the the vanishing daylight I could not see where it was landing. It quickly got dark and I couldn't go look for it in the pitch black.
Couldn't return to the area until a couple days later and spent 4 or 5 hours searching both on foot and from the bluff using binoculars but could not find it.
A week later, I was almost ready to pull the trigger on buying another (and another gimbal and another GoPro...this is an expensive hobby) when my phone rings and a nice man named Dan says "hey I have your drone". A woman that lived nearby saw it land and found it the next day. She had no idea what is was or if it was dangerous so she gave it to her friend Dan who immediately knew what it was. He was happy to return it me (but he was working out of town for the week and hence the delay). He refused my reward money, which I really pushed him to take, but he wouldn't.
Phantom works as if nothing ever happened. Based on the video it landed gently in a bush. Just got it back yesterday.
Hooray for good Samaritans. Don't reward the selfish by selling them a transmitter so they get a drone that isn't really theirs.
In the end I have no idea what is legal or not, I am not a cop nor a lawyer. But I do know what feels good and selling to the person that contacted me would not have felt good. I could not even bring myself to answer his question on if my DJ6 would work on the P2V+ that he found. (the answer is NO) Oh, and Monte, if you had used that debt card to buy a stick of gum you would have committed a crime! Sometimes doing the right thing can keep a person out of jail.
