Taxi-Driver Returns Bt520,000 In Lost Cash

[BrianCR]

2,000 Baht "reward" and a t-shirt for returning 520,000 Baht in cash? It seems honesty doesn't pay out these days. He should have kept the money.

Besides, anyone carrying around this much cash in public and then forgetting it in a taxi is probably not very attached to it. I can understand if someone leaves their hat, their umbrealla, their newspaper in a taxi, but half a million Baht?

I think that honesty does pay these days, the taxi driver has kept his ideals of life and having good morals are sometimes better than money - maybe the loser of the money might like to change her moral (and monetary) values? Edited April 10, 2013 by BrianCR

[Markaew]

since when did this "10% good deed commision" come up?.. A person is supposed to do the right thingfor the sake of humanity , not for some bloody 10% reward. Maybe not everyone in thailand is as "rich and big-hearted" as the farangs on TV.

Well, if you can lose THB 500k in a taxi you are first of all an idiot. If somebody is kind enough to return the money you should give him more than 2000b.

Shamefull act by the "owner" of the money.

Finally, I was wondering when someone would say something about how astonishingly stupid one would have to be to leave an envelope with 500K anywhere outside their grasp. Amazing!

Not enough can be say about the honesty of the taxi driver. That is equally amazing, but in a good way.

[edgarfriendly]

All this jibber jabber about honesty & integrity and good values...

is it not MUCH more likely that the guy feared ghosts would haunt him if he didn't 'do the right thing'?

[chooka]

All this jibber jabber about honesty & integrity and good values...

is it not MUCH more likely that the guy feared ghosts would haunt him if he didn't 'do the right thing'?

Nice attempt to destroy a feel good story about thais.

[JulesMad]

I don't have the "problem" of owning that much money, but I would check, double-check and triple-check if I would go anywhere with that amount of cash on me!!!

I doubt also very much if I would bring that money to the police (or other Thai officials) if I found it (just being very honest here)

In this case, the very honest taxi driver should have gotten a much bigger reward (10% sounds quite right)

[Wat dee]

The "last honest cabbie" in Thailand.

Start bashing thieving thai's!

[colinneil]

2000 baht <deleted>...ng selfish c..t, 10000 minimum ,honest guy gets shafted .

[ZhouZhou]

good story but bad that some will always spot something to complain about.

2000 baht is plenty of money and an acceptable sum. nothing wrong with that.

if a passenger forgets something in a taxi it still belongs to him. where does that silly idea come from that now a taxi driver should get a 10% share of it?

[BrianCR]

All this jibber jabber about honesty & integrity and good values...

is it not MUCH more likely that the guy feared ghosts would haunt him if he didn't 'do the right thing'?

Is that the way you believe people think? I would rather consider them honest

[balo]

But why would this Thai couple , bring 500k in cash to buy a car ?

If I want to buy a car I will ask for the company bank account and transfer the money .

Did they get a big discount for paying cash ? TIT but still I dont understand why they are paying cash for a new car.

[DocN]

good story but bad that some will always spot something to complain about.

2000 baht is plenty of money and an acceptable sum. nothing wrong with that.

if a passenger forgets something in a taxi it still belongs to him. where does that silly idea come from that now a taxi driver should get a 10% share of it?

Troll time again?

[MEL1]

So basically, what I am seeing, is that the majority think honesty should be paid for nowadays? ...and at a going rate of 10%, or there abouts?

Hmmmm. Not sure I'm with you on that score.

I thought honesty came genuinely, at no cost!

-mel.

[GazR]

2,000 Baht "reward" and a t-shirt for returning 520,000 Baht in cash? It seems honesty doesn't pay out these days. He should have kept the money.

Besides, anyone carrying around this much cash in public and then forgetting it in a taxi is probably not very attached to it. I can understand if someone leaves their hat, their umbrealla, their newspaper in a taxi, but half a million Baht?

So did he forget it or did she ?

[Locationthailand]

Well there are obviously some honest taxi drivers around. Friend of mine left an iPhone on the seat of the taxi after a stint at Hollywood got out and realised it within seconds and despite chasing the taxi up the street and calling his own phone immediately from his girlfriends phone the taxi driver just kept on driving. Gave the taxi rego plate number to the co-op for the driver - nothing. So there is still a mix out there - glad some are more honest than others.

Edited April 10, 2013 by Locationthailand

[LuckyLew]

I left my phone in a taxi in Silom. Quick call from my friend's phone and the man made a 10 minute detour to get back to us. I gave him B200 as he could have easily have made B100 in that time and the inconvenience of losing my phone would have cost me much more than a B100 tip.

On another occasion a taxi driver returned a wallet, with cards and cash intact to a person living in our apartment block. This was made more remarkable by the fact that the loss happened at 3am and the man came back to find the person at 3pm the next day when he clocked on. Even more remarkable as we were living down a pedestrian only soi and he had tracked the man down by asking around. I was disgusted when the wallet's owner tried to offer only B100 and I made him give the taxi driver B500. Later I asked him how much it would have cost him to have all his cards re-issued and sent from the States to help him see why B500 was a good reward. I know which one of these 2 I would rather share a meal with!

I still believe that most taxi drivers in Bangkok are good people.

Sorry, I believe that good ones are far outweighed by the bad

More and more Joe Taxi driver refusing to take fares where they want to go

Ask my 5 month pregnant GF who had 20 taxis refuse to take her from the

hospital where she works to our condo.

Sorry I believe 99% are total xxxxxxx and tossers

Edited April 10, 2013 by metisdead

[draftvader]

I left my phone in a taxi in Silom. Quick call from my friend's phone and the man made a 10 minute detour to get back to us. I gave him B200 as he could have easily have made B100 in that time and the inconvenience of losing my phone would have cost me much more than a B100 tip.

On another occasion a taxi driver returned a wallet, with cards and cash intact to a person living in our apartment block. This was made more remarkable by the fact that the loss happened at 3am and the man came back to find the person at 3pm the next day when he clocked on. Even more remarkable as we were living down a pedestrian only soi and he had tracked the man down by asking around. I was disgusted when the wallet's owner tried to offer only B100 and I made him give the taxi driver B500. Later I asked him how much it would have cost him to have all his cards re-issued and sent from the States to help him see why B500 was a good reward. I know which one of these 2 I would rather share a meal with!

I still believe that most taxi drivers in Bangkok are good people.

Sorry, I believe that good ones are far outweighed by the bad

More and more Joe Taxi driver refusing to take fares where they want to go

Ask my 5 month pregnant GF who had 20 taxis refuse to take her from the

hospital where she works to our condo.

Sorry I believe 99% are total xxxxxxx and tossers

The biggest question is where you are picking the taxi up from. I experience a MUCH higher hit rate of bad drivers in Sukhumvit and Banglamphu. No surprise really. Lived 4.5 years in Bangplad, no problems getting the meter on or for them to stop. Living 1 year in Chaeng Wattana now, a bit harder to get them to stop, but never a problem with the meter.

Last Friday outside CentralWorld heading back to Chaeng Wattana with our 18 month old girl in my arms every taxi grinned and said "No meter, B500". BTS and bus from Victory Monument solved that!

[F430murci]

2000 baht reward ? that's so cheap ........ usually 10% is a good thing .....

Yes, a nice one from the taxi driver but not so from the loser. She's carrying more than B500,000 and he gets 2,000 and a T-shirt

Some just do the right thing, because it's the right thing to do.

[Greer]

I left my phone in a taxi in Silom. Quick call from my friend's phone and the man made a 10 minute detour to get back to us. I gave him B200 as he could have easily have made B100 in that time and the inconvenience of losing my phone would have cost me much more than a B100 tip.

On another occasion a taxi driver returned a wallet, with cards and cash intact to a person living in our apartment block. This was made more remarkable by the fact that the loss happened at 3am and the man came back to find the person at 3pm the next day when he clocked on. Even more remarkable as we were living down a pedestrian only soi and he had tracked the man down by asking around. I was disgusted when the wallet's owner tried to offer only B100 and I made him give the taxi driver B500. Later I asked him how much it would have cost him to have all his cards re-issued and sent from the States to help him see why B500 was a good reward. I know which one of these 2 I would rather share a meal with!

I still believe that most taxi drivers in Bangkok are good people.

Yes I agree - most of them are decent normal people, and do the right thing.

[DocN]

Don't you get it? It is not that honesty should pay off...but if someone returned 500k to me, I would be VERY happy and O sure would give more than a warm handshake and a "thank you".

But then again...I am not holier than though.....

[Potosi]

The 'honest taxi driver given a meagre award' theme appears ever time when a too large number of tourists come to death or harm in Thailand, it really sucks.

[noitom]

The taxi driver gains self respect. The woman should be ashamed of such a small gratuity. 50k would have been more appropriate.

[Nisa]

Is there nothing folks here can't turn into a negative and find reasons to see in a doom and gloom perspective?

Taxi driver finds a bunch of money, a passenger was going to use towards the purchase of a car, and returns the money. The passenger gives the guy a reward and contacts the radio station to let everyone know of this guy's good deed. Sounds like a positive story to me. Obviously the taxi driver was more interested in doing the right thing than concerned with money but I guess that is a concept some people just cannot grasp and instead lay judgement on people including the passenger who by all accounts also sounds like a caring and nice person.

[belg]

i start to believe all this "honest and returning people" is just a scam for TAT

how come so many people travel with big piles of cash that always seem to forget it ?????????????

and than honest JOE SOMCHAI brings it back

put the focus on the right hand so nobody sees what the left is doing ?

[Signature2013]

Readers,

Next time your in a bank check out how much cash is being banded around by Thai people; who have just walked off the street it's scary.

Also, foreigners tend to demean the baht 2 K = 50 Quid which OAPs and Unemployed live on in the UK. To a Thai Taxi Driver it's a lot of money.

Comparing it with the 520 k is an assessment of your likelyhood to have considered stealing the money.....shamful.

[Konini]

I left my phone in a taxi in Silom. Quick call from my friend's phone and the man made a 10 minute detour to get back to us. I gave him B200 as he could have easily have made B100 in that time and the inconvenience of losing my phone would have cost me much more than a B100 tip.

On another occasion a taxi driver returned a wallet, with cards and cash intact to a person living in our apartment block. This was made more remarkable by the fact that the loss happened at 3am and the man came back to find the person at 3pm the next day when he clocked on. Even more remarkable as we were living down a pedestrian only soi and he had tracked the man down by asking around. I was disgusted when the wallet's owner tried to offer only B100 and I made him give the taxi driver B500. Later I asked him how much it would have cost him to have all his cards re-issued and sent from the States to help him see why B500 was a good reward. I know which one of these 2 I would rather share a meal with!

I still believe that most taxi drivers in Bangkok are good people.

Yes I agree - most of them are decent normal people, and do the right thing.

In general terms most *people* are honest and decent with good moral standards

It's the media that makes us think otherwise.

[hellodolly]

since when did this "10% good deed commision" come up?.. A person is supposed to do the right thingfor the sake of humanity , not for some bloody 10% reward. Maybe not everyone in thailand is as "rich and big-hearted" as the farangs on TV.

Ya and maybe a lot of them are more big hearted than the farongs on Thai Visa.

For many posters the 2,000 baht may have not been enough.

But on the other hand the money could have been borrowed and any more than that would have left them with out the car and a big debt.

We don't know nor do we know what we would have done if it meant we couldent buy the car because we gave the money away.

My hats off to the Taxi driver and it is my hope that the recipients of his honesty did the best they could I don't know.

[hellodolly]

Has nobody heard of cashier's cheques? Easier and much safer.

Can you get them here in Thailand banks?

If you can are they like checks from back home that can take up to 5 weeks to clear?

[hellodolly]

Is it just me, or does there seem to be an excessive amount of these " massive sum of money lost in taxi, and returned by good hearted taxi driver" stories ??? Last time I left a phone in a taxi, he ransomed it back to me.. :-(

Figure it out for your self out of 28 posts to date there was only one other negative one besides yours and so far none where the items were never heard of again. [That is negative towards the taxi driver not the beneficiary]

Who knows maybe we will hear more on the negative side about taxi drivers but so far they are looking pretty good to me.

OK now up to 60 posts and only two more negative ones on the subject None of them including yours that is big a loss. One ridiculous one.

Of course the Thai bashers are in here to talk about other negative things that have happened to them l

like Taxi's not stopping of refusing to use the meter. Big deal there is another coming along.

How ever the 500baht when you are holding a baby is a definite NO NO.

Edited April 11, 2013 by hellodolly

[pattayadingo]

So basically, what I am seeing, is that the majority think honesty should be paid for nowadays? ...and at a going rate of 10%, or there abouts?

Hmmmm. Not sure I'm with you on that score.

I thought honesty came genuinely, at no cost!

-mel.

As I recall, honesty has always been rewarded.

I remember being sent to the shops as a kid with a whole sixpence in my pocket as a reward for finding a woman's purse and handing it in intact.

In the same way that being dishonest, we should be punished to some degree, why not the flip of the coin and be rewarded for honesty?

[Konini]

So basically, what I am seeing, is that the majority think honesty should be paid for nowadays? ...and at a going rate of 10%, or there abouts?

Hmmmm. Not sure I'm with you on that score.

I thought honesty came genuinely, at no cost!

-mel.

As I recall, honesty has always been rewarded.

I remember being sent to the shops as a kid with a whole sixpence in my pocket as a reward for finding a woman's purse and handing it in intact.

In the same way that being dishonest, we should be punished to some degree, why not the flip of the coin and be rewarded for honesty?

Lucky bugger - I took one to the police station and got a thrupence. The lady was in at the time reporting it.

Not sure that I agree with your coin-flipping point though. Honesty is a human trait, I don't think any monetary value can be put on it. It's bred into you and regardless of reward honest people with be honest and dishonest people will be unhappy.