Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Best Place To Lose Wallet Is Seattle City Has Highest Return Rate In Reader’s Digest Test

Associated Press

Reader’s Digest, looking for honest Americans, left a trail of 120 “lost” wallets across the national landscape and found the best return rate here.

Nine of the 10 wallets dropped in Seattle were returned with the $50 cash contents intact. The next-best results came from three small towns - Meadville, Pa.; Concord, N.H.; and Cheyenne, Wyo. - all with an 80 percent return rate.

The two other big cities tested trailed significantly - St. Louis had a 70 percent return rate and Atlanta was 5 for 10, said the Digest article, which appears in the December issue.

“I’m sure the tourist office will appreciate that,” Seattle police spokeswoman Christie Lynne Bonner said of the city’s showing. She said the department had no data to back up the Digest findings, and agreed timing, location and chance all likely played a role in the city’s return rates.

“Of all the No. 1 rankings that Seattle has received, this is the one that I’m the most proud of,” Mayor Norm Rice said, adding that the result “confirms the character and honesty of the people that make Seattle such a great community.”

The Digest survey was conducted in 12 communities. Returns of empty wallets - missing the $50 - were logged in the “kept” column.

Digest staffers watched to see what happened, and interviewed those who returned the wallets.

Some of those returning the wallets cited religion or belief in God, while others simply considered it the right thing to do, wrote the author of the piece, Ralph Kinney Bennett, a senior editor in the magazine’s Washington, D.C., office.

Some said they were moved by the baby picture placed in each billfold.

One of the wallets dropped here was picked up near the Space Needle by 9-year-old Mary Cha, whose father told her she had to find the owner or someone who could help return it to the rightful owner.

“Honesty is the most important thing a child can learn,” Yong Cha told the magazine.

The lone keeper in Seattle was a stocky, brown-haired man wearing a green shirt with black pin stripes. He picked up a wallet left on a staircase in the downtown Pike Place Market, slipped it into his black fanny pack and was never heard from again.

Here are the other results:

Suburbs - Los Angeles, 60 percent returned; Houston, 50 percent; Boston, 70 percent.

Mid-sized cities - Greensboro, N.C., 70 percent returned; Las Vegas, 60 percent; Dayton, Ohio, 50 percent.