Travel stories: The case of thousands of unclaimed dollars left behind

I was traveling around various countries in Central / South America many years ago when I just happened to be in a guesthouse on a day that was a very joyous one for the staff. I had befriended the American co-owner of the place over a beer or two the night before so a bit later on I was able to find out what all the fuss was about and he filled me in on what I consider to be a really interesting, bizarre, heartwarming, and perhaps a little bit spooky story.

The staff were thrilled because they were getting a couple hundred dollars each bonus that day and for a very odd reason.

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The reason why they were getting this bonus wasn't because of they had a great month, or some sort of government handout, or because they had really "killed it" as staff that month but because a customer who had stayed with them had left and envelope filled with cash inside of a pillowcase in the room when they left. There was thousands of dollars in cash inside.

The cleaners who found it immediately turned it into the owner according to one of the owners that I was talking to and first off, I thought that was just awesome. They could have just kept it but they turned it in due to honesty. I remember the owner told me that "from that point forward he would never suspect his cleaners of theft of any sort." I can understand that, the duo could have just claimed that they didn't find the envelope and there wouldn't really be anything that the customer could do about it. It's not like there would be any CCTV footage of it or anything. It would be a traveler's word against the word of a local, probably poor, employee. The cops are definitely going to side with her on this one.

This was more than a decade ago and I remember that the check in procedure at this particular guesthouse consisted of complying with the law to a minimal degree. You simply put your information into a ledger and the people checking you in wouldn't even verify that it was true. It used to be a game to some travelers including me to see how absurd of a name you could get away with putting in the books.

The owner looked in the ledger to check the email address provided by the guest who left the money behind only to discover that it was a fake. He also contacted the embassy with his first and last name only to several days later be told by the embassy that no one with that name is traveling in the country at the time.

So the guest used fake information, left what most people would consider to be a LOT of cash behind, and the guesthouse had not received any word from either the guest or anyone acting on his behalf that were looking for the money.

The owner decided to wait..... for a very long time....

I suppose there is a small chance that the guy called and the person who answers the phone told him they didn't find it, but as far as she was concerned she stood to gain nothing by lying to the guy since the money was now in the possession of the owner. One would assume there would be some sort of follow up or at least a bad review put online about the place if he had called and been turned away but nah... none of that happened, the guy who left the money behind simply vanished without a trace.

The day that I was staying there just happened to be the 6 month anniversary of that money being left behind and STILL no one had contacted him or his staff regarding the loss of the cash. Therefore, this was the day that he called a meeting and the staff didn't know why. The several thousand dollars in cash was being divided evenly among all of the staff. The two owners did not take a cut. They wanted to reward the honesty of the housekeeping staff and also make a big deal about how they were heroes of sorts and deserved to be rewarded for doing the right thing.

A couple-a-hundred bucks might not seem like a reason to scream in excitement to a lot of us but for the staff in this country this was around a month's wages so it was a fantastic call to excitement.

The reason why I said it was a bit spooky in the beginning of all of this was because it is very odd for a backpacker to simply not care about thousands of dollars. This was not a fancy place that I was staying in. I think their most expensive room was something like $15 a night. Him disappearing and not even making an attempt to retrieve the money makes me think that something sketchy might have been going on and perhaps something involving the drug cartels. It was that part of the world after all.

In the end the honest staff had a wonderful day and I was really happy to be there during it. I know I also didn't worry about anyone messing with my valuables in my room at that particular guesthouse.