Man battles conscience, hands in $500

A Gisborne man apparently spent a night battling his conscience before handing in $500 he had found in the slot of a local money machine.

Police were stunned when the man turned up at the station with a wad of notes.

He told police he found the $500 sitting in the slot of an ATM machine at Kaiti Mall, said community safety officer Quentin Hollis.

The man confessed that after the moral dilemma of ``should I take it, should I not?' he decided to take the money home with him.

"He took the money but it crossed his conscience overnight and he brought the money in first thing in the morning," Mr Hollis said.

"He started to think about the people who might need the money."

Mr Hollis was a little surprised but said it was "not as strange as you might think".

Barely 10 minutes after the man left the ATM, a woman tried to use it but could not because it said it was out of order.

She went to another machine at the mall, withdrew $160 then forgot about it and left it behind.

When she realised what she had done and returned, it was gone.

The two incidents have become odd investigations for police. They occurred within a tight time window and involved significant amounts of money lost and found.

"Either it's an ATM snafu or the person is unaware because we have had no complaints...or they have just forgotten about it," Mr Hollis said of the $500.

Police are appealing to anyone who has just realised they are $500 short to pay them a visit and provide documentation for the transaction.

- NZPA