Rewards roll in for homeless man who found bonds worth nearly $21,000

[deadparrot]

DETROIT Some people think 100 dollars isn't enough of a reward for a homeless man's honesty.

Charles Moore found 21-thousand dollars worth of U-S savings bonds in a Detroit trash bin last week while searching for returnable bottles. He took them to a homeless shelter, where a staff member tracked down the family of the man who had owned them.

For his good deed, the owner's son gave Moore 100 dollars. But some people think he deserves more -- and the donations have been rolling in.

One man sent him eight trash bags full of returnable bottles and a bowl of coins. Two businessmen donated 12-hundred dollars, a shopping spree and a lead on a job.

http://www.wstm.com/Global/story.asp?S=5193759&nav=2aKD

[NanceGreggs]

1. Thanks for sharing this!

I think we are all in dire need of some good news about people DOING for others!

[wicket]

10. Amen to that!

:kick:

[Pierre.Suave]

2. I saw that earlier

I am glad that he felt that doing the right thing was important, and that others see it as well.

[unblock]

3. not to be a party pooper, but

my understanding of u.s. savings bonds is that they are registered, and the physical notes are not needed to establish ownership with the government.

granted, someone who found them could use them as a good start on a fraudulent claim of ownership, but still, these are not bearer bonds.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. But if they were in the trash,

this fellow could have just left them there, and the family wouldn't have them. That he realized they were of value to someone is commendable.

[unblock]

5. what i'm saying that the the family WOULD have the money regardless

they wouldn't have the documents, but the government would still have a record of the rightful owners.

all they would need to do is go to the u.s. treasury and say they lost the physical notes and the government would simply reprint them (or perhaps cancel and reissue with a different serial number).

[stepnw1f]

7. The Act of Honesty and Kindness Still Stands

regardless of the details.

[unblock]

13. i agree

but i'd have to say it was far more of a symbolic gesture than it initially sounds.

the $100 reward was actually very generous under the actual circumstances, since the actual loss to them wasn't nearly that big.

[stepnw1f]

16. Agreed

I see your point. A good one too.

[unblock]

17. actually, i'm glad you were actually able to actually see it

beyond my overuse of the word "actual"....

sheesh, i need an editor sometimes....

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. If they knew they existed

And anyway, what I'm saying is the guy did the right thing, regardless. He saw something that looked valuable, and took it someplace so the rightful owners could be found.

[Joe Chi Minh]

18. You've missed the point entirely. Most people, myself included,

wouldn't know what kinds of notes are transferable and what kinds aren't, from a hole in the ground. And it's a pound to a pinch of.. well, let's be polite and say, "snuff", that if they'd been thousand dollar bills he was sure of being able to spend without facing questions, he'd still have done exactly the same. The best people think like that. It's why they're at the bottom of the heap. Some people never forget the goodness they learn as children. The rest of us tend to think forgetting it is what makes us mature adults. It's a topsy-turvy world we spend our mortal days in.

[pitohui]

11. you are correct, unblock

the family wasn't out anything, the treasury dept. will look up the bonds for you if you don't have the physical bonds when you're ready to cash out

[BrightKnight]

21. Paper savings bonds are being discontinued.

The new savings bonds are all online now. You manage them like a bank account.

You can also easily convert your existing paper bonds into online electronic bonds.

-------
I have replaced paper savings bonds before. You just have to fill out a form, get it notarized, and mail it in. I answered a few questions from an investigator. It was very easy.

It takes a month or two to get it sorted out.
===============

Helping the guy out was a very decent thing to do. I don't think that it is reasonable to expect the family to donate a large portion of their savings.

[saddemocrat]

6. 100?

If a homeless man had returned 12,000 in bonds to me, I would have given him at least 10%...

[pitohui]

12. they gave him more than 10 percent!

people don't have a good grasp of math 10 percent of zero is zero, zed, nilch, nada

as unblock first pointed out, and as you can verify for yourself, then it is not the physical bonds that are of any value

the gov't has a record that you bought the bonds, with your name and other identifying details including my social and the name of my heirs are on my bonds, even if the physical bonds are lost in flood, disaster, random housecleaning, etc. -- it doesn't matter, what matters is the record with the usa treasury dept

they gave him $100 for some pieces of paper they didn't even need to claim the $12,000

i don't know what else they could be expected to do

this is another case of the media deliberately falsifying what happened and what the rules are in order to make a "better" narrative

are there really this many people on DU who have never owned a savings bond? used to be a fairly common savings vehicle...

i'm glad the homeless man is getting help, but i object to having my emotions manipulated and my intelligence insulted by, let's face it, pretty much an outright lie -- the casual reader of the story is deliberately led to believe that the family would have been out the money if the homeless man hadn't been poking through the trash, they wouldn't have been out ANYTHING

[unblock]

15. not quite 10% of zero.

they would have been out $0.39 plus a bit of time and hassle.

but i agree. the irony here is that it's the $100 that's the real act of generosity here, and yet the story (and other posts) paints it as if that's inappropriately low.

[karlrschneider]

19. Let's not overlook the possibility that the heirs/owners did NOT know

that they didn't need the actual bonds to redeem them...and/or conceivably didn't know of their existence.

[DiverDave]

25. Oh, for petes sake...

It's 21K however way you look at it, the guy was honest, give him MORE!!

100 bucks is good?, to WHO?? you, or the down and out guy?
You seem to have a hard streak in you, and it's not pretty.

[Roland99]

9. "and a lead on a job". Best reward possible if he gets it.

[BadGimp]

14. uplifting = thx for the post

[BrightKnight]

20. .

[anotherdrew]

22. is that how WTSM spells twelve hundred? 12-hundred? weird.

[Yupster]

23. During the sixties and seventies

this was a staple sit-com plot.

Poor old guy looked down upon by townfolk.

Poor old guy finds 100 year old bond now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Towns folks all act nice to old man.

Bond turns out to be Confederate and everyone learns a valuable lesson.

[Peace Patriot]

24. Why would the homeless man try to return them to their owners, if he

thought they were worthless? Obviously, he thought they were valuable (--didn't have knowledge that DUers here have), and that's the most important part of this story. Not other DUers' ignorant assumptions. A HOMELESS man--a man without resources, scavenging in trash cans to keep body and soul together, stumbled upon something that seemed very valuable to HIM, that he thought had been thrown out by mistake, and attempted to rectify--to restore them to their owners. It DOESN'T MATTER whether the bond papers were in truth not valuable. And THAT's what deserves a reward. A random act of kindness. A selfless act. An honest act (especially if he thought he could have cashed them himself). You can't calculate the reward for an act of kindess and selflessness--on a 10% basis, or a 1% basis--ESPECIALLY such an act by a person in his dire circumstances. Nor can anybody judge the beneficiaries of the act, really. That depends a lot on THEIR circumstances.

What I think is so lovely about this story is the radiant power of acts of kindness and selflessness. Who knows where this began? Some kindness shown to the homeless man, which he passes on--then he attracts more kindness from others. They feel good about themselves for rewarding him, and those good feelings get passed along in different ways. And all of this gets passed to us, here at DU, by Deadparrot, via some reporter whose own day was made by stumbling across this story.

I hope it's all true. You never know these days. But I do think the "random acts of kindness" theory WORKS. I just wish we had a way to magnify it into the Middle East. (I was going to say the White House, but I think they have a new weapon of some sort, that shields the WH from "random acts of kindness" radiations.)

[rocktivity]

29. DING DING DING! Peace Patriot, you're our grand prize winner!

...(H)e thought the (bonds) were valuable...and that's the most important part of this story.

Right! It's the THOUGHT that counts--of both the finder and his rewarders.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Javaman]

26. Okay the donations are nice and all...

But what of the other thousands of homeless out there? What of the homeless Iraqi, gulf war and Viet Nam vets? Do they need to find someone else's money and return it to get help and donations as well?

We live in a land of total hypocrisy.

[redqueen]

28. dude please!

those other people you mention are hurting, yes. but their numbers are staggering. individuals can't help on that level, person-to-person. they can donate to organizations, but something like this allows people to give to someone they can identify with in some way.

that said, it truly will be a new day for humanity when more people stop expecting other people to do something special or noteworthy simply in order to deserve kindness and generosity. we should all give that without any expectations or prerequisites.

[Javaman]

30. "individuals can't help on that level, person-to-person."

One: don't call me dude.

Two: that kind of total ignorance is absolutely blinding.

How hard is it for a person to give up one meal a week and go feed a homeless person. Not hard.

How hard is it to keep bottles of water in your car to give out at street corners. Not Hard

How hard is it to actually take time out of all our busy schedules to take a moment to talk to a homeless person. Not hard and costs nothing.

Something simple as a smile or a compassionate voice can do wonders for anyone.

I'm speechless at that kind of statement you made.

I know of what I speak. I have been there. If you haven't had the pleasure of praying for food or hoping to eat, then you have
absolutely no idea what what it means to be homeless. Simple acts of kindness are what make a compassionate society.

All the efforts of donating money, giving food and clothing, always come down to a one to one effort. Who do you think gives their time to helping the homeless? Machines? Robots?

Most if not all of most if not all of the people that work for various charitable organizations volunteer. They are compassionate wonderful people.
That to me is one to one.

So next time you are at a traffic light and some person is there wanting, food, water or change, don't look away. If you don't have it to give, just say hello. Sometimes that's all it takes to make a person day. To be acknowledged.

Please rethink your statement, it's the philosophy of "someone else will do it" that only exacerbates the problem.

Arrrrrggggg!!!!

[redqueen]

31. dude!

hostile much?

what i meant was, they knew something about this person first. going and walking up to someone who may be drunk or crazy... not everyone's prepared to do that, dig?

was it that hard to get from my post?

and since you're grilling me about my personal experiences, yes, i've done all those things and more, so pbththbhthbhthbhtht!

peace :)

[Javaman]

32. If you have indeed done those things in the past then..

Your statement in your privous post is frankly, bizarre.

Look we can piss about this all day, but at the end of it, I choose to deal with people one to one, you don't.

Keep the money coming, we can still use it.

[redqueen]

33. huh?

i don't know where you got the idea that i don't choose to deal with people one to one. i was simply stating that most people don't seem comfortable doing that. that's all.

sorry for not making myself more clear in the first place

[IronLionZion]

27. There really is goodness left in the world.

Good for him for doing the right thing. Who cares if the bonds are meaningless pieces of paper? It's the thought that counts.

It's nice when poor people make the news and get help, but there are lots of good poor people out there that don't...