Man Buys $150 Craigslist Desk, Finds $100k

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

A Connecticut man who purchase a $150 desk on Craigslist accidentally discovered it was worth a whole lot more when he took it apart and found a bag stuffed with nearly $100,000 behind one of the drawers.
Noah Muroff, a teacher and rabbi at a private New Haven high school, said he had no choice but to dismantle the desk in order to get it to fit through his doorway.
It was during this process that the bag of cash suddenly appeared.
"Without detaching the desk, this money, which was behind the drawers, was totally inaccessible," Muroff told CNN.
He and his wife Esther sat down to count the loot, and were shocked to discover they had inadvertently stumbled onto a fortune. $98,000 to be exact.
But the Muroffs say they never considered holding on to it, and immediately contacted the desk's original owner to inform her of their find.
"She was so shocked and touched that anyone would call," Muroff told ABCNews.com. "She said, 'You could have kept the money and nobody would have ever known.'"
The money had apparently come from an inheritance the owner received, which she believed had been misplaced around the house and would eventually turn up.
Despite all the signs that he was meant to experience this windfall, Muroff arrived at the opposite conclusion.
"We both agreed that this is not our money," he said, referring to his wife. "If God wants us to have $98,000, he'll make sure to give it to us in some other way."
So together with his four children, Muroff went back to home outside New Haven where he had picked up the desk in order to drop off the cash.
He did not leave empty handed: For his trouble, Muroff was refunded the $150 he had spent on the desk.
The owner also handed Muroff a touching note, which he shared with the Jewish news portal Voz Is Neias:

I cannot thank you enough for your honesty and integrity. "I do not think there are too many people in this world that would have done what you did by calling me. I do like to believe that there are still good people left in this crazy world we live in. You certainly are one of them.
​

Just goes to show the good people in this world outnumber the bad ones

 

[Shikamaru]

Faith in humanity restored

 

[Hal_Jordan]

I can't believe they didn't split it with the guy. Or at least give him more than his $150 back. That's kind of a slap in the face.

 

[Slick]

That's drug money man

 

[Warhammer]

If it were my money that thankfully was returned to me, I would have given him more than just his $150 back. That's some bulls***. That good deed deserves to be rewarded. That's just me.

 

[Slick]

True

 

[Thundercrack85]

Is it cynical of me to find this story fishy? By which I mean the money, not the rabbi.

Who misplaces 100,000 dollars?

 

[Hal_Jordan]

Is it cynical of me to find this story fishy? By which I mean the money, not the rabbi.

Who misplaces 100,000 dollars?

Yeah, i was thinking it's a lot fishy.

Who gets $100,000 cash inheritance, doesn't put it in the bank? Then they take the cash take apart a desk to hide it in so no one even using the desk can find it, and then completely forget all about it claiming they had "misplaced it and assumed it would turn up eventually."

Sounds to me like the person who sold it didn't know about the money either, and when this guy found it and told her about it she came up with the inheritance story.

 

[Marvolo]

What I find funny is the rabbi saying "if god wants us to have $100, 000 he will find another way." I feel like god is facepalming right now.

 

[Thundercrack85]

What I find funny is the rabbi saying "if god wants us to have $100, 000 he will find another way." I feel like god is facepalming right now.

Reminds me of that joke about the guy who waits for God to save him during a disaster, so he ignores the rescue boat and rescue helicopter, and when dies and gets to heaven he asks God why he didn't save him (even though God sent him a rescue boat and a rescue helicopter).

 

[Teelie]

If it were my money that thankfully was returned to me, I would have given him more than just his $150 back. That's some bulls***. That good deed deserves to be rewarded. That's just me.

The purpose of a good deed is to do so without the promise of a reward. IMO at least.

Although I'm in the boat with everyone else who says the "lost" $100,000 seems kind of fishy, and that the rabbi missed his message from God about the money.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I dunno, it seems like the least she could do is buy him a new desk or something.

Assuming that's really her money.

 

[Hal_Jordan]

The purpose of a good deed is to do so without the promise of a reward. IMO at least.

I definitely get that, and that's exactly what this guy did. But that still doesn't mean the person he returned it to can't reward him with some portion of the money that they would have never seen again if not for his honesty.

Good deeds go both ways!

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well, to be fair, we don't know what else he found in that desk...

 

[Teelie]

I think getting the desk free was a good gesture. It's expectation of more that feels greedy to me. That said I wouldn't turn down more money as a reward either.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well I wouldn't have kept the money myself. Though mostly because I wouldn't want the mob to come after me for their drug money.

 

[Teelie]

I would be wary of that amount of money too. Regardless of it's origins it wouldn't sit well with me to find nearly $100,000 just sitting in a desk. I'd probably feel suspicious with even $10,000.

 

[Warhammer]

The purpose of a good deed is to do so without the promise of a reward. IMO at least.

Although I'm in the boat with everyone else who says the "lost" $100,000 seems kind of fishy, and that the rabbi missed his message from God about the money.

I didn't say otherwise. I said that if it were my 100k, I would have rewarded him with something more than a refund. That good deed deserved to be rewarded.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

They only returned the money because they just finished watching No Country For Old Men.

 

[Warhammer]

Is it cynical of me to find this story fishy? By which I mean the money, not the rabbi.

Who misplaces 100,000 dollars?

I agee. That inheritance story is a lie.

 

[Warhammer]

They only returned the money because they just finished watching No Country For Old Men.

Post of the thread right here.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

150 bucks?

At least give the people who returned the money 1%.

They didn't have to return one penny. They could've legally kept the money and went to Hawaii.

 

[Teelie]

I do wonder what kind of taxes they'd pay on that kind of windfall.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well, they'd only pay taxes if they declared it.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

I'm waiting for the follow up story that says the owner who claimed that it was an inheritance gets wacked by the mob boss who found out about his lost money