nonhypothetical ethics story

Via Crooked Timber, here's an ethics story for ya:

I got a call from an excited park ranger in Hawaii that "a nice Canadian couple reported that they found your camera!" She gave me their name and number, and I eagerly called to reclaim my camera.

"Hello," I said, when I reached the woman who had reported the camera found, "I got your number from the park ranger, it seems you have my camera?"

We discussed the specifics of the camera, the brown pouch it was in, the spare battery and memory card, the yellow rubberband around the camera. It was clear it was my camera, and I was thrilled.

"Well," she said, "we have a bit of a situation. You see, my nine year old son found your camera, and we wanted to show him to do the right thing, so we called, but now he's been using it for a week and he really loves it and we can't bear to take it from him."

I listened, not sure where she was going with this.

"And he was recently diagnosed with diabetes, and he's now convinced he has bad luck, and finding the camera was good luck, and so we can't tell him that he has to give it up. Also we had to spend a lot of money to get a charger and a memory card."

It started to dawn on me that she had no intention of returning the camera.

"We'd be happy to return your photographs..."

I was incredulous. "This is an expensive camera, you know."

"Oh, we know, we looked it up."

"I was hoping to offer a reward for it, but I was also hoping to get my camera back."

Silence. It is now clear I will never see the camera again. I'm shocked at what seems like an utter moral failure on her part, despite her claim to want to "do the right thing."

"Ok," I say. "Why don't you send me my memory cards, and, say, $50 and we'll call it even."

I give her my address.

I don't hear from her for nearly two weeks. Friends suggest filing a police report.

Finally, I get a package in the mail.

"Enclosed are some CDs with your images on them. We need the memory cards to operate the camera properly."

I call, furious. "I was shocked to get your package today. Our agreement was that you were to send me my memory cards, not that you would keep an additional $120 worth of my property on top of the valuable camera you already chose not to return."

"You're lucky we sent you anything at all. Most people wouldn't do that." We go back and forth a bit more. She eventually hangs up on me. I call the police department in her town (in Canada) but they tell me that it's a U.S. issue, since that's where the property was lost.

I am out $500 and some measure of faith in humanity.

Kieran has an interesting point about the initial contact making the following bad faith seem more reprehensible... would the woman who didn't intend to return the camera have been more ethically justified not to call in the first place?

The story ends well; the lady gets her camera back.