[SmartCat]

Readers Digest dropped wallets carrying $50 in 19 cities across the world. Surprisingly, Mumbai had the second highest number of "returned wallets".

In each of the 19 cities, they included a name, cellphone number, family photo, coupons, and business cards in the discarded wallet, as well as $50 in whichever currency the country used.

They then left 12 wallets around each city near parks, shopping malls, and on sidewalks, and counted how many were returned.

Here are the results:

#1 Helsinki, Finland (Wallets returned: 11 out of 12)
#2 Mumbai, India (Wallets returned: 9 out of 12)
#3 (TIE) Budapest, Hungary (Wallets returned: 8 out of 12)
#3 (TIE) New York City, U.S.A. (Wallets returned: 8 out of 12)
#4 (TIE) Moscow Russia (Wallets returned: 7 out of 12)
#4 (TIE) Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Wallets returned: 7 out of 12)
#5 (TIE) Berlin, Germany (Wallets returned: 6 out of 12)
#5 (TIE) Ljubljana, Slovenia (Wallets returned: 6 out of 12)
#6 (TIE) London, England (Wallets returned: 5 out of 12)
#6 (TIE) Warsaw, Poland (Wallets returned: 5 out of 12)
#7 (TIE) Bucharest, Romania (Wallets returned: 4 out of 12)
#7 (TIE) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Wallets returned: 4 out of 12)
#7 (TIE) Zurich, Switzerland (Wallets returned: 4 out of 12)
#8 Prague, Czech Republic (Wallets returned: 3 out of 12)
#9 Madrid, Spain (Wallets returned: 2 out of 12)
#10 Lisbon, Portugal (Wallets returned:1 out of 12)

World Cities Honesty Ranking:
http://www.businessinsider.com/helsi...#ixzz2ftl0VyqG

Rahul Rai, a 27-year-old video editor, said, "My conscience wouldn't let me do anything wrong. A wallet is a big thing with many important documents [in it]." Vaishali Mhaskar, a mother of two, returned a wallet left in the post office. "I teach my children to be honest, just like my parents taught me," she said. Later that day, three young adults found our wallet and called us immediately.

Full Article:
http://www.rd.com/slideshows/most-ho...#ixzz2ftlImXzH

[pahwa]

Kudos to Mumbaikars (if this research is not a gimmick). We Indians are very sharp at detecting whether its a genuine lost wallet or a potential shot to a minute of fame.

[Dieseltuned]

A similar survey was done a couple of years back using mobile phones. (i don't remember by whom) and this survey had also shown similar honety ratings for Bombay.

[amitoj]

Couple of months back, my wife dropped her wallet (unintentionally, of course) in the YMCA parking lot here in Nashua. It contained money, credit cards, driving license, store gift cards (Nautica and Polo Ralph Lauren) among other things. It was returned by a construction worker that same day!! He came to our home (address on the DL) to return it!! And when he found the apartment locked (we had gone out), he left his number with our neighbours instead of leaving the wallet with them because he wanted to make sure that it reached us.

And before that, one day my wife forgot to close the car door when going into a store. She came back a good half an hour later to find everything the way she had left it, with the door open and the GPS still stuck to the front window!

Needless to say, now my wife is very reluctant to move out of Nashua

[Turbo_Torq]

I'd once dropped my wallet while travelling by train. I don't know if I dropped it or someone picked it but I immediately blocked my credit and debit cards and lodged a FIR with the railway police. By midday, I got a phone call from a guy who claimed to have found my wallet. He returned it sincerely although a SIM card and a memory card was missing. On questioning the guy, he said he returned it in the condition he found it. I didn't stress it much and let it go even though I had important stuff on that memory card.

[somitra1981]

+1.

I would vouch for Bombay as well, any time.

No other Indian city stands close to Bombay, mind you i do not belong to Bombay, but i have spent good 5 years there.

I think no survey is required to establish this fact. I cannot comment on the overall ranking across the world though.

Be it the metered auto's or lane/sane driving (compared to Bangalore, Pune) or police or safety for women the city stands tall above the rest of India.

I have my personal experiences to share, touch wood, fingers crossed, I hope it stays the same way in future as well:

- Wife forgot her two month old Nokia N91(bought for 25K, back then) in a Dadar taxi. Taxi wallahs tell her to go to the taxi union office, taxi union hands over the mobile after verifying her identity. The Dadar taxi guy handed over the mobile to the union expecting the customer to come back searching for it.

- Wife’s Nokia N95 stolen from home, took us 8 odd hours to get the FIR written in English/Marathi, bingo after 6 months i get a call from police station that phone has been recovered, please come to identify the thief and property.

- Wife got her passport in less than 2 months back in 2009 (i have 4 passports from Lucknow, first two have spelling mistake and third one has a blurred photo, so had to get a new fourth one)

- We routinely left the keys with our maid(to clean / cook in our absence) while all the valuables were still at home unlocked, nothing happened, moved over to Pune, did the same, two months down the line, house broken into while we are away, lost valuables worth 5 Lakh, thief not caught till date.

[PGNarain]

Originally Posted by somitra1981

I would vouch for Bombay as well, any time.

- We routinely left the keys with our maid(to clean / cook in our absence) while all the valuables were still at home unlocked, nothing happened...

+1 to the above. We too leave our keys with our maid for cooking / cleaning while we are away. Though we never keep anything valuable in our house, we have never had any problems whatsoever.

[asit.kulkarni93]

Well somewhere around '99-'00 my grandfather's cousin who had come to meet my grandfather when we were in Mumbai (Powai) was coming from Vasai to Andheri by the local. When he got off at Andheri his wallet was missing. He called my dad and we were sure it was stolen in the train.
Finally after a month my grandfather's cousin was in Jalgaon at his home, when he received a post wherein he found all the things which were in his wallet and a letter in Marathi saying that i stole your wallet in the train, and thanks your money helped me have food for a week. I am returning all your important documents
Well even in Pune, i lost my wallet twice and got it back. Once it was a grandfather and the other instance it was a school going kid.
Kudos to Mumbaikars and their Honesty

[hrman]

I have no doubt, that if it is an honest city in India, it has to be Mumbai. There is honesty even in cheating.

I used to routinely go from Dahisar to Andheri by Auto. I would know at which point what would be the meter reading in an unrigged auto. So on any occassion, if the auto meter jumped before it was due, I would point it to the driver that his meter was rigged.
On all occasions, the response I would get is “Saab, aap toh roj jaatey hain. Aapko pata hai kitna hota hai. Utna hi dijiye”.

Translated: Sir, since you travel everyday, you know the correct fare, please pay me only that much.

While rigging the meter is a dishonest practice, I have seen them own up and collect the right fare too.

[tanstaafl]

The Lisbon thing is hilarious. So the only people in Lisbon who returned it were actually visitors and not really from Lisbon!

[Mpower]

The so called honesty test is extremely vague and imprecise and just makes for interesting reading.

First of all, $50 has different buying power in Finland vs Mumbai vs Portugal

2ndly, every city has different kinds of neighbourhoods. What neighborhood was the test conducted? and was it the same everywhere?

Thirdly, you need to have a sample size of at least 10 to come to any kind of solid conclusion.

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by Mpower

The so called honest test is extremely vague and imprecise and just makes for interesting reading.

Completely agree! It's readers digest, not some science journal.

However I'm confused by the part where you say "need to have a minimum sample size of 10"!? Just 10?

cya
R

[Mpower]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

However I'm confused by the part where you say "need to have a minimum sample size of 10"!? Just 10?

LOL, I meant to say 10 is better than 1.

But I'm sure there is a rule in statistics that tells you the sample size needed. If its based on the population of the city, then you are looking at a laaarge one for Mumbai lol

[Turbo_Torq]

I forgot to mention that I was partying the night before my wallet was stolen/lost and so it had just a ten rupee note in it. Yes, a single soiled, tattered ten rupee note. It was safe in my wallet when that guy returned it. Which makes me wonder if he'd have returned it had I been carrying more cash

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by Mpower

LOL, I meant to say 10 is better than 1.

But I'm sure there is a rule in statistics that tells you the sample size needed. If its based on the population of the city, then you are looking at a laaarge one for Mumbai lol

sample size is a function of confidence level (and independent of population size).

A sample size of 200 is considered reasonable IIRC. The population size doesn't matter.