Last night I left my barely 1 month old €1400 smartphone in the train. It had already survived trips to 4 different countries, but I somehow got up off the seat and with another object in my pocket and mistakenly though I had it (but I had put it down on a small shelf near the window). Even more frustrating I had left it in aeroplane mode as I had just arrived from overseas.

I have never even so much as misplaced my wallet and have barely ever misplaced my keys. Don’t even remember the last time I felt so devastated. My brain was playing over worst-case scenarios all night and I barely slept at all.

Not even 14 hours later, I got a notification that my phone had been found and was at Suomen Löytötavarapalvelu (I had made a notice online about an hour after I lost it). Got it back in my hand in the exact same condition it was last night, albeit with 5% less battery lol.

Just wanted to say God bless this country and the honest person who handed it in.

____________________

EDIT: I seriously cannot believe I am writing this but my wife had her wallet fall out of her pocket today whilst she was eating lunch (1 day after I wrote this thread) without even her knowing. She got a random call from someone who asked if she had dropped her wallet (she had contact details inside) and he said he left it at the restaurant with the staff because he had to run to a uni course. She didn’t get to give him anything in return so [I just sent him €50 as a thank you](https://i.postimg.cc/JnXg7KD4/signal-2023-08-25-131159-002.jpg) because we got his number from him calling her and I checked that he does have Mobilepay. Her wallet is full of cards, has about ~€100 cash and of course IDs, residence permit and so on. He probably saved us €500 in returning it. I know Reddit is highly skeptical but I swear to God I am not lying. I don’t even know what to say… we both lost something valuable within 2 days and got them back just like that. This would never happen in my home country.

by redblack-blackred

37 comments

  2. I’m a public transport driver & whenever a phone that has been found by a passenger is given to me, I keep it with me during work time so as to give the owner an opportunity to call it so that person can possibly meet me at a stop to recover the phone. If no one calls then i put it in our lost & found box, which is emptied each morning by that office (company). Just a reminder to you and others, that if you lose it, call it. You may get it back quicker & cheaper👌

  3. Good people being good people. I was once dumb and lost my Finnish passport plus wallet in Colorado, US, local police mailed it to me in Minnesota, US at the time. My wallet had ten bucks still in it, but my Finnish passport at the time would have been a trip across the states to the right embassy for a replacement (that in Finland costs like €40 would have been at the time about USD 800 to make happen). Good people keep being good people!

  4. Finland is one of the best countries with the lost wallet test. There’s also carpet washing places which are free and you can leave your carpet there without it being stolen. I remember in upper secondary school (high school) the exchange students were blown away that we left our backpacks in the corridor upstairs and went to have lunch on the lower floor. He was certain his bag would be stolen.

  5. But whatever you do, remember to lock your bicycle 😀

    Jokes aside, congratulations for getting the phone back. Honesty is what I love most about Finland

  8. That’s actually really nice! Not surprised that it was found but several people went out of their way to get it to you. It was handed in and forward really quickly.

  9. I have found wallets, passports and phones during shift, even buried in the snow and I’ve always returned them. I’ve been living in Finland for the past 3 years and It’s something I wish whenever I loose my phone or my wallet that I get the same treatment :)!

  10. somewhat similar thing happened to me, i lost my lanyard which contained my birth control, house key, my id, residency permit, kela card, and airpods. i was absolutely panicking but sure enough the request i filed for a response the following day that it was waiting in their office lol. only my birth control was missing somehow hahaha, i love it here

  12. I once found a laptop in the bench slot of my train seat (don’t know what to call it). It was s similar shade of grey as the back of the seat and fit perfectly so with a quick glance I could easily see how someone might not notice it especilaly if in a hurry.

    I waited to the end of the trip and gave it to the conductor to put into lost and found.

  13. Wasn’t Suomen Löytötavaratoimisto banned from doing business by the court not too long ago?

  14. God has nothing to do with it. The old ones were suppressed by the crusades a few hundred years ago. Now we are left with a nationalized church driving a religion few actually believe in any more.

    But hey, good thing you got your phone back.

  15. with all possible respect, god isn’t real. maybe say wishing everything good for this country? or I’m thankful for this country? most finns are atheists

  17. Unfortunately not the same outcome with bicycles. Forget to lock your bike and it’s gone.

  18. Nice!

    I don’t have much love towards Suomen Löytötavaratoimisto, but their service certainly fills a niche. Without a middle man businesses would have their back rooms perpetually filled with miscellaneous customer belongings.

    I once accidentally dropped my phone while on a walk with my then gf on the frozen river Aura in Turku. I noticed it after a while and called my number from my gf’s phone.

    The call went through (Nokias didn’t mind a dunk in snow or slush) and I was made aware that a kid had found the phone while making snowballs. He and his parents were having pizza at Rosso where they’d stopped on their way to the police station (no Löytötavaratoimisto back then). I thanked and told them to delay ordering desserts for the couple of minutes I would need for the drive. I quickly made my way there and treated the kid to whatever dessert he wanted. And got the parents coffee of course. Everybody was happy.

  19. I’m always amazed that in the countryside there’s no lock on mailboxes.

  20. Let’s keep this country as honest as it is you all 😊

  21. Wonderful, right?
    But this is not god, it’s this amazing culture and people ❤️

  22. When I moved into my flat in Turku, I just let my car with all doors open on the streets for an hour because I was too lazy to close them every time I had to bring up stuff to my flat, and no one stole anything. This is truly amazing. In Germany, I wouldn’t have the trust in the people.

  23. I just left Finland for home yesterday. While staying with a friend in Helsinki, I was told that I could leave my wallet on the train and almost certainly retrieve it intact. Because of where I’m from… I was a bit skeptical about this. Seeing your post makes me feel like it’s really a accurate description of how honest (and nice) Finns are. We will definitely miss being there until next time. ✌️

  24. I read a book called “The Almost Nearly Perfect People” by Michael Booth. In his insights about Scandinavian countries, he mentions that you can actually leave a baby-stroller containing a baby outside a bakery, shop for stuff, and return outside to find the baby and the stroller untouched. And Copenhagen is the most likely place for that to happen.

    But given what I read about Finland and the level of public trust there, I wouldn’t put them too far behind the Danes in this respect.

  25. Most likely, the finder was staff on the train. Either the conductor who checks the cars or the cleaner, depending on time and train schedule. They pick up things left behind as part of their job. Then Löytötavaratoimsto will come pick them up from the station and gets a fee for the service.

  26. Hope you people also thank the people who actually found them and took them to the löytövituntavaratoimistoon.

  27. Just yesterday me and my fiancé were shopping and I noticed a pair of keys hanging from one of the returned trolleys outside. Assuming someone left it without thinking my girlfriend walked inside to give it to one of the cashiers. As she is inside I see a worked coking from behind the store where there are also trolleys and I instantly knew they were probably her’s and indeed they were. She had to go inside and get them 😅

  28. How did you get the notification if you didn’t have your phone?

  29. I grew up in Helsinki for 4 years in the ‘90s. My parents still tell the story of seeing a lost gold bracelet pinned on a public car park noticeboard and it still being there hours later.

  31. I’ve lost my phone twice now.

    This second time was a month ago. I had a E-Scooter accident and fucked up my face and lip pretty badly.

    We left McDonalds on the scooters and when we arrived at our destination i was gonna turn the scooter off, too bad, i didn’t have my phone with me. So we scoot scoot back to the micky deez and find my phone sitting right where i activated the scooter.

    So then we roll back to our destination again with the e-scouderz and when im about to shut the scooter down, i get this sence of Deja Vu, my phone isn’t in my pocket.

    We head back to the Mikey Donaldson and don’t find the phone, we scoot arouns for a while trying to find it, and i fall.

    After a while i givw up and walk home because the scooters back wheel got stuck in dirt when i fell.

    3 hours later my gf calls my phone and the police answers and tells her the phone has ended up at the police station 10km away.

    It only took 3 hours in the middle of thw night for some everyday hero to find my phone and take it to the police station.

    I love finland.

  35. As a kid I was biking to buy a new game and at some point I dropped my wallet that was full of money. I had no faith I would get my money back, but it turned out some kind soul had taken it to the police station. So I got it back and not one euro was missing.

  36. Lost my wallet once after a night of drinking. Got a text next day (my business card was in wallet) from a local bar that someone found it in the bathroom and returned it. About 70e still in there.

  37. Yes, Finnish people are very honest. It is just a shame that this is going to get worse because of immigration.

    (source for downvoters: Robert Putnam. For example Bowling alone)

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