Bounty

An experiment has revealed that only one in five people who discovered a wallet would hand it in or try to find its owner.

Twenty wallets were left in five cities across the country during the research, carried out by card and identity protection firm CPP.

Each wallet contained tickets, receipts, stamps, photographs and £10 in cash. Business cards with telephone numbers that linked to the CPP team were also placed in the wallets.

But only two out of every 10 wallets that were dropped were returned to their owners, and only half of these still contained the £10. None of the 25% of wallets that were returned in Birmingham contained any money. By contrast, all the wallets returned in London still contained the original sum of money.

Separate research carried out by the group found that 10% of people have lost their wallet during the past five years, while 8% have had it stolen. Despite the fact that six out of 10 people said they would either hand in a lost wallet or try to trace its owner, 77% of people who lost their wallet or had it stolen never saw it again.

Copyright Press Association 2010