A man found himself in a moral dilemma after buying a second hand safe on eBay for £80 - as it had £20,000 inside and the previous owner asked for it back.
James Labrecque decided to sell the heavy-duty safe as he couldn't find the combination to open it and to him it was useless, so he put it on eBay.
A determined buyer snapped up the safe before managing to prise it open with brute force, and they were presumably pleasantly surprised to find £20,000 inside.
James, aghast at his bad luck, asked the buyer for at least some of the money back - but they refused, and said it was finders keepers, report Mirror Online.
Would you have shared the cash? Let us know in the comments section.
Speaking to local news outlet WMC-TV, James, from California, said: “I made a mistake, you know, that’s what it boils down to, and it cost me dearly.
“I shook it and I didn’t feel anything inside of it, so I figured, well, maybe it’s just a locked safe, you know. So I put it on eBay.”
“I told my friend, I won the stupidest idiot in the world award the other day, you know - I gave away a safe with $26,000 (£20,000) in it.”
Describing it as a ‘life altering’ amount of money, James was gutted that he didn’t prise the safe open, instead posting it out to the buyer in Bartlett, Tennessee.
The buyer at least gave James a good review on eBay, but some say he should have done more and given some cash back to the seller.
Commenting on the story, one person said: “I think I’d have to give the guy back maybe 5k. I dunno maybe I’m too generous.”
Then another added: “Poor guy. Ouch.”
But others sided with the buyer, as one wrote: “I feel bad for him, but he should have checked first. If it was me I’d be depressed for a while.”
James shared a text message exchange with the buyer, who said: “What you see is what you get, no returns, and no money back”.
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