Here’s something to brighten your day and renew your faith in humanity! It’s not exactly new news, but it’s worth a read. In a nutshell, this poor woman lost an expensive camera (containing 500+ photos) while on vacation in Hawaii. The nine-year-old son of a Canadian couple found the camera. His parents wanted to show him how to do the right thing by returning it to its owner. Well, as it turns out, their little spawn was having soooo much fun with it that he couldn’t bear to part with it, and now these assholes are letting him keep it. They even tried to use his recent diabetes diagnosis as an excuse.
Is your blood boiling yet? But wait, there’s more! After much haggling, they promised to at least return the memory cards and $50. Well, all the owner got was some CDs containing the photos. No money, no memory cards, no apologies. They even had the gall to say that she’s lucky to get even that much from them.
This sort of thing makes me ask: what the hell is wrong with some people? What example are they setting, and how can they justify such actions? I was vacationing in Hawaii last year with a new camera which, including all the trimmings, set me back around $1300. If I had lost it to scumbags like this, what would I have done in the same situation? Comments left on her blog by outraged readers encourage her to post the name and address of this demonic couple, but that’s probably not the best way to go. Other people have posted some interesting ideas on there, such as contacting their local newspaper, going to small-claims court, contacting the town’s mayor, posting their email address where spammers can sniff it out (something I’ve actually done to evildoers), and generally finding ways to shame them into doing the right thing. People like this don’t deserve a break, they deserve to be exposed and humiliated (preferably via newspapers or the legal system).
I found the original link on Boing Boing which, oddly enough, is now blocked by my company’s firewall. Lovely.
UPDATE: Looks like there is hope for humanity after all!