Frustrated with police due to cuts

[Cush]

On the way home I seen a wallet in the road at a busy junction, because I was on the bike I was able to stop and retrieve it. It has a driving licence, cash card and other things in it. On getting home I rang the police and was informed that as it was lost property there was nothing they could do. The constable did give me the web address to check the address on the driving licence. I have the wallet owners phone number and address. I have phoned the number several times and had no answer. I will try again after tea and if there is still no answer I will post the wallet to the address on the driving licence. I would have felt far safer if I had been able to hand in the wallet to the police station and they had contacted the owner. To me the police not handling lost property of this sort is a dishonest person's charter.

 

[Hill Wimp]

Contact the bank that the cash card belongs to, they will contact the owner who can then contact you.

 

[jefmcg]

Personally, of all the services the police could cut, lost and found property would seem to be the least necessary one, so the best to cut.

To me the police not handling lost property of this sort is a dishonest person's charter.

Dishonest people aren't going to be handing wallets in to the police anyway.

 

[Lonestar]

Probably best first thing the owner should do would be to cancel the cards straight away.When I lost my wallet last time this is one thing I didn't do but I got away with it.But that was bloody stupid.

Lost my keys last year and changed the locks asap.At least I was sensible for once.

 

[Dave7]

Was there more than £50.00 in it.............if so it's mine
Personally I would not post it as you have no idea of the domestic situation and the "wrong" person could get it and claim they never saw it. I would persevere on the phone......bit of a pain but worth it if the right person gets his/her property back.
I would also (when you speak to them) be vague and ask for some identifying details. (I speak from experience)

 

[Globalti]

We've had the same experience after finding a wallet packed with cards and cash in a layby in Scotland. The Police wanted us to go somewhere silly like Helensburgh to hand it in so we contacted the owner though the bank.

 

[Drago]

You can hand it in to a police station Cush. You can just wander in - for the 12 minutes a week they're now open - and hand it over the counter. Not a lot they can do with it over the phone.

 

[Col5632]

Not meaning to sound rude here but would you not rather "their" time being spent on more important matters?

 

[classic33]

Phone the number on the cards. Card issuier will cancel the cards, however be prepared to explain what you've done to try and hand them in/return them since you found them.

 

[Cush]

Not meaning to sound rude here but would you not rather "their" time being spent on more important matters?

What starts as lost property is sometimes stolen property. On three occasions over the last twenty years, we have found property in the woods bordering a well-used PRW. On each occasion, the police came and checked it out and on each occasion, the property proved to have been stolen from cars. So yes I do think lost property should be given a higher priority. On this occasion, I phoned the gentleman, because I had his address (it was around 50 miles from where I found the wallet)and he did not even know he had lost anything. Now I have arranged to hand it into a point where the gentleman and his family are known. So a satisfactory result but I would have still preferred to have handed it into a police station.

 

[Drago]

Then why didn't you just take it to a police station? Sounds like you tried to do everything except that which you actually wanted to do.

 

[Cush]

Then why didn't you just take it to a police station? Sounds like you tried to do everything except that which you actually wanted to do.

The police station was four miles away I rang them as soon as I got home or rather I rang a number and got a parrot machine and had to go through several numbers before finding a human. I had hoped the wallet would have been reported as lost. Apparently the police do not handle lost and found now and the emphasis is on the finder to return the property to the ownner

 

[winjim]

Walk into police station. Leave wallet on counter. Walk out again.

 

[Col5632]

Walk into police station. Leave wallet on counter. Walk out again.

Exactly, they can't exactly make you walk out with the wallet again

 

[jefmcg]

What starts as lost property is sometimes stolen property. On three occasions over the last twenty years, we have found property in the woods bordering a well-used PRW. On each occasion, the police came and checked it out and on each occasion, the property proved to have been stolen from cars.

Yeah, but these aren't the same thing. A wallet in the street with cash and cards intact has clearly been dropped. Things lying beside a PRW that have been stolen from cars would not look like lost property.

I'd forgotten, but I lost a wallet & keys a couple of years ago. I had to call two different police forces, and both told me to call back a week later, because if the wallet had been handed in it could be in a number of places, and it would take up to a (week?) to get to the central lost & found section. I also got the feeling that no one could say for sure where the wallet might end up if it was handed in and who I would need to talk to. I didn't bother calling back a week later, because I'd cancelled and replaced all the cards by then, had new keys cut and the D-lock angle-grinded. A lost and found for wallets that takes a week to return them is no real value to anyone, and clearly the system used quite a lot of resources. So annoying as it is for you, the person who lost the wallet probably got it back quickly enough to be of some value to him with no police time wasted. If you handed it in to a police station, it's quite possible he would have never got it, even if he had thought to call the police to recover it.

So you did a good thing. You should be happy.

And the police can concentrate on catching axe murderers