I was helping my friends kids do a park clean up and one of them found a large wad of cash (less than $200). I told the one who found it that I need to check with the police before she can have it, just in case it belongs to someone in need.
But is that a thing? I didn’t want to say she could keep it right away because I want to set a good example. But it isn’t a ton of money so I assume the police would not be interested. So what do?
Where do you live? That matters, unless you’re just asking from an ethics perspective. I’m not asking you to dox yourself, country/state is plenty.
Assuming you’re Canadian(based off your instance being lemmy.ca) technically speaking you should report in to the police, and they’ll hold it for 6 months. After that if someone hasn’t claimed it you’re free to claim it yourself. At least in Vancouver. Maybe the laws are different in other parts of Canada. Your local police probably have a non-emergency number for pretty much exactly this purpose if you wanna double check.
Realistically, it’s not even $200. Probably keep it for a week or two and then tell the kid the cops couldn’t find the original owner.
The above is actually similar for the US. If no one lays claim to it, it becomes yours. It’s really hard to prove the source of a wad of cash with no evidence of ownership (like not being in a wallet), so it actually often ends up going to the person who found it.
I assumed. I know it’s similar where I live, but for all I know Montana has some strangely restrictive finders keepers law where if you drop your wallet and someone else finds it you can only legally reclaim it via a duel to the death.