Finder's fee for recovered camera- is it appropriate?

[flyboy08]

A problem old as sailors...

"The law of salvage is a concept in maritime law which states that a person who recovers another person's ship or cargo after peril or loss at sea is entitled to a reward commensurate with the value of the property so saved."

And when that was written, the guilotine was in common use

 

[northernone]

And when that was written, the guilatine was in common use

I might reget it's disuse if someone tried to ransom my camera to me.

In a transaction between two vacation divers regarding a lost and found scenario it's shocking to hear a fee being forced into the situation. It's certainly not up to a third party (DM) to interfere with a vacation divers doing the civil and kind thing to each other. I can't imagine either of the divers involved felt good about the 60$ exchange. Seems bad for diver camaraderie and a worse attitude in life.

Thought I'd clarify my position on it after my other nebulously supportive posts regarding salvage. I've not run into many divers who would hold another diver's gear hostage demanding payment. Seems outrageous among recreational divers.

Regards,
Cameron

 

[Schwob]

For what it's worth, different people tick different and so do different societies. Some have well defined norms or laws about "this", others may rely on the good in people. With the original post having been edited out I don't know if this was about "finding and returning" a camera rig or an actual salvage with a search and purposeful salvage operation. I presume more like "finding".
Just as an example, not to illustrate right or wrong or less or more regulated or more or less bureaucratic:
I think in German common law there is a paragraph on "Finderlohn", a finders fee, by which a finder is entitled, by law to request a finders fee of 5% of the value up to a value of 500 Euro and 3% above that value. I have no idea if that means if yhe value is determined to be 510 Euro the fee is 5% of 500Euro plus 3% of 10 Euro or "just" 3% of 510 Euro. And that's besides the point. In the society most people who lost something would gladly offer something. Some do not. Maybe many, how knows if yhere is no obligation. So amyway in that society people and lawmakers felt the need to incentivise findets to return found things or if the owner is unknown, hand them in to authorities. And I think (not sure) there probably also is legal language yhat makes someone who thinks finders keepers is the way to go a common thief infront of the law. Enforcement may be a problem there, but that part of the incentivising is very common: If you found with someone elses property you are very commonly considered a thief in a lot of places around the world... and saying I found it doesn't work in that many of them ... I think, hope....
So I have no idea what tranpsired there as the OP edited the post, but if that rig had been found in Germany and had been handed on say to a policestation (or a city found goods office) and the owner had been found (or found it there by asking), then most likely they would have facilitated payment of a finders fee by the owner to the findet - unless the finder waves it or waved it when handing it in.
Happens.
And all of ot would have been considered normal and correct behavior... there...

 

[mediumone]

Finding a $1,000 piece of equipment, and returning to the owner would make my post dive beverage taste so sweet that a ransom paid or received would only sully that sweetness.

I don't think the possibility of a reward changes behavior. Those that will return it without any expectation, will return the item. Those that won't return it can rarely be incentivized to do so. They enjoy the malice of it, whether they can use the item or not.

I would completely and permanently disassociate myself from any captain, dm, or diver perpetuating such a shakedown.

 

[Storker]

With the original post having been edited out I don't know if this was about "finding and returning" a camera rig or an actual salvage with a search and purposeful salvage operation. I presume more like "finding".

The OP has been preserved for posterity, since it was quoted in post #3

According to that quote it was about finding and returning, not a deliberate salvage operation. And if I were in that situation, I'd feel really uncomfortable if someone else were to demand a finder's fee ransom for returning gear that I accidentally found.

 

[mdax]

I've no problem with the "ransom".
Most people losing equipment deserve to pay for it's recovery, they shouldn't be losing gear.
It's a clear indicator they are totally over their head and likely unaware of their inadequacies.
Nowadays divers with under 20 dives are jumping in with all sorts of cameras and crap dangling everywhere.
Pay the 60 or go buy another camera, no one forced you to take more than you could handle and lose it in a benign environment like cozumel.

 

[DjDiverDan]

I don't think the possibility of a reward changes behavior. Those that will return it without any expectation, will return the item. Those that won't return it can rarely be incentivized to do so. They enjoy the malice of it, whether they can use the item or not.

The third sentence in this paragraph demonstrates the falsity of the first - if those who won't return the equipment can only RARELY be incentivized to do so, then logically they can SOMETIMES be incentivized to do so. What you are really saying is that the possibility of a reward only rarely changes behavior. That's entirely consistent with what I have said - incentives make a difference at the margins. If you are an optimist about human nature, maybe you believe that 70% of people will ALWAYS return lost equipment that they have found, and 10% of people will ALWAYS keep it for themselves. If you are more cynical about human nature, maybe you think that only 40% of people will ALWAYS return the found equipment and that 40% of people will ALWAYS keep it for themselves. But both estimates are just opinions, and in both cases there is a group of people who fall between these extremes - people who will SOMETIMES return the lost equipment to its rightful owner. And it is people in that middle group whose behavior can be changed with the right set of incentives. The right question then becomes what social custom is best to move as many people as possible out of that middle group, those who only sometimes return the equipment, into the good group, those who will always return the equipment. The answer to that question can't be determined based on logic, since people do not act logically, and it can't be determined based on a survey, since people don't always answer honestly on survey questions. It can only be determined by trial and error and experience. Hence, the evolutionary nature of the development of social customs. I don't know what exactly is the practice or custom is in Cozumel, and maybe that custom or practice is still evolving in the search for the right mix of incentives - the possibility of reward, social disapproval of the people who keep lost equipment, or something else (perhaps a custom that the owner of lost equipment returned must buy drinks for the finder) - that will move those in the middle who can be induced to change their behavior.

 

[ggunn]

Incentives matter, and they influence behavior. If you know that the societal expectation, the "acceptable practice", is to return found equipment gratis, with no expectation of a reward, there is no incentive to go out of one's way to recover the equipment. There is also no incentive to be honest and return the equipment that you do find and recover.

If someone needs a financial incentive to be "honest", he or she is not being honest at all, only self serving. If I see a piece of gear on the bottom, I will attempt to retrieve it and return it to its rightful owner with no expectation of remuneration. I won't put my health or safety at risk but I will exert a reasonable effort.

 

[Schwob]

The OP has been preserved for posterity, since it was quoted in post #3

According to that quote it was about finding and returning, not a deliberate salvage operation. And if I were in that situation, I'd feel really uncomfortable if someone else were to demand a finder's fee ransom for returning gear that I accidentally found.

...
Duh, the magic behind "click to expand"...
@Storker, how do you make that link linking to an exact post? (what's the difference in "doing" in making it link to the thread / the OP and a particular other post).

So, after reading that - and of course the owners perspective missing, if I had lost that rig (and not set it down there, weoghted and labelled for a tome lapse or such ... (a mainstream dive site probably would be a dumb spot for that...)) and if I had been able to get it back that way, I would have just happily paid and be elated it wasn't gone for good. (Edit: Very happy! because, by my life experience a far lower percentagevof people is as honest as the percentage proclaiming so in this thread - just my experience).
...
Had I found the camera as described, no harm done and no dives lost and the boat spent no extra time etc... I would have asked the DM to stop negotiating, return the camera and leave it up to the owner if and what he wants to do. (... if I knew what was going on language wise). But I would have accepted a reward of offered.
...
Had a dedicated retrieval dive been done, the boat waiting around for it, that actually costing a lost dive etc... then that's different, but that's not as described.
...
Overall, as described, not interjecting me, I see no real problem or issue with what transpired. If amything, I would tend to think that if "negotiating" is what happened here it is an embarassing testament to the owners mindset for not having offered a thank you gift out of his own motivation. Personally, just observing, I would find that considerably lower than the DM going with what he says is local custom, whether it really is or not...
... but that's me saying that as a private individual... if I was a shop owner there, I might have to cater to the expectations of a majority of all my clients...

 

[Storker]

...
Duh, the magic behind "click to expand"...
@Storker, how do you make that link linking to an exact post? (what's the difference in "doing" in making it link to the thread / the OP and a particular other post).

You've got a a PM, so as not to derail the thread