Man Alleges He Bought Safe With $26,000 In It On eBay [UPDATE]

UPDATE: James Labrecque has countered the original report and now reportedly claims "the buyer never found any money."

There's nothing better than just serendipitously encountering a $20 bill. So imagine randomly coming across a sum worth more than 1,000 times that amount.

A man in Bartlett, Tennessee says he found $26,000 in a used safe he bought on eBay for just $122.93, Memphis WMC-TV reports. The man who sold the safe, James Labrecque, counters that claim, saying "the buyer never found any money."

If true, it wouldn't be the first such mistake, as it turns out a lot of money actually gets given away on eBay, albeit usually on purpose. EBay founder Pierre Omidyar was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy last year for committing $1 billion of his own fortune to charity and promoting humanitarian action on his site in such a way that facilitated buyers and sellers raising more than $63 million for charitable organizations.

Nor would Labrecque's safe be the only one to recently reveal some unexpected contents. Workers at a Chase bank branch in Huntington, New York discovered a stash of counterfeit cash worth $112,000 after they mistakenly opened a safety deposit box, the New York Daily News reports. A mix up over keys caused the discovery. The actual owner of the funny money has yet to be charged.

But some of the most incredible discoveries of forgotten cash often happen when there's no safe involved at all. In France, workers renovating a former winery stumbled across $980,000 worth of gold coins when they literally began to pour from the ceiling, according to The Guardian.

Things may be a bit more convivial across the pond: The owner of the building and the workers have agreed to split the find 50/50.

More bizarre still is the $3 billion stash of platinum believed to be aboard the Port Nicholson, a World War II-era freighter that's currently sunk 700 feet under the sea off the coast of Massachusetts. The platinum is believed to be part of a wartime payment from the Soviet Union to the U.S. but treasure hunter Greg Brooks has raised $5 million to finance recovery efforts, which, if successful, will entitle him to the hunk of sunken bling.

Comments

[retrievals]

08:18 AM on 02/21/2012

True or not, for his 15 minutes of fame he will be looking at a nice bill from the IRS. He may be lucky but not very smart.

[Billy Jack]

02:49 PM on 02/20/2012

I once took a dump in a safe and sold it on eBay

[Charles Sommers]

02:58 PM on 02/19/2012

I once found a quarter in a parking lot. Some people are luckier than me.

[Gronkie]

02:06 PM on 02/19/2012

I'm always forgetting where I put $26,000.

[populux]

11:12 AM on 02/19/2012

If I found money I sure wouldn't announce it. Now the IRS will be after you for Obama's cut

[Gronkie]

02:05 PM on 02/19/2012

Yeah, because Obama invented taxes.

[Charles Sommers]

02:59 PM on 02/19/2012

Taxes are actually lower now than at any time since the Truman presidency.

[steelman41]

10:12 PM on 02/19/2012

You are absolutely full of it. My taxes are higher than they have ever been. Maybe there is a category of workers whose taxes are lower, but taxes on everything else are higher, from airlines, to cigarettes, to county, state, city, gas, energy, etc etc. shovel that crap somewhere else.

[obsidiana]

10:32 AM on 02/19/2012

If there was no money in it why would the seller ask for a cut? I think the guy feels stupid for not checking the safe before he sold it and he should feel stupid. I know I would, but then again i would have checked the safe before I sold it.

[Donald Wayne Williams]

04:51 PM on 02/19/2012

Because this whole thing is a hoax, perhaps the seller asked for a "cut" to put pressure on the buyer to admit the hoax. A sensible person hires a locksmith, not a welder, to open a safe. Pure BS from the get-go.

[gp341]

09:02 AM on 02/19/2012

Nobody is that stupid. Not ever Sarah Palin.

[Vyslichajici]

08:19 AM on 02/19/2012

my wife found a thousand dollars in cash in a bank withdrawal envelope in the park. she took it to the nearest branch of that bank and turned it in. the bank determined it belonged to an old man they had given the withdrawal to. the old man accused my wife of stealing it from him. the teller was nice to my wife after that, but sheesh. and i respect her for it, but i am NOT SURE i would have done the same thing, expecting just about what in fact did happen. no thanks, just an idiot casting blame on others to cover his own stupidity.

[Gronkie]

02:06 PM on 02/19/2012

No good deed goes unpunished.

[PalinEffect]

01:52 AM on 02/19/2012

Why would the buyer say a word about the cash? Did he think the seller had the connections to retrieve the cash ala 'No Country for Old Men'?

[legalhemi]

01:06 AM on 02/19/2012

I hope the IRS taxes him

[DM0619]

12:37 AM on 02/19/2012

I dont believe it and I think in my opinion the buyer and the seller might have done this to get publicity!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And as you can see they are getting exactly that.
SO if you believe the safe was sold for $122.00 and it had $26,000.00 in it then you have a lot to learn about people doing a publicity stunts !!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks

[RedDonnaAnn]

02:10 AM on 02/19/2012

What's with all the exclamation points?

[Gronkie]

02:07 PM on 02/19/2012

They were on sale this week.

[Dan Covey]

09:34 PM on 02/18/2012

CRAZY1 now he will h ave to pay taxes on that gift.!!!!! Unless he can get it into an off shore bank!!

[gg s]

11:39 PM on 02/18/2012

It wasn't a gift. He purchased the safe, and it's contents, for $122.93. If anything, it's investment income.

[Dan Covey]

11:08 AM on 02/19/2012

Hi, you could very well be right, but I suspect that somehow he pays taxes. Y ou have a great upcoming week.

[ravatar252]

09:04 PM on 02/18/2012

would be nice to know the real story..

[Shelly Dangen]

08:15 PM on 02/18/2012

Hands up if you would sell a safe on E-bay that you owned without checking out what was in it first.

[gg s]

11:47 PM on 02/18/2012

I'd rather sell an inaccessible safe for $120 than pay $300 to destroy it and discover nothing inside.

[obsidiana]

10:33 AM on 02/19/2012

Obviously it wasn't inaccesible, the person who bought it took it to a welder who got it open.....

[bowziie]

06:51 PM on 02/18/2012

if it were me i would immediately return the money, three reasons.............. i always feel what if it were me, it could be someones retirement money and how will they live, and the most important........... you will reap what you sow, you ........ willl..... reap........ what ........ you ...... sow.