Question: If I picked up an identifiable stored value card on a bus, is it alright for me to use it, and donate its worth to charity on behalf of its owner?
Answer: This seems alright in principle. However, the owner might return to look for it, and especially if he or she is poor, the card might matter much. My suggestion is to pass it any driver of the same bus service number, if you have already left the bus. The driver can be the temporal custodian of it, in case any passenger asks for it.
The driver might bring it to the terminal office as a lost-and-found item later, and if so, so be it, as the owner might look for it there too. Putting it back to where it was found might make it available to be found by the owner, but since there is a greater chance that it will be picked up by someone else and not returned, passing it to the driver is the ‘Middle Path’.
Related Article:
Is Picking Up Lost Money Stealing?
https://thedailyenlightenment.com/2013/08/is-picking-up-lost-money-stealing
It’s always right to return the lost item to the rightful owner. Last month one customer left her wallet at my sales counter. Couldn’t locate her after rushing out of my shop to find her. Me and my workmate decide to lookup her IC in the wallet n return the wallet accordingly. To our surprise, there’s no IC but we saw a thick stack of $50 dollars note n pile of credit cards.
We wrapped the wallet n left it in our cash counter waiting for its owner to return. Days past, still no sign of its owner. My last resort is to call the credit card bank to contact this customer on behalf.
On the eve of CNY, she appearred in our shop again asking if we had seen her wallet. She ( a foreigner) said she has been looking everywhere for it n this will be her last stop/hope.
When we shown her what she’s been searching, she broke down n was all tears…
Her comment was, she knew no one would ever return her wallet as there’s a few thousands dollars in it. She was very grateful to both of us and insisted we accept her cash rewards. We rejected it n she bought us a box of mandarin oranges n offer us good blessings.
Me n my workmate felt so great as we have return the lost item to the rightful owner 物归原主 n received good blessings. Such feelings are wonderful. I knew it coz someone ever returned my lost IC via mail eons ago. To him/ her with great thanks! Amitoufo (L)
Kudos,it is very enlightened to read your story and your virtue of not taken anything that is not belong to us. This is one of the 5 precepts. may you be healthy and well.
For the store value my opinion is same to the above answer plus why we should not bring it back because the is a possibility that we may arise our greed and use the store value.
For money that you pick up from the road side and without any ways to contact the owner. you can drop in to charities box in monastery and delicate the merits to the owner that lost the money and rejoice