Wallet with $ 1,500 US returned
When Fred Bediako stepped onto a Calgary Transit bus Monday morning, he didn’t expect to be getting off at his stop $ 1,500 poorer.
Bediako, a local tow- truck driver, was travelling to the Foothills Industrial Park to pick up his vehicle when he forgot his wallet on the seat before transferring to a second bus.
Besides his bank cards and a driver’s licence, the wallet contained $ 1,500 US, an amount that Bediako had agreed to send to a friend’s mother in Ghana.
Realizing his mistake while riding on the second bus, Bediako quickly began to consider the consequences if he wasn’t able to get his friend’s money back.
“There’s no way I could have told him that I lost that money,” Bediako said. “No one would return $ 1,500.”
After leaving a voice mail with Calgary Transit’s lost- and- found department, he waited nervously for a response.
“In my head, I had let go,” Bediako said. “I didn’t think I was going to get that money back.”
He didn’t need to wait long before the wallet — not missing a single dollar — was found and returned to him by transit staff.
Calgary Transit driver Mustaf Gashi found the wallet and the cash while doing a routine walkthrough of his bus late Monday morning.
“When I found it, I knew the customer would be sad for a couple hours,” Gashi said. “But the wallet was in safe hands.”
At the end of his shift, Gashi gave the wallet to his dispatch office in the hopes they’d be able to find the customer who had misplaced it on his bus.
Monday afternoon, Bediako received a call from Calgary Transit explaining that his wallet had been found.
“He could have taken the money, but he didn’t,” Bediako said. “That driver is my hero.”