Good Samaritans rule the day

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Story from tbt* news.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Shane Graber
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Paul Kinsella lost his wallet 100 times on the dot, all in the pursuit of knowledge. Kinsella wanted to know whether folks could be trusted, whether they're honest, upright citzens.

He spend a month dropping wallets around Belleville, Ill. He then tracked whether the finders would return the wallet and its contents -- $2.10 and a fake $50 gift certificate in each -- to the rightfull owner.

And here's the good news: They did. Oh, how the did. By a 3-1 ratio, they did.

"They actually took the time to do it." said Kinsella, 35, a Website designer.

Of the 100 "lost" wallets, 74 were returned to Kinsella. Deborah Watson-Texier was one of the good ones. Actually, her son, Pratt Texier, 23, found the wallet outside a grocery store. But Watson-Texier, 56, mailed it back. She made sure the money was still in there. "That was $2.10 that belonged to someone else." she said.

Kinsella posted his findings on a website called www.wallettest.com. He has links to videos of the 100 people finding the wallets, and three telephone conversations. The identities of the people in the video and sound clips are obsured. He got premission to record the telephone calls, he said.

Filming people in public areas is legal, said Robert L. Siciliano, CEO of www.IDTheftSecurity.com, and a national expert on privacy issues. In fact, he said, people should practically expect it.
"Anyone who elects to participate in society can't expect to have any privacy -- plain and simple," he said. "Privacy is an illusion. It's been gone for quite some time. From the moment the doctor slaps you, you're being recorded."

Kinsella admittedly had fun at the expense of some of the few people who didn't return the wallet. When one person calls and tries to redeem the fake $50 gift certificate, Kinsella tells the caller that he/see must answer a series of questions. After several minutes of meaningless questions, Kinsella evens gets one caller to admit personally sexual details. The caller is willing to endure all of this, in hopes, of making an easy $50.