
I just lost my wallet on the way home from work - isp
https://twitter.com/Timcammm/status/1183782929614409729
======
SI_Rob
Every so often my pessimistic tendencies get a healthy slap across the face by
the actions of someone who took the high road when they easily could have
chosen otherwise.

It's a couple summers ago, at the height of the summer tourist season and I'm
cycling up 4th ave SW in DC. Somewhere between the NASA HQ and the National
Mall my camera bag - packed full with a fairly new DSLR, a few lenses, and a
secondary cell phone - came unbuckled from my messenger bag and tumbled to the
sidewalk. Probably a few thousand dollars of gear, not counting the
considerable hassle of resetting 2fa and credentials for every possible
account that could be tied to my phone (it was password-locked but I have no
idea how well that would survive a determined attack).

I was booking it pretty hard trying to catch a metro, so I didn't notice the
loss for a couple more blocks. After the only genuinely involuntary (and
painful!) facepalm I've ever given myself, I hurried back home (lived in town
close by) and immediately started cancelling every account when my main cell
phone rang. The bag was waiting for me, all contents undisturbed and intact,
in a hotel lobby a couple blocks away. An anonymous samaritan had picked it
up, brought it in and gave it to the concierge without a word, then walked
away. Concierge called me using my contact info in a business card that was
also in the bag.

In one instant, some unsung karmic superhero single-handedly erased the work
of several hundred asshole double parking jobs.

~~~
alexis_fr
Is it actually legal? In France, a bag in a public place is deemed to be a
bomb and the military has to come, secure the area and destroy it. Happens on
a routine basis, not even worth the newspapers. You don’t have such laws in
Washington DC?

~~~
mikestew
_You don’t have such laws in Washington DC?_

Funny you should ask. A few years back my wife and I were stuck in Reagan (an
airport in D. C.) for a super-long layover. As I'm watching my first ever
episode of _Archer_ , I notice the family a row over gets up and walks down
the concourse, leaving their bags. Now, I've heard a bit of their
conversations as I've sat there, and I gather they're American and probably
self-centered and clueless. Or maybe that's what the terrorists that just
walked away from their explosives _want_ me to think. Regardless, we're
sitting at the gate and there's a gate agent _right there_ , so I put this in
the "not my job anymore" bucket.

It's been a few years, but I'll bet it was at _least_ ten minutes before the
agent called security. It was long enough that I was about to get up and ask,
"ya know, I'm not the super-paranoid type, but don't you think you ought to
give the dog a little practice sniffing bags?" The dog and an agent or two
show up, give the bags a sniff, and wait for the owners to return. I was
disappointed that there wasn't at least a _little_ ass-chewing. I mean, what
U. S. resident doesn't know _not_ to do that? And if they don't, how about
driving that lesson home?

But anyway, we don't get too worked up about a random bag lying around.
Because in the U. S., thus far it hasn't been shown that it stands much of a
chance of blowing up. My sympathy to countries that have not been so lucky.

~~~
droithomme
If I'm going to take a piss or dump in the WC I'd like to think I can leave my
suitcase for a few minutes without people deciding I'm a terrorist.

Deciding I might be a terrorist because I went to the bathroom? That's what is
_absolutely batshit insane_.

~~~
mikestew
_Deciding I might be a terrorist because I went to the bathroom?_

No, because you left a container large enough to hold a fair amount of
explosives, a container that has been used in other parts of the world _at
airports_ to detonate explosives, and you just walked away from it. Tell me
what you believe to be the sane response. But if you just want to go take a
shit, by all means, do so.

And I'm with sibling comment: I don't let my bags out of my sight.

~~~
droithomme
People being paronoid pyschotics shouldn't affect my ability to take a poop in
peace.

Those suitcases full of explosives you are hallucinating about? Has NEVER
HAPPENED.

~~~
rovr138
First 2 links I found googling it,

> United Airlines Flight 629, registration N37559, was a Douglas DC-6B
> aircraft also known as "Mainliner Denver", which was blown up with a
> dynamite bomb placed in the checked luggage on November 1, 1955. \-
> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_629](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_629)

> An explosion at the New Tokyo International Airport (later renamed Narita
> International Airport) occurred on Sunday, 23 June 1985 at 06:19 UTC, killed
> two baggage handlers, and injured four. The bomb was intended for Air India
> Flight 301, with 177 passengers and crew on board, bound for Don Mueang
> International Airport in Bangkok, Thailand. \-
> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Narita_International_Ai...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Narita_International_Airport_bombing)

Not recent, but not “NEVER”.

~~~
droithomme
Those are both _checked_ luggage. Not briefly unattended luggage by someone
who is in the bathroom. Where's the articles about unattended luggage?

Also you got 1955 and 1985. 64 and 34 years ago. Checked luggage wasn't even
inspected back then. It is now. Still stuff gets through.

Are you arguing here that we shouldn't have checked luggage? Those are your
examples. Checked luggage. Not unattended luggage, which almost certainly has
already been inspected anyway when going through security. What now? Do we ban
checked luggage and carry on luggage even after both have been inspected?

I love all the downvotes from the haters and the crazy supposed examples that
prove my point for me. Facts and reality are not important. What's important
is hysteria and fearmongering, and to shut up anyone that talks rational sense
or is interested in a reality based approach to threat management.

------
ojosilva
Someone registered and paid for a new Netflix account with my gmail address
plus a point somewhere, which Gmail ignores. So I logged into the Netflix
account, thinking it was actually mine and this was some misunderstanding. I
realized that was not the case, so I to tried to get in touch with the person
but no other info was available, everything was done from his phone apparently
according to the account logs. I figured that reporting it to support would
not do much since they too did not have his info and no phone number was on
record, they would cancel the account and maybe the amount paid would be lost.

Finally the only way I found to notify the user was by creating/modifying
Netflix users with usernames as short telegraphic messages such as "you
registered", "using my email", " __*@gmail.com is mine ","contact me or change
it". That message would be visible as the user opened up any of the Netflix
apps or web app. It apparently worked as a couple days later my email stopped
being primary on the account and never got any Netflix emails at that gmail
inbox.

~~~
peter303
gmail has this weird bug that if I am XY@gmail.com, I also get email from
X.Y@gmail.com.

~~~
osrec
Is that just for you? Or in general for anyone?

~~~
will0
Gmail ignores periods in emails. It also ignores everything after the +.

So if your email is bob@gmail.com you can also use:

b.ob@gmail.com, b.o.b@gmail.com, bob+alice@gmail.com,

You can use the second one to do filtering. I.e. use a different +{filter} for
bills, entertainment etc.

bob+bills@gmail.com for bills. bob+spam@gmail.com for sites you know will spam
you etc.

then setup mail rules to filter based on the +

~~~
azthecx
What if my email IS a.bob.mail@gmail.com, if someone registers
abobmail@gmail.com are they getting my emails?

~~~
stef25
There's a slight chance the gmail developers would have thought of that
scenario.

------
lkrubner
In terms of the kindness of strangers, I’m reminded of a friend who decided
she wanted to hitch hike around Mexico when she was 18. She was poor but she
wanted adventures. She wanted to get away from the beaten path, away from
tourist traps, and go out into the rural areas so she could discover what
Mexico was really like.

Everyone who picked her up warned her that what she was doing was very
dangerous. She was lucky, they said, to get a ride from them, and not the
criminals all around them. She got ride after ride like that. Family after
family picked her up and took her along on their trip and all of them said,
“You are in danger! You are lucky we are the ones who picked you up!”

In this manner, she traveled around Mexico for a month, and she never had a
dangerous ride.

~~~
ericmcer
I frequently walked home from work in Oakland at 1am when I worked a night
shift. I always wore headphones too and people would tell me I was being
stupid. After about a year and a half of this I was coming up a hill to a four
way intersection when someone popped out from behind a fence just before I
passed it, grabbed my shirt and stuck a gun in my stomach.

He ended up being not the worst and let me keep my keys and license when I
asked.

It only takes once, and the consequences for her would probably have been much
worse.

~~~
exolymph
> the consequences for her would probably have been much worse.

Are you assuming that the mugger you encountered would have raped her? (To be
clear, I don't think that's a prima facie invalid assumption. It's a sincere
object-level question.)

~~~
omegabravo
No, they are assuming it could have been worse.

That includes the possibility of having a gun pulled on them like OP which
only happened once.

------
recursed
In Czech Republic, during presidential elections, one of the participants
(winner, Milos Zeman) opened a transparent as part of their marketing. That
meant that every transaction was visible along with donor, amount and a short
message.

Because Zeman is controversial person, it turned out badly. People started
spamming it with lowest amount possible (about 0.01 CZK) and wrote funny
messages. There were people selling their bike or computer, sending messages
to their mother from a trip. Two people even played boats there [1]. Even
ASCII Pikachu picture appeared there apparently [2].

[1]:
[https://1gr.cz/fotky/bulvar/19/041/anime/KIT7a6caf_imgbauer_...](https://1gr.cz/fotky/bulvar/19/041/anime/KIT7a6caf_imgbauer_mediadrpl_2017_26866_173351.jpg)
[2]:
[https://1gr.cz/fotky/bulvar/19/041/anime/KIT7a6caf_imgbauer_...](https://1gr.cz/fotky/bulvar/19/041/anime/KIT7a6caf_imgbauer_mediadrpl_2017_26866_173349.jpg)

EDIT: Transparent account was apparently mandatory for every candidate by law.

------
es-hn
Coincidentally, I was able to return four peoples' IDs and other cards just
this afternoon. Yesterday I was walking in East Oakland and found a pile of
credit cards, debit cards, and IDs. Oakland Police Department wouldn't take
them so I brought them home and started googling names and addresses.

Of the four IDs I found three belonged to adults; the third was a state ID for
a minor related to one of the adults. I was able to find a contact number for
all three, via relatives, and had reached them all by afternoon.

I learned that the person who'd dumped the cards had committed a series of car
break-ins in San Jose yesterday morning and had fled to Oakland. They stole
purses, laptops, and an iPhone. I wish OPD had taken an interest in the theft
or at least in returning the stolen property.

~~~
djrogers
> wish OPD had taken an interest in the theft

Sadly, in California most theft is merely a misdemeanor, and busy PDs do not
have time to chase down criminals to give them a ticket.

~~~
bradlys
> Sadly, in California most theft is merely a misdemeanor, and busy PDs do not
> have time to chase down criminals to give them a ticket.

But they sure do like camping out all the time to give people speeding and
parking tickets. Priorities!

~~~
superkuh
Speeding tickets make sense. They're putting people's lives in danger by
speeding. Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do regularly. Having
a set of predictable behaviors saves a lot of lives. People who think that
think they're "great drivers" or "everyone else is doing it" violate those
norms and create risk.

~~~
bradlys
> Speeding tickets make sense. They're putting people's lives in danger by
> speeding. Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do regularly.
> Having a set of predictable behaviors saves a lot of lives. People who think
> that think they're "great drivers" or "everyone else is doing it" violate
> those norms and create risk.

Speed at which you drive has very little to do with your predictability. "Oh,
no, Betty is driving 5 mph faster than me. I'll never know what she'll do
next!"

Even if you try to give an example of someone coming up on your left at a
50+mph difference, it's not an issue if you signal _and_ look in your rear
view mirror to make sure it's clear. Most people just don't do either.

~~~
perl4ever
"Even if you try to give an example of someone coming up on your left at a
50+mph difference"

70 mph in a school zone? Not an issue if you just look both ways before
crossing the street!

Seriously (not that you sound very serious) every morning, I make a left turn
out of my development onto a nominally 30 mph road where people go 40-45, and
it's impossible to see very far to the left before pulling out. Given normal
speeds, it is possible to make the turn before the oncoming car if they are
just out of sight.

So if anyone is _ever_ going 80 there at the wrong moment, it will be
impossible to avoid them and probably lethal to one or both of us.

~~~
bradlys
My example was mainly on a straight road because it's easy to understand. It
applies to curvy roads where you won't see ahead too though. As someone
driving, you should never drive faster than what you can see ahead and be able
to stop in time. I kind of imagine what I'd like to call a "meteor" incident.
Would I be able to stop in time if a meteor randomly crashed just outside of
my vision ahead in a turn? If not - probably going too fast. (It's not
uncommon to meet a "meteor" in the form of a car) One could call that
"speeding" but that's not what it is colloquially. (Speeding to most is going
1+mph over the posted limit)

If the visibility is good, there's nothing wrong with going faster. Aggressive
speed limits make more sense to be followed when there's very limited
visibility, high chance of stops, people crossing the road, intersections,
etc.

But if visibility is good, I don't see it making a difference much in what
speed you're going.

~~~
perl4ever
"As someone driving, you should never drive faster than what you can see ahead
and be able to stop in time. I kind of imagine what I'd like to call a
"meteor" incident. Would I be able to stop in time if a meteor randomly
crashed just outside of my vision ahead in a turn? If not - probably going too
fast."

Seems like you've ignored what I just wrote in the previous comment. If I make
a turn just as a car is barely out of sight, then at 40 mph there is just
enough time to go before it hits me, assuming my car doesn't stall or
something. If it is going much faster, say 80, then there would not be enough
time. If I have no model of other drivers, and assume anything can happen
outside my vision, which is what you seem to be expressing by the word
"meteor" then there is no way I can make a turn in either direction safely at
all, ever. The only way a person can deal with everyday situations is to
assume roughly "normal" behavior (both in a social sense and in terms of
physical law) and act accordingly.

~~~
bradlys
In this case, you're the meteor and the other person is at fault. They turned
a corner (I don't see how else they couldn't see the intersection - if it's a
straight then they can see the intersection - thus my cornering talk) and went
into an intersection where another car was already. It's no different than
someone romping over a very steep hill (very prevalent in SF) and assuming the
intersection they're running into is "clear". (It usually isn't!) It's not a
thing they can do and they shouldn't do it.

Either way - sounds like a bad intersection and they should design it
differently. (Turn on left with left arrow only, etc.)

~~~
perl4ever
"In this case, you're the meteor and the other person is at fault."

Ah, but I'm not. There's a lot of people who live in the same place I do, and
they all have to come out of that road in the morning. It's very predictable,
not like being hit by a meteor which billions of people have no experience
with.

People can and should plan for people turning out of side streets.

A "meteor" would be a car making a turn and stalling right at that moment.
Wanting to eliminate that sort of risk is probably related to the problems
people are having developing software for self-driving cars.

------
journalctl
This is neat! I once found someone’s debit card on the street (in the US). It
had a small face shot on it, so I found them on Facebook and sent them a
message. Of course, Facebook had already started doing the “messages from non-
friends are really hard to find lol” UI dark pattern, so like two years later
the woman responds thanking me, but also saying she just canceled the card.
Which is what I would’ve done, but I at least wanted to provide some peace of
mind or closure that it wasn’t stolen or anything.

~~~
mav3rick
"Dark pattern". Do you know how many unsolicited messages women receive on
Facebook ?

~~~
crooked-v
This is a legitimate concern, but the way to combat isn't to silently hide
messages behind unfamiliar UI. For a contrast, consider email junk filters,
which generally serve a similar purpose but are accessible enough to easily
scan through in case of legitimate messages being lost.

~~~
blackflame
I've come across a type of scam where someone on a dating app like tinder will
pose as an attractive person with the intention of trying to convince the
victim to engage in sexually explicit texts or snapchats. Once they do, the
scammer then looks up the friends of friends of the facebook profile
associated with the number and then tries to blackmail the victim with threats
of sending embarrassing texts to their closest friends. There are now TV
commercials warning about it too. The best thing you can do is beg the scammer
to post the texts, it really confuses the hell out of them and thanks to this
facebook feature, the threat is greatly minimized.

~~~
x220
Actually, the best thing you could do would be to not send someone pictures of
yourself you wouldn't like shared. Also, the scammer could just add them as
friends first.

~~~
blackflame
Yes that would be the best thing but sometimes kids aren’t wise enough. Yes
they could add all your friends, but the idea is to kill their incentive.
After all they’re banking on you being ashamed for their blackmail to get
money from you. Those that matter don't mind and those that do don’t matter.

~~~
x220
They would still probably send nudes to your mother out of sadistic pleasure.
Sometimes people get themselves into a situation where they have no good
choices to make.

~~~
blackflame
So what if they do? You can't let other people dictate your emotions or they
will take advantage of you any way possible. That feeling of shame and
embarrassment comes from within, not from the scammer, and therefore you have
power over it, not them. There's no sadistic pleasure to be had if the victim
doesn't care. If the victim doesn't care, why should the scammer waste their
time? But just in case they do, good thing there's that facebook feature that
hides messages from obscure users. By the time someone ever finds the message,
you can just say it was a deepfake.

~~~
x220
Just because it comes from within doesn't mean it's realistic to control it.
People feel shame for complicated reasons, and to stop feeling shame about
something would likely change parts of someone's personality. Maybe he or she
thinks that only special people should see them nude? You can't just will that
away. Plus, the perpetrator might be satisfied in knowing something like "now
all her friends will know what a slut she is" or whatever those people tell
themselves.

------
floatrock
I hate it when my cynicism alarm goes off, but this feel-good tweet about
hacking payment transfers for good is written by a guy who's twitter bio says
he's a PM at Transferwise ("We’re building the best way to move money around
the world.")

All the replies are people contrasting shitty experiences they've had with
their own wallets and money transfer services.

His top pinned tweet is:

> Reasons to work at @TransferWise:

> 1\. Irreversibly change the world of finance to be fairer

> 2\. Excellent office dogs [video of cute dogs running around]

I mean, I'd love this to be true, but the coincidences are uncanny.

~~~
timcameron
Hi, I’m the guy who lost his wallet! I agree it’s a convenient overlap and
understand your cynicism but I assure you that it’s genuine. I can even
provide you with the receipt from me riding a jump bike around for an hour
looking for my wallet! :)

EDIT: spelling + I did pin the tweet about transferwise after it blew up, and
I also changed my bio to share my small side project: Podmast.com - check it
out :)

~~~
dpcan
You're making it worse.

Anyone can conveniently lose a wallet, but one with a bank card with no
identifying info in it anywhere? A finder who went to bizarre lengths to make
Faster transactions to your bank account to send you a message? Absolutely no
other identifying information in the wallet? A plan to ride a jump bike around
to prove you looked for it with receipts?

Before sending someone pennies with context in the transactions, hoping that
person would get them before they canceled all their bank accounts because
they lost their wallet, I would just take the card to the bank and have them
call the owner, or take it to the police and they'd do the same.

Uhg, sorry, "I ensure you" and "jump bike receipts" is not enough to convince
me.

EDIT: Removed the quotes from Faster, my point seemed to get lost because of
that.

~~~
coriny
Um, this is how banking works in the UK. Nobody cancels their bank account if
they lose their card, they just cancel their card. And given someone else's
card I could send them 1p within a minute (even if it's cancelled). Now I've
seen this approach, it's what I'll do next time. And it doesn't involve the
poster's company in any way, transferring thousands of pounds instantly within
the EU is trivial.

~~~
tialaramex
Also in a lot of cases these days you don't even have to cancel the card.

If you're like "Oops, that's gone" and it fell into a waterfall or something
then, sure, you cancel it and have a replacement sent, but say you just got
back from the store and it isn't in your wallet. You call a modern bank. "Hi,
I think I lost my card maybe?" Good chance they say - "OK, we'll freeze the
card, call us if you find it or if you give up and we'll send a new one".

~~~
coriny
Both my accounts I just freeze it in the app, but yes, quite.

------
isp
See also ancient bash.org lore:
[http://bash.org/?814243](http://bash.org/?814243)

~~~
blunte
When I see bash.org, my first thought is, "I put on my robe and wizard hat."

~~~
adambowles
For reference: [http://bash.org/?104383](http://bash.org/?104383)

------
hesk
Since we're sharing, I lost my wallet in the park on the day before I had to
hand in my thesis. When I realized it was gone, I just blocked my bank card,
but otherwise I put it out of my mind because I was focused on last-minute
changes. An hour later or so, the police called and told me that someone had
handed it in and that I could pick it up at the station. I told them that I
would do that the next day because my thesis deadline was more important. So
they sent two officers to my address and and brought me my wallet. Talk about
service!

------
marai2
Two weeks ago in Maui at the visitor center at Mt. Haleakala a distraught
young woman came in saying she had dropped her wallet somewhere between the
visitor center and the peak. When she went to the women's bathroom in the
visitor center to check if she might have dropped it there, she found someone
else had forgotten their iPhone by the sink. Within a few minutes an older
couple walked into the visitor center and said they had found a wallet on a
hike but had lost their iPhone :-) Two individuals each finding the others
lost item was pretty karmic!

~~~
mlthoughts2018
and at that moment the volcano erupted..

------
neor
I found a wallet once. It has a bankcard in it, so I called the bank, telling
them I had found the wallet of one of their customers and asking them if they
could help me return in to the owner.

They weren't allowed to give contact details of the owner to me, but they were
allowed to forward my contact details to the owner of the wallet.

Through this route we eventually got the wallet back to its owner. Took half a
day to get everything in order, but man were they happy to get the wallet
back.

~~~
jen729w
Same find, in Australia. But they (Commonwealth) wouldn’t entertain _any_
swapping of details. I was just on the phone to the service centre and I
thought all was lost ... but of course they said “just take it to any of our
branches and we’ll sort it out”.

So I lose the satisfaction of closure — who knows what happened to that thing
after I handed it over — but this does feel like the most-safe option.

------
nostromo
It reminds me of the automated collect calls of yore.

"You have a collect call from 'GAME IS OVER PICK ME UP MOM THANKS'. Would you
accept the call?"

~~~
astura
That's a classic Geico commercial, one of my favs.

[https://youtu.be/jWPlfWwgFKI](https://youtu.be/jWPlfWwgFKI)

------
einpoklum
Life lesson:

Keep a note with your email address in your wallet - clearly marked "wallet
owner's email".

Paranoid version of the life lesson:

Keep a note with an anonymized email address, with forwarding set up for the
message to go to your actual mailbox, in your wallet.

~~~
periferral
I assume your drivers license is in your wallet. You are concerned about
anonymized email?

~~~
larkeith
I imagine the bigger concern is that it's pretty easy to social engineer your
way into most online accounts with an email and the info from a drivers
license.

------
taude
I was riding my mountain bike in the woods about 5 years ago. I found
someone's wallet in there. Looked them up on Facebook and LinkedIn and sent
them some messages. Never heard back from them for a few years.

Then one day, they responded to my Facebook messenger message that they didn't
notice my original message. I never looked deep in the wallet, but evidently
there was some sentimental stuff in there they were happy to have back. I
can't believe I held onto that wallet for so many years.

------
trollied
I once lost my wallet the night of a work Christmas party. Went through the
trauma of cancelling cards etc, getting some cash from the bank branch to tide
me over, using my passport as ID. A real pain.

Found it a few months later in the back pocket of my smartest suit trousers,
which I’d drunkenly hung up in the wardrobe. Never thought to look!

FML.

At least I found £50 that I assumed had gone forever.

------
m-i-l
Nice hack.

The "official" way of dealing with lost property in the UK is to take it to
your local police station. If no-one claims it within 6 weeks, you might be
able to keep the item. I certainly remember doing this a few times when
younger. Not so sure many people know this nowadays.

Anyway, my mother lost her purse a few months back in the small town in
Scotland where she lives. Someone suggested she try her local police station
(actually not so local any more thanks to the current government having closed
over 600 police stations[0]) and lo and behold someone had handed it in there!

[0] [https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/600-police-stations-
shut-...](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/600-police-stations-shut-in-
eight-years-nvjdjwmwj)

~~~
tapland
Going to a local bank also works. And you want to do that to get their cards
replaced/blocked as well. And they have the owners contact details.

~~~
Marsymars
I've found bank cards a few times and have called the bank in question,
they've just thanked me, made a note of it, and asked me to destroy the card
myself.

------
tobr
My bank only seems to allow 12 characters.

Why is that? What am I even supposed to do with 12 characters?

~~~
lucb1e
Mine allows about an original tweet in length, but forces a line break in the
middle, and it disallows dangerous characters. Just the usual suspects that
always break everything and cause database tables to be dropped or commands to
be injected. Exclamation marks are super dangerous.

I never understood this.

~~~
larkeith
Honestly, I can understand stripping characters at a large organization like a
bank. It _shouldn 't_ ever be necessary, but it protects against that
brainfart/junior dev/marketing analytics software, with little cost.

------
midvar
Am i reading too much into this?

The twitter user just so happens to works for a company that uses the
technology the "good Samaritan" used. I just glanced at who the guy was, and
found it funny that he works in the industry. Who knows, maybe that's why he
found it so awesome.

"In April 2018, TransferWise joined Faster Payments as the first non-bank
payment service provider to be a directly connected settling participant,[23]
after being the first of its kind to gain access to Bank of England's Real-
Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system.[24]"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments_Service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments_Service)

"Money transfer firm TransferWise has become the first non-bank company with
direct access to Britain’s Faster Payments Scheme, which the start-up said on
Wednesday would help it compete with banks on sending money overseas."

[https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-transferwise-
britain/start...](https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-transferwise-
britain/start-up-transferwise-breaks-into-britains-faster-payments-scheme-
idUKKBN1HP110)

~~~
p0llard
Yes.

Pretty much any domestic bank transfer initiated electronically via
mobile/online banking will be cleared through Faster Payments up to a limit of
about £25,000 ($32,000) for most banks (the theoretical limit is an order of
magnitude higher), making it the de facto way of transferring money in the UK.
When I was a student, bank transfers by Faster Payments were more common than
cash payments for settling small debts between friends.

In addition, BACS/CHAPS transfers (the other two main electronic clearing
systems in the UK) typically incur fees, and would normally only be used if
the value exceeds the limit for Faster Payments. In addition, Faster Payments
normally clears "instantly" (i.e. in seconds); it's literally the most
convenient way I know of to transfer money domestically in the UK, and is
accordingly ubiquitous: cash requires you to have exact change and have cash
to hand, which is increasingly rare in Europe; BTC addresses are too long
compared to a UK account number/sort code.

Having recently moved to the US for a year, I've noticed that the financial
institutions tend to be years/decades behind Europe in terms of electronic
payment processing and clearing.

~~~
davchana
This... In India we have UPI Unified Payment Interface, in which with a bank
account & phone number, you can signup to any of the tens of participating
banks UPI address, in format of user@bank Mine is dav@hdfcbank. Totally safe &
one way only, incoming. You just need to plug this into your bank app, in
micro seconds the money will be out of your account & in to my account. Works
24x7x365

------
henvic
I feel pleased reading the stories on the comments here.

Two years ago, I was in a mountain ski resort in Big Sur with some friends and
found an iPhone (with no emergency contact) with a wallet case containing an
ID card on the floor. They were afraid of taking it from the floor. Still, I
had just been past the security office, took it without thinking at all, and
went straight to it while trying to find the girl who lost if on Facebook to
send her a message.

When I arrived there, I was holding the ID to copy the person's name in the
Facebook search. There was a queue with some people talking with the security
officer there. Once it was my time, I was putting back the ID.

The officer was such an asshole, I thought he might call the cops to question
me about it.

I said I found the phone on the floor. The officer kept me asking why I went
through someone's else things. Multiple times like I was doing something evil.

I got upset really quick and told something like 'look, I found this on the
ground full of snow and am trying to find the owner' and left the office
immediately.

I told my friends (all Brazilians, like myself), and they told me the culture
there was different, and probably I should have asked someone to come over to
retrieve the object instead of taking it there on my own, as I didn't want to
be accused of anything. I never bought this explanation.

Despite what happened, I'd have done the same again.

------
astura
Stupid American question - how does someone get your bank account information
from your wallet in the UK?

~~~
chrisseaton
You bank account information is written on your bank cards, which are in your
wallet.

~~~
chrisweekly
Not always! My debit card # is not the same as the checking account # with
which it's associated.

~~~
tialaramex
That makes sense, the debit card will be EMV compatible so it'll need a number
that's about 16 digits long, because that number needs to be unique compared
to all the world's payment cards.

However most such (debit) cards in the UK have the associated account number
and "sort code" in smaller type on them too. Certainly all the ones I've ever
had are like this.

------
oil25
Does Twitter not allow connection from the Tor network any more? What a
depressing reality.

> 403 Forbidden: The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill
> it.

~~~
julianz
Nah I think the tweet is gone, I can't see it from a browser. (edit, weirdly I
tried again and it worked. Definitely errored with a strange error the first
time)

~~~
pugworthy
No, the tweet's still there

------
perlgeek
Around 2007-2009, Germany had fairly expensive SMS on mobile plans, but bank
transfers within Germany were usually free, and Swift transfers allowed like
200+ characters of text.

Me and some friends knew each other's bank account numbers due to shared
orders and stuff, so we would send each some joke amounts typically smaller
than 20 cents just for the cool messaging medium.

------
zenit-mf-1
It remind me this study “ Would You Return This Lost Wallet?” published on nyt
back in June 2019.

[https://www.google.fr/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/scien...](https://www.google.fr/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/science/lost-
wallet-what-to-do.amp.html)

------
bobsoap
Great story.

I seem to keep finding cash. The first time when I was 9, a couple hundred
between racks in a department store. I showed my mom and we brought it to
Lost&Found. A year later after nobody had claimed the money, they called us up
and gave it to me as the finder. I promptly invested it in a shiny new
skateboard.

The last time I was walking behind two guys on the street and one of them
dropped a bundle of bills. He didn't notice. I picked them up and yelled "hey,
stop!" after them. It was dark. I'm sure they heard me, because they stopped
talking to each other, but they quickened pace without looking around. I kept
yelling at them - in hindsight it must have come across as aggressive, because
they just kept hurrying away. At last one of them turned around, saw that I
wasn't trying to jump them, and gladly accepted his money back. He wouldn't
let me go until I reluctantly accepted $20 as a thank you.

------
consp
This is very nice use of the (now) mandatory message space for SEPA transfers!

Ah, this reminds me from the days when Dutch postbank transfers were
instantaneous if not send to another bank. A friend and I did a chat with the
short messages you could send. We even got a printout of all the 1 ct messages
as that was still a thing back then.

~~~
OJFord
It's (UK standard) 'Faster Payments' l, not SEPA. I don't know if it's
mandatory, but all the (five that I recall) banks I've used since its
introduction have supported the reference/message field. It's usually pretty
instant, especially if intrabank.

------
jere
I worked at a university a while back. Found a student's wallet in a park one
day while running, but I couldn't find any contact info. I looked them up in
the university database to find their phone number and was able to meet up to
return the wallet.

I'm pretty sure I could have been fired for that.

------
major505
I once was comming back from academy, and was late, so I didn`t want to stay
and shower there, and decided to go home in may exercise clothes. When I was
going inside the car, I put the duffle bag containing wallet, clothes and
watch, OPN the car roof to open the door, and forget there.

When I was on my way home, it fell somewhere. I didn`t even notice.

I got home, showered, I was getting ready to go to bed when I got a call from
some guy.

Turns out he was walking with his dog, and saw the duffle bag fall of the
roof. He took a look inside, and there was my Id and a business card, but not
my contact information.

He recognized the business card because it was someone who got to med school
with him. I was my step mother busIness card.

She gave he my cel number. I was incredible luck that day.

------
needle0
Anything that can hold arbitrary text and can be seen by more than one user
eventually becomes used as email.

About a decade ago, I discovered a featurephone-based BASIC programming
environment (as in, you write code directly using the phone itself) where you
can upload programs you've written and download programs by others. There had
sprung up a cottage industry of programming kids whose sole access to
technology were their phones; that was pretty amazing & amusing in itself, but
I laughed out loud when one of the uploaded programs consisted entirely of
comment lines, essentially using uploaded source code as a message to one of
the users of the service.

------
97b683f8
Another solution is to look up the BIN (bank account identifier, i.e. the 6
first digits of a credit card number):

[https://binlist.net/](https://binlist.net/)

Then drop the wallet at the bank's closest office.

~~~
Symbiote
Can't you just look at the big logo on the front of the card that says
"Halifax Bank" or whatever?

~~~
adtac
Hahahaha overengineering at its finest

------
Fnoord
I've lost my wallet multiple times in my life. Always got it back, intact (ie.
nothing missing). Why? Because most people (99%) are good, and people are
empathic to such circumstances. They'll help you out. I've done the same (in
The Netherlands, the police will forward it to the city council).

Last time was a year ago. I lost my wallet out of my back pocket at a tunnel,
on the road. I did not even know I was missing it, when someone was on the
door. His son found it. I gave him a bottle of wine as a gesture (couldn't
come up with something different, it all went fast).

------
sincerely
On the flip side, I knew a woman who started being stalked by her ex after
they broke up. Even though he was blocked on everything he was sending her
e-transfer requests with abusive stuff in the comments field.

------
JenBarb
A few weeks ago I found a working iPhone X on the side on the sidewalk. I
thought about using siri to call a recent contact and try to get it back to
the owner, but I found the language was set to Chinese (which I cannot read or
speak) and I gave up and put it back on the sidewalk in case the owner came
back.

In retrospect, I don't think I could have done anything even if the language
was English apart from wait for the owner to call their phone. That said, I'm
curious if anyone has any suggestions about how I could have been a better
Samaritan.

~~~
faeyanpiraat
Use google translate text-to-speech function, and make your phone ask the
other phone in Chinese to "call mom".

~~~
netsharc
"Wei?"

Then what?

(It's the Chinese greeting when picking up the phone)

------
spoondan
Hmm. That’s neat. But usually someone has a bank card or other membership card
with a support line on it. Is there some reason to not just call one to report
the found wallet?

The times I’ve found a wallet, I’ve called one of those support lines. The
support person was able to contact their customer to give them my phone
number. The customer called/texted me, and we arranged for them to pickup the
wallet. This has worked every time to get the wallet back to its owner within
a couple hours of my finding it with minimal inconvenience to me.

~~~
royce
It depends on the organization. Some larger financial institutions are
sometimes more likely - or even bound by internal policy - to simply trigger
their standard card-cancellation procedures.

Instead, one could present the financial institution with the hypothetical
question, and then only give the specifics if the institution's policies are
non-destructive.

If the finder is a decent sort, and has the time to try alternatives, I'd
rather get the cards back intact than to have to do the cancellation dance.

------
anonytrary
When I was in grad school, I was 10 miles from home without a phone. I had
been walking for miles, and eventually found a beat up old Galaxy-S3 on the
road. I picked it up, turned it on, and it happened to still be logged into
Facebook. So, I posted a new status on their Facebook account: "Hey, I found
your phone -- give me a ride home if you want it back".

It worked. About a half hour later, I was sitting in their car, getting a ride
home in exchange for the phone they lost, which I happened to find out in the
middle of nowhere.

------
lqet
The ticket machines of the German railway system print the ticket before
releasing the bank card (to prevent a charge if the printer is broken), which
makes it very easy to forget the card in the machine. Happened to me twice,
both times someone found the card, brought it to a branch of my bank, which
sent the card to the branch in my home town, which then contacted me, saving
me the 10 EUR for a new card. Thanks, strangers!

------
jayalpha
Interesting approach. I would have the wallet given to the bank. The bank
can't disclose the phone number of the customer but will be happy to give him
a call and tell him he can pick it up in the branch.

I remember vaguely having given a wallet with some ID and a business card of a
medical doctor to the office of the doctor. They will never disclose private
information but will call the owner himself.

------
wruza
_Beware of lost wallet frauds_.

At some countries they drop a wallet on the road, wait for you to find it and
then appear and claim that few hundred bucks (or a local equivalent) are
missing. First they try to threat you, and then resort to the police. Your
fingerprints are on the wallet.

If you want to help, make sure you have a stranger witness at least, who is
willing to help, or better look for a policeman nearby.

~~~
wruza
Similar fraud: a guy who looks like a bad guy “finds” the wallet near you,
makes sure you seen it and then inclines to split it. “Don’t even try to call
cops!”, take your cut, etc. If you take it, even out of confusion, bad guy
vanishes and their friends come and claim they seen all in reverse and that
_you_ took most of the money. Banknotes with known serials / pen marks are in
your pocket, threats, police.

~~~
abhgh
Here's a variation I've seen: bad guy finds jewelry (necklace/ring) near you,
making sure you've spotted it too. Then you get in an argument for ownership.
He suggests splitting the cost - he would leave if you pay him, in cash, half
the estimated price of the expensive-looking but fake jewelry. And then, of
course, he vanishes.

------
smoe
Wouldn't it be much easier for the finder to just get in touch with the bank
and ask them to notify the owner?

I once got a call/mail from my bank giving me the contact details of someone
who had found my lost keys that had an RSA SecureID token generator thing on
them and the finder called the hotline imprinted on it.

I don't remember much details around it since it happend in the mid 2000s.

~~~
wues
No it wouldn't. Sending three or four transfers from mobile banking app is for
sure faster than finding bank number, calling them, listening to the info that
the conversation will be recorded, listening to the menu, then listening to
music interrupted with "we will be with you shortly" etc. I guess I could send
20 transfers at least during this time.

------
hayyyyydos
Interesting that there's an 18 character limit. In Australia, with the NPP
(equivalent to UK's Faster Payments), your description can be up to 280
characters including, of course, emoji.

Out of curiosity, does Faster Payments allow you to pay to any other
identifier (email address, phone number), or only bank account number? More
importantly... does it support emoji?

~~~
Liquid_Fire
> does Faster Payments allow you to pay to any other identifier (email
> address, phone number)

There is a system called Paym which lets you send money to (the bank account
associated with) a phone number, but you have to sign up for it explicitly to
associate your phone number with your account, and I personally have never
used it nor heard of anyone I know using it.

> does it support emoji?

I believe it's limited to some subset of uppercase ASCII only. However, some
banks allow emoji for transfers to other accounts within the same bank (e.g.
Monzo).

------
debt
What's a "reference"? You can enter arbitrary info during a transaction?

Genuinely curious. Is this a UK thing or available everywhere?

~~~
Scarblac
In the Netherlands, for at least the last 35 years, transaction forms have a
field "Description" where you can enter arbitrary text. Originally on paper,
now electronically.

Is that in any way remarkable?!

~~~
vincentmarle
In the US, you pay $16 to send a wire and $16 to receive a wire. So, wires are
not as common as in Europe.

On the other hand, ordering your bank to print a paper check, and send it
through postal mail is free of charge.

~~~
Nition
$16 to pay someone? How do you do something like transfer your friend some
money? Or pay someone who did some work for you?

Here in New Zealand you'd tend to get their bank account number and send them
a (free) direct deposit through your bank's Internet banking service. Until
very recently that was also the main payment method for our eBay auction site
equivalent TradeMe (they've now started a sort of PayPal clone called Ping so
that they can skim a little extra from each auction).

But I've heard people can potentially withdraw money from your account if they
have your account number in the US?

~~~
samfriedman
in practice, no one uses the banks directly to send money like that: we use
apps like Venmo / CashApp that take your debit card/bank info and act as an
intermediary for sending/receiving money.

~~~
petschge
A lot of US based startups make a lot more sense to us Europeans in case we
move to the US and notice how broken all infrastructure is.

Banking still uses cheques, so you have Paypal, Venmo, CashApp and so on.

Public transport is bad or even non existent which is why Uber and Lift exist.

The programm of over-the-air TV sucks and you get Netflix, HBO, Hulu and so
on.

~~~
wolco
Over the air has the newest stuff. Streaming is for yesterday's hit.

Uber exists because taxis suck.

Cheques are safer and more portable than give me your bank account because you
choose where to deposit.

Paypal is for websites no stores accept it and doesn't replace a cheque

~~~
Nition
> Cheques are safer and more portable than give me your bank account because
> you choose where to deposit.

Maybe it's different in the US, but I have a different account number for each
of my bank accounts. So I can still choose where I want to deposit someone's
money when I give them my account number, by choosing which account number I
give to them. And no-one has to go to a bank.

~~~
wolco
That's true you can give out different account numbers. You can't change that
once you give it out though a cheque allows you to decide at the very last
moment.

~~~
mynameisvlad
Is it _really_ that hard to receive the money then transfer it to the right
account?

Yes, it's an extra step, but you're already doing way more steps to cash a
cheque than use a transfer service where you only give an account number and
suddenly the money is there.

IMO, this sounds like a solution looking for a problem to me.

------
alias_neo
A few years ago I found an iPhone on the floor in central London. I was on my
way to dinner with friends that were in town for a couple of hours, so I put
it on the table and waited for something to pop up.

Eventually a message popped up with a full First Name and Surname, so I got my
phone out, looked up the name and found the guy on twitter, I asked him about
who he'd messaged saying I'd found this phone, I'd like to get it back to its
owner.

Before he replies, the device starts ringing because FindMyiPhone had been
activated.

A couple of minutes later this girl barges into the restaurant, grabs the
phone from the table and starts shouting abuse at me and accusing me of
stealing it.

I apologised and explained that I had been trying to get the phone back to
her, but I'm also out at dinner with friends, and I'd found it practically in
front of the restaurant, so I hadn't wondered off with it somewhere.

The last thing she shouted at me before leaving was "why didn't you just call
one of the numbers in the phone then, or message someone?" at this point, my
patience had ended with this idiot. "Because it's locked you dumb bitch" as
she stormed out.

Anyway, this guy replied, turns out it's her cousin, he apologised for her
attitude, and thanked me for my effort. I asked him to give her a promise,
that if I come across lost property in London again, I'll just step over it
and carry on, thanks to her.

I don't go out of my way anymore to return things I see on the floor.

------
calewis
I left my laptop (£2,000+ MBP) on a train in the UK (South eastern rail). Some
amazing human handed it in, yay! The rail company charged me £30 to collect it
as an admin fee.

Now, when I find things, and this happens relatively often (I've no idea why)
I find the individual using social channels like LinkedIn or waiting them to
call the phone.

------
mmmbn
A little over 2 years ago I found an iPhone while I was passing by Subways in
downtown Palo Alto at around midnight. Before I had time to figure out how to
get the phone back to his owner the owner called and I told him in the first
sentence that I just found his phone, where I am and that I‘ll wait for him to
pick it up.

------
tim333
It's a shame Apple makes it so hard to return their devices. I've tried with a
locked phone and AirPods but thought they have serial numbers and probably
Apple's databases have owner info they totally refuse to forward any "it's
been found" type messages.

~~~
pflenker
I think with "find my phone", it's possible to display a message on the phone
- provided it is switched on and connected.

------
joeblau
About 4 years ago, I found this credit card on the street in Pittsburgh when I
was walking home. When I got home, I just emailed the persons
firstname.lastname@gmail.com. They actually responded and I walked back to
near where I found the card and gave the guy his credit card back.

------
Stratoscope
What a strange coincidence: just a couple of days ago our local Nextdoor had
someone who found a wallet in the street.

She found his debit or credit card in the wallet and went to the local branch
of his bank. They called him and he got in touch with her, and wallet was
reunited with its owner.

------
epx
If social media posts cost 0.01, things would be way better.

~~~
kart23
this might actually be a decent idea for an instagram competitor. Sounds
dystopian, but I'm sure a good marketing department could make it seem normal.

~~~
epx
If I had deep pockets I'd actually work on this idea. One issue I find is the
processing cost of such nanopayments. Cryptocoins didn't live up to the
promise of enabling this use case :(

~~~
djrogers
Just bill monthly. Your power company doesn’t process a charge of $.08 every
time you use a KWh of electricity...

------
major505
Was easier just to call the bank, and leave a message to the manager.

I once found credit card on the floor. I searched the agency on the internet,
talked to the account manager, and left my contact info. The manager talked to
the owner, and the guy give me a call.

------
confidantlake
My license dropped out of my pocket when I was visiting a friend in a town 2
hours drive away. Didn't even notice until I got home. 3 weeks later it shows
up in the mail. A stranger went through all that trouble to mail it back to
me.

------
concordDance
I lost my wallet in the centre of town but didn't notice. The next day a
stranger knocked on my door on the outskirts of town to give it back!

I'm thankful that a drivers license mentions addresa, would have been annoying
to replace all those cards.

------
blunte
Why does "acccount" have three Cs? Is that really production code screenshot?

------
esseti
Has anyone understood how this has been done? how can you place a message in a
transaction like this?

If not mistaken this was done via contactless payment, right? how is that
possible to add a message? (maybe you can in some country)

~~~
Liquid_Fire
It's not a contactless payment, it's a bank transfer. The person who found the
wallet sent payments of £0.01 to the owner. When you make bank transfers you
can include a short payment reference which can be any text you want, and it
appears on the other person's statement.

The UK has the Faster Payments Service which enables most bank transfers to be
completed in a few seconds, so they would have seen the messages immediately
as soon as they logged into their bank account to freeze the lost card.

~~~
esseti
now i got it, so he sent the money to the owner, and the owner had the switf &
co in the wallet, but not his data. that's strange :)

~~~
Liquid_Fire
It's not so strange. Many debit cards in the UK have the sort code and account
number printed on them, which is all the information you need to send money to
that account.

------
sakopov
Similar situation with a lost kindle [1]

[1]
[https://twitter.com/MbyM/status/1183796234420736002](https://twitter.com/MbyM/status/1183796234420736002)

------
callumprentice
I once found someone's iPhone in a shopping basket at my local supermarket and
spent the whole day getting it back to them. I decided to buy a lottery ticket
- after all, my cosmic karma must be running at an all time high.

But first, I'll make myself a nice cucumber salad and I'll use that new
mandoline slicer we got - protective dongle thing be damned (The very same
mandoline slicer my wife told me to be every so careful with before she left
on her trip). Wow.. this is cool - every slice of the cucumber is identical
down to the en.. OW!

Sliced my finger opened and spent the evening in the ER getting half a dozen
stitches and the top of my finger sewn back on.. So much for karma...

The lesson I learned from this is never, ever return a phone you found - it
will only lead to pain! :)

------
lewisjoe
The first thing I do with a new wallet is to put a piece of paper in it
containing my name and phone number. It stays there forever useless, until it
gets lost. I stole the idea from a reddit thread.

~~~
thrower123
This is a perfect use case for those free address stickers that you get in the
mail.

------
jaredsohn
Within the past couple of years, I dropped my wallet while downtown and when I
got home my wallet was waiting for me there. Was impressed that they went to
the trouble of delivering it.

------
BrandoElFollito
In the thread somebody mentioned that they used Siri to get the name of the
owner.

I asked my Android phone and it replied that technically I am a Homo
Sapiens...

------
jslakro
Lots of comments talking about a possible fraud behind the story, if that's
the case why anyone use the expression growth hacking, it wouldn't be the
appropiate term ?

------
throw0101a
While this is neat and kind, wouldn't it have been easier to see which debit /
credit cards are in the wallet, and simply take the thing to the nearest
branch?

~~~
detaro
Easier than sending those transactions online, possibly from their phone?

------
bfriedl2
Dang... super unique. We might need to add this approach to our Lost and Found
software when the digital outreach and postcards don’t quite get through. Love
it.

------
xmly
I lost my wallet in the gas station and got back from the state police dept
after check whether I am the owner for 20 mins. Of course, all cashes were
gone.

------
01100011
I found a wallet recently. I found the guy on linkedin, sent a request, and we
coordinated the pickup. Less creative than OP I suppose.

------
hzay
I've lost my wallet half a dozen times in the US. Twice, people gave my debit
card to the bank & the bank called me. :)

------
chirau
Yeah yeah, they coincided with a good one. I have lost 2 passports, 4 laptops
and 6 cellphones on the subway in NYC. Half of those were literally stripped
off of me. The other half I was drunk and negligent.

I don't believe in good samaritans. People only return wallets when they have
no value or gains to be realized from them. The good folk leave it there, the
ones with varied motives take it away.

Again, congrats for recovering your wallet. I'd never dream of it.

~~~
MayeulC
I've seen some studies[1] that suggest wallets are returned more often if they
contain money. Suggested reason: we tend to surestimate the value of money vs
the other contents when we find a wallet.

[1] could be
[https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=734141432](https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=734141432)

------
elif
I have no problem with the substance of this article, but the title does not
seem clear enough to meet HN guidelines.

------
OrgNet
it was clever but he just didn't want to get caught by the surveillance state
/s

I lost my phone one day and a stranger returned it by guessing my 1111 pin.
People are generally good. He threatened me with a $20 fee but I agreed to pay
and he refused it.

------
artsyca
Why couldn't they call his bank and get them to contact this fellow?

~~~
jandrese
The bank might be suspicious that it's part of some kind of scam. Like they
might trust the info more because it's coming from their bank's official
number.

~~~
tapland
No. People come in to banks with lost wallets and cards they found all the
time. But you should do it at an office. You can't just call and have them
send messages to users.

------
antihero
Cheaper than SMS used to be :)

------
Shorel
Definitely not Colombia.

------
avischiffmann
Better to just keep a phone number to call inside your wallet tbh

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logo2k
It's so cool

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logo2k
So cool

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phjesusthatguy3
"We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to
proceed to legacy Twitter?"

Yeah, whatever. But I apparently also need a cookie or something to see what
this is about, so no thank you.

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Sarahz92
feel like a large part of where we are in the world now is because in 2015 or
so, YouTube mindlessly and singlehandedly funneled millions of apolitical
young male gamers into gamergate extremism. It took forever for YouTube to
stop giving me personal recommendations for various alt-right content no how
many times I told it I wasn't interested.

