Lost wallet test shows rich are most likely to keep the cash

Seven out of 12 wallets ‘dropped’ in Amsterdam in an experiment to test people’s honesty were returned to their owners.

But none of the wallets ‘accidently lost’ in Amsterdam’s luxury shopping street PC Hoofdstraat made it back to their owner, Readers Digest magazine, which carried out the research, said.

‘Succesful, rich people can look after themselves well,’ psychiatrist Bram Bakker told the magazine. ‘The dark side of this is that, given the chance, they take what they can.’

The other Dutch wallets were lost in the less well-off districts of Bijlmer, Pijp and West.

Middle rank

In total, Readers Digest researchers lost 192 wallets in 16 cities. The most honest city was Helsinki, where 11 out of 12 wallets were handed back. Next came Mumbai, Budapest and New York with nine and eight returns.

Amsterdam and Moscow were in joint fourth place. Lisbon, where locals returned just one wallet, was bottom of the list.

The wallets contained phone numbers, photographs and around €40 in cash.

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