It would appear in South Africa that the longer crime is stays a regular occurrence in our country the less likely we are to trust people.

I was listening to a story on Talk Radio 702 today about someone that one of the afternoon presenters knows who helped a lady that was in an accident, kept her bag safe and placed her ID with her so that the hospital staff would know who she is.

The women’s husband lashed out at this person when he arrived and discovered – by the sounds of it – that this Good Samaritan had been in is wife’s bag to retrieve the ID book.

It took me back to an experience I had working in a camera store that deals with a large amount of second hand equipment.

There was a young gentleman who worked in AV that had visited us once or twice in the past – no stranger in a retail terms – that cam in with a rather expensive photographic lens. He had been covering an event as part of an AV crew at a hotel and while packing up – everyone having left the venue but the hotel staff – found the lens lying on the ground.

An attempt was made to hand the lens into hotel reception but they would not accept it nor did they no the details of the supposedly regularly contracted photographer for the venue.

After leaving his details and some time passing he came into the store to ask if there was anyway to track the owner by serial number.

With that not being the case I offered to send out the news to our network of photographers in the magazine and see if anything came back. Within a day we had found the rightful owner who had the serial numbers etc. and the two parties were put into contact.

N ext I was being called by the AV guy’s boss as the photographer was being accused of theft because he had tried to “advertise the lens for sale on Facebook”.

I cannot forget the conversation with the photographer when I had contact with him. I was flabbergasted and told to leave it alone. I don’t know what the problem was, I believe that the photographer had already replaced the lens through insurance, not sure if that impacted his course of action but it was generally very surprising that someone who had been the recipient of such a good deed could be so bitter.

It would appear that we are becoming less and less likely to believe a good story when we are the recreant in this country. It is sad but none the less a reality that appears to be growing.

The circumstances around each of these situations are very different, and I tend to have more sympathy for the first. As a husband, I can understand on the circumstances of shock and perhaps feeling completely helpless we may act irrationally. For this man it may have been by defending his wife’s privacy from the Good Samaritan. It does not make it right, but I can be a tad more understanding of that situation than the second.

In my mind the photographer may have felt humiliated for forgetting his lens or… perhaps not, perhaps if I was to apply the not trusting mind set we are cultivating I could believe that he had found a newer or better suited lens for his requirements and being comprehensively insured forgot the lens claiming theft at a large function with many people. Any other day the lens may have left with someone else never to return, but being recovered he needed to press the matter so as not to be fingered for insurance fraud.

Then again, like I said at the start, I could simply be unsympathetic and non-trusting. Pray we can turn this tide of negativity before it is too late.