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

[Kicker1866]

thank you for answers. I would like to delete thread. Is this possible?

 

[northernone]

I encountered local salvage traditions of cozumel when I was handing off a buoyant stage and it got away. At the marina the DM of the captain who salvaged it floating happily at the surface frankly suggested a generous tip to the captain as thanks for it's return. Turned out the soggy 200 pesos I had on me was sufficient to have us all leave happy. He might have liked 20$ better, as the captain wasn't entirely overjoyed.


I don't know Mexican salvage laws and perhaps someone else will explain the customs better.

Regards,
Cameron

 

[Dogbowl]

Ok.... so a strange thing happened yesterday. First let me say, I've been diving Cozumel for 7 years, 3 - 4 times per year and always use the same dive Op. Small shop, great owner, safe operation, they know us, blah blah blah...

So we are riding the current on Cedral Pass when my buddy looks down and finds a camera/strob rig. He secures it and we finish the dive. I went up early due to equipment issue.

While on the boat, another boat comes and asks if we found a camera. I told them they were the luckiest divers on the island because we did. So they circle us a few minutes until my friend and the DM surface.

So the shop owner negotiating a "reward" for the camera and suggested to us that it was common practice between boats to make sure clients get a reward for finding lost equipment and that the cost of a days diving is standard for recovery of a $1,000 + camera rig.

The diver on the other boat paid $60 and our boat returned the camera. Now, I should say that my friend had given the camera to the DM upon surfacing and was not involved in this negotiation at all.

My op said he had been on the other side of this transaction many times.

Is this a thing? Was my op just being an ass? I dunno. On one hand if it is the way things are done, who am I to buck the "system".... but if I had a dog in the hunt I woulda just given the guy his camera.

Interested in any insight from the local Ops. Also, I will not name my op as I do consider him a friend.

I too would be uncomfortable in that situation and my knee jerk reaction is that your DM was acting like an ass...but if that's the way things are done there then so be it.

So, who got the $60 ransom?

 

[ggunn]

I have found stuff a couple of times. I held onto it myself until I could put it into the hands of the owner (both times he/she was on the same boat as me), no reward asked for. I would not have given the camera to the DM and I would not have held it for ransom.

 

[ScubaD1veDiv@]

This does not seem above board to me. Regardless of what the "other dive operators" has or has not done in the past is irrelevant. This is a classic case of two wrongs not making a right.

It is the client that suffers and the dive op was not even responsible for the recovery of the camera.

I sure am interested to know if this is common practice or not.

 

[DjDiverDan]

Never having either lost or found a camera rig, expensive or otherwise, I have no dog in this fight. And I understand the emotional reaction that this sounds like ransom. But the economics geek in me looks at this practice as a potentially beneficial exploitation of incentives.

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. So if you are on a dive and already at your max depth of 100', and see a lost camera rig down on the bottom well below you, say at 135', will the expectation of a reward make you more willing to take the risk of swimming down to pick it up, knowing that this will increase your N2 loading, and that the extra air you'll consume will shorten your dive? Sure, MAYBE you'll go down anyway, even with no expectation of a reward. But assume that this happens 100 times, or 1000 times, with different divers - do you think that a societal expectation of a reward will increase the number of divers who go out of their way to make the recovery? And let's assume that 100 different divers have recovered lost equipment; will an expectation of a reward increase the number of divers that return the equipment to its owner in exchange for a reward, as opposed to just keeping the equipment?

Economists will tell you that the important changes are always at the margins - if an expectation of a reward increases, at the margins, the number of items of lost equipment recovered, and increases, at the margins, the number of items returned to the rightful owners, then the incentives provided by the expectation of a reward increase overall welfare. Much of the common law, especially what was historically referred to as the law merchant, was never enacted by a legislature, but developed as expectations among participants in the market. It was the spontaneous emergence of order without the need for a government, a top-down ordering of human affairs. And what developed over time among the traders in a market was a set of acceptable behaviors that worked to maximize value for everyone. This particular practice, expecting a reward in exchange for the return of lost equipment recovered by someone else, strikes me as precisely the kind of socially useful market ethos that develops spontaneously among people who understand the market and the importance of aligning incentives to maximize overall welfare.

 

[AdivingBel]

It's a marine park not the high seas. Based on the ops account, no one mounted a recovery expedition or shouldered any risk monetarily or safety-wise. It's the same as finding someone's wallet on the street. Some folks have morals and class and will make a reasonable effort to return other's property. Some won't. If the owner is found and the property is valuable, the owner should probably offer a reasonable finder's fee, but to extort a reward because you happen to run across it is LOW CLASS. I'm on vacation when I dive, so I wouldn't search out this behavior, but if I saw it take place in person and was sure I understood the circumstances, I would be looking for another dive op. There are plenty of good ops and I would give my business to one that prized honesty. Sounds like a tourist rip off to me. As always all IMHO, YMMV.

 

[gopbroek]

Seems very mercenary to me. I think most folks in this situation would probably offer a reward but the moment it became negotiated it crossed over to extortion.
Just my $0.02

 

[cvchief]

Better dang well buy me a Marg I haul your GoPro from the briny deep!!!

 

[scubafanatic]

I agree, a bit unsavory, but we live in an imperfect world, so overall one should count one's self lucky to only pay $ 60 to 'save' $ 1000+ I suppose.