Boy Detective

[viking_cat]

Yesterday I found a lost pocket calendar. I picked it up to see if there was a name and phone number for the owner. There wasn't, but it was clear that the person who left it had their whole life in there -- including an AMEX number, and a social security number, and a passport number. Yikes - hello, identity theft

Comments

[asmor]

Maybe you could call American Express? They probably won't give you her info, but at the very least they might be willing to pass a message along to her. Customer Service is supposed to be one of AmEx's big selling points, isn't it?

At the very least, you might not be the first person to find the calendar, and it's possible that someone else might have copied the number, so it would be good to report it to them as lost.

BTW, I know how you feel. Whenever I find a USB drive lying on the ground I check it out for identifying information and try to contact the owner. Doesn't usually pan out, though... Maybe I come off as creepy. *shrug*

[shaggy_man]

Make sure you're confident in your anti-virus software, and especially that you have auto-run deactivated, before plugging in strange USB keys, though.

Back to the calendar: her privacy was shot the moment she lost her calendar. I don't think there's anything to feel guilty about, there.

[asmor]

I usually do it at school, where all the computers are frozen.

[viking_cat]

Wikipedia Brown and the Case of the Captured Koala: http://adamcadre.ac/content/brown/

[jenaflynn]

Calling Amex would probably be best. I lost my wallet once, and the finder called Citibank (My CC issuer), and they called me on my cell. Very helpful, and very awesome.

[viking_cat]

And, the calendar is properly handed back to its proper owner (who was sweet and brought us some flowers to say thank you.) Good deed done for the day!

I thought about calling the credit card company, but it was very unlikely anyone else saw the card # (if they had, they would have taken the whole calendar), and I didn't want to have her card canceled if there was an easier way of finding her. It was my fallback solution.

...also, it was way too easy.