I found a wallet once. It has a bankcard in it, so I called the bank, telling them I had found the wallet of one of their customers and asking them if they could help me return in to the owner.
They weren't allowed to give contact details of the owner to me, but they were allowed to forward my contact details to the owner of the wallet.
Through this route we eventually got the wallet back to its owner. Took half a day to get everything in order, but man were they happy to get the wallet back.
Same find, in Australia. But they (Commonwealth) wouldn’t entertain any swapping of details. I was just on the phone to the service centre and I thought all was lost ... but of course they said “just take it to any of our branches and we’ll sort it out”.
So I lose the satisfaction of closure — who knows what happened to that thing after I handed it over — but this does feel like the most-safe option.
They weren't allowed to give contact details of the owner to me, but they were allowed to forward my contact details to the owner of the wallet.
Through this route we eventually got the wallet back to its owner. Took half a day to get everything in order, but man were they happy to get the wallet back.