15 People Claim Cash at Goodwill, $14,000 Accidentally Donated
15 people claimed cash at Goodwill after the neatly stacked bills were discovered in some boxes in St. Louis, Missouri May 8. So many people coming forward for the $14,505 prize can't all be right, and the situation will go to court to be resolved.
15 people claimed that cash left at South County Goodwill store was theirs after the money was dropped off in a cardboard box. Inside the box were Christmas decorations as well, but that hasn't stopped people from popping up with all sorts of claims, said store staff.
"We had one just a while ago," store manager Tina Wells told KTVI. "He said, 'I'm here, what do I gotta do, I'm here to claim it?'"
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The Goodwill store was able to find security footage of two men bringing the box in a trailer towed by a green Ford 150 pickup. According to staff, that load contained the $14,000 in big bills, but that hasn't stopped folks who saw the announcement from coming forward without erroneous information.
"Everybody's coming out of the woodwork. Everybody donated it and 'it's mine,' of course," MERS Goodwill CEO Lewis Chartock said. "[But] they have the wrong day. Some of them have the wrong things."
Of the 15 who have stepped forward to claim the accidentally donated cash, two struck Chartock as possibly being true, although only one of them is. First was one of the truck drivers who dropped off the boxes, although why he would put his money in a box is unknown. The second was a daughter who had just finished an estate sale after her parents' death.
"The daughter had an estate sale.The estate sale, when finished, turned the leftovers, the refuse over, to somebody to donate to Goodwill. That's the people who ended up dropping it off," explained Chartock.
Although it's possible that the estate sale yielded $14,000, the CEO isn't taking any chances giving the monies to the wrong person. The legal system will decide who is the rightful owner of the cash.
"Goodwill is going to interplead the funds into the registry of the Circuit Court of St. Louis County. Then it's up to everybody to do their best, because we really don't know," he said.
