Taxi Driver Returns Passenger’s Forgotten Bag Packed With $26,500

If you’re still wondering if there is good in the world, there is. AP uncovered a story this week about a Vietnamese cab driver with a heart of gold. Imagine you’re a passenger carrying a stack of important documentation, and – for whatever reason – $26,500 in cash of three different currencies. You’re on your way to wherever someone carrying that much cash would be going, and because you have a lot going on, you step out of the cab without your bag. In the blink of an eye the cab is gone and you reach for your bag that is no longer at your side. Your stomach sinks. What was the cab number? What was the cab company? What do I do now? And, not to mention, someone was probably waiting for that $26,500. You have no choice but to hope that the cab driver is an honest man, but you shake your head at how ridiculous this hope seems.

Enter humble cab driver Doan Thanh Xuan, of the Cuu Long Petro Gas Service Transportation JSC in Ho Chi Minh City. A call went out over the system about a customer who had forgotten his bag in one of the cars (fortunately he had at least remembered the company’s name). Doan heard the call, and in that instant made a choice: to report, or not to report. He chose the former, though he made the choice without opening the bag. And perhaps this was for the better, because if he had looked in the bag, the decision might not have been so easy. The bag contained 7,000USD, 13,000 Euros, and 15 million Dong.

Nonetheless, the honesty paid off and his reward, split between the company and the passenger, came out to around $100, over a month’s wages. Though modest in comparison to the forgotten amount, Doan can’t have minded the reward, and an act of goodness is still an act of goodness.

These acts are rare, however. Though taxi drivers generally work on their own hours and make their own schedules, their salaries are comparatively low. The temptation to ‘not report’ is high, as such, which is why the stories of recovered goods are few and far between. For example, in 2007, a Filipino cab driver returned 12,000 yen left by a passenger in his car, and earlier this year, a New York cab driver returned $21,000 left in his car by an Italian tourist.

This type of integrity can’t be expected of everyone, so it’s important to try and not travel with thousands of dollars of currency in your handbag.

[Image: cgt.com.vn]