You know, the point of this topic was probably not to turn into an ethics discussion about what's right and what's wrong.. But just because it's an interesting conversation, here's my POV.

Last month, I was out late buying gas on the way home. I was exhausted from having spent the entire day driving, and it was probably like 1 or 2 in the morning. When I got to the gas station it was closed, so I took out my wallet and paid for my gas at the pump. When I was finished, I got back in my car and started driving home - leaving my wallet on the back of my car, and effectively losing it in the gas station parking lot in the middle of the night.

The next day as I was leaving for work, I noticed my purse felt a little light and my heart dropped as I realized what happened. An hour into my shift, I received a phone call from GEICO - a guy had found my wallet and looked me up via my insurance card. I called him back - this guy was extremely friendly and wanted to get my wallet back to me as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, he was not the first person who found it. He picked it up when a woman left it at a table in a McDonald's an hour away from where I lived. She took the money out (around $85) and ditched it in the McDonald's, where he tried to run out and return it to her but she jumped in her car, waving him off and driving away.

Of course I'm upset that she took my money - that was an entire month of teaching flute lessons from one of my students that had just paid me. But who can I really be mad at? Sure, it was a crappy thing for her to do, but I learned two hard lessons about responsibility: when someone gives you a significant amount of cash, TAKE IT TO THE BANK. And always have a good awareness of where your personal belongings are so you don't do something stupid like leaving your wallet on the back of your car and driving off without it. It's my fault some piece of ___ lady in Little Rock, Arkansas has my money. Not hers. Sure it's my bad luck that she's the one who found it first, but had I been more careful it would have stayed in my purse where it belonged.

Lesson to all players, new or not: check your prices before you list items in AH. You get a confirmation screen, for crying out loud. There's no reason to make mistakes like that, and if a low level player was lucky enough to get an expensive vanity and list it for 50 credits, not knowing the price.. Well he'll regret that mistake but seriously, how many people were going to leave that item in the auction terminal and not touch it thinking, "Oh poor guy.. I better not profit from his mistake.." No, the second you spend thinking about whether it would be right or wrong to buy the item is the second someone else is going to see it and buy it up.