A Guy Found A Gummy Maker's Lost Check For $4.8M & All He Got Was A 'Cheap' Box Of Candy

Talk about a bittersweet reward!

A person holding Haribo gummy bears. Right: A pile of Haribo gummy bears.

A person holding Haribo gummy bears. Right: A pile of Haribo gummy bears.

Senior Writer

When someone returns a lost item, many recipients will reward them for their honesty, but one German man says the gift he got after returning a massive cheque was anything but special.

Anouar G. told the German newspaper Bild that he did what was expected of him when he found a lost check for $4.8 million made out to the candy company Haribo.

The man came across it when he was walking home and saw it lying on the ground.

"There was such a large sum on it that I couldn't even pronounce it," he told Bild. The man thus contacted the company to let them know about his find and was told by a company lawyer to destroy it. Anouar G. said he followed the instructions and even sent a photo to prove it.

The man later received a thank-you gift from the company for complying.

So what did he get? Six packs of candy, according to the German man.

"I thought that it was a bit cheap," he said.

Haribo confirmed the incident to Bild, and added that the cheque was crossed. It would therefore have been useless for anyone but the company.

"Nobody but our company could have redeemed it," the company representative told Bild.

Haribo, a company worth an estimated $3 billion according to Forbes, said what they sent to Anouar was their standard thank-you package.

People addressed the story on social media and some of the comments are quite comical.

One person said they would be "hella pissed" if all they got was a box of candy after returning the cheque.

Other commenters pointed out that you can't actually cash a cheque when it's addressed to someone else.

One person had the ultimate solution: change your name.


Another Twitter user expressed how they would spend all that money.

Someone expressed how they thought the German man must have reacted when he saw his reward.

A commenter shared a creative solution on how to cash the cheque.

While the majority of people seemed to be shocked by how little Anouar G. received for finding and destroying the cheque, one person said a box of Haribo gummy bears would make their day.

This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.

  • Senior Writer

    Asymina Kantorowicz (she/her) was a Senior Writer for Narcity Media. She has worked at Yahoo Canada, CTV News Vancouver Island, CTV News Channel, and CHCH News. Over the past eight years, she took on various newsroom roles and helped produce award-winning newscasts. Loving the fast-paced environment of any newsroom, she helped cover stories like the 2016 royal visit to Victoria, the 2019 B.C. manhunt, and provincial elections. She had an MA in journalism and a BA in media from Western University. She moved from Toronto to Victoria a few years ago and loved being close to the ocean.

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