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upstart writes:

Aspiring Photographer's $3K Camera Accidentally Donated to Goodwill and Sold for $70:

An aspiring wedding photographer suffered a "huge setback" after her mom accidentally donated her brand new $3,000 camera to Goodwill — sparking a huge campaign to get the camera back.

Kelsie Lee had spent "several years" saving up for her Canon R6 Mark II with dreams of using it to be a wedding, engagement, and elopement photographer.

After purchasing the camera, Lee was been enthusiastically taking photos of her friends and family. But this all came to a crashing halt after her mom unintentionally donated the R6 to a Goodwill store where it was purchased for just $70.

"I was using it to take some photos of my family and me before we went out to dinner," Lee tells PetaPixel.

"I didn't want to bring the camera inside of the restaurant at the risk of damaging it and I also was hesitant to leave it in the car because of possible theft.

"My dad and I thought it would be a good idea to hide the camera in a cardboard box in the back of my mom's car — who was not at the dinner."

Later, when Lee went to retrieve her camera from her mom's car the "worst possible thing had happened" — the box and camera were gone.

"My mom had absolutely no idea my camera was in there and I had absolutely no idea that box was headed for Goodwill," Lee explains.

"We went to Goodwill immediately after we realized what happened. Turns out we missed the camera by ONE hour!"

[...] After losing her camera, Lee took to TikTok and in a heartbreaking post detailed what had just happened — she offered a $500 reward for the return of the R6.

After some people had falsely claimed they had her camera, Lee received a message on Instagram from a couple who said that they had it.

"I was initially hesitant," says Lee. "They sent me photos of the camera and I knew right away it was mine — I definitely blacked out for a second. I couldn't believe it."

The kind-hearted couple drove two hours to return the camera and did not want the reward money, but Lee insisted that they were compensated plus gas money.

[...] The one caveat was that after the couple bought the camera they had cleared the SD card. But, Lee is working with an expert to restore her photos.

OK, it is not a 'techie' or a STEM story - but how many of us have lost something absolutely vital to our work? A laptop maybe, or probably a cell/mobile phone with all the data that it contains. What measures do you take now to prevent a similar loss in the future?

Original Submission