Disappointed in Humanity

So today I had a person come into the pawnshop asking me to test a stone to see if it was a diamond. This is something we do on a daily basis so the identification process is quite quick. During things he was relating to me how he’d found it on the street and how it could be ‘his lucky day‘ if it was real. At this point I came to realize how far the moral code of society has fallen.
Staring at the stone I’m thinking to myself it weighs probably 1.5cts and would have been worth a good $5-15 thousand depending on various factors. Personally, if I’d have found $5,000 of someone’s funds I’d be contacting the police to report it in case someone was missing it. When I raised this question the person just said it was ‘probably insured’. So now it’s OK to take from the insurance company?
It’s this kind of attitude that’s created the world we live in today. The kinds of people who buy camcorders from people in bars – no questions asked. The guy who gets a ‘smokin deal‘ on a guitar from a ‘friend of a friend‘. The fellow who says he’s got no problem buying stolen merchandise because it’s ‘not like he stole it‘. And yet I’d be prepared to wager that if it was their house that had been robbed or their ring that had been lost they’d be complaining about it.
There is a certain irony that the widely disparaged pawnbroker is being the moral compass in these situations. It’s not the first time we’ve raised these concerns with people walking in off the street – I hope some day we won’t need to anymore. The good news is that the stone wasn’t real and our ethically challenged friend didn’t make any money on his find. After our chat perhaps he’ll do the right thing if this ever happens again – but somehow I doubt it.