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Wallet travels from S. Korea
and back
The case of the wandering wallet is a tale
fit for the National Geographic Channel.
Last year, an inspector at an automotive plant in South Korea
lost his wallet.
Several months and thousands of miles later, an employee at the
Fuccillo Chevrolet dealership on Grand Island found that
billfold tucked under the back seat of a Chevy Aveo.
The binational happy ending was complete when a General Motors
employee personally returned the wallet to its grateful owner,
J.W. Joh - with the money, credit cards and family photos
intact.
"The result for him was just as if the next guy in the line had
found the wallet," said Charlie Mott, who gave back the wallet.
"It just took a while."
Fuccillo workers are amazed the wallet made it through the
Aveo's long and bumpy journey by ship, train and truck from the
South Korean factory to the local dealership.
"That seems pretty remarkable," said Tom Kanaley, Fuccillo
Chevrolet general manager.
The wallet's unexpected international trip began last summer or
fall in suburban Seoul at a joint GM-Daewoo Auto Technology
assembly plant.
Joh, an inspector at the plant, was checking out the wiring on
an Aveo bound for sale in the United States, Mott said.
It's a job that forces Joh to crawl around looking at the wiring
under the seats and dashboard, and at some point that day he
lost his wallet.
He didn't notice his wallet was missing until the car was gone,
said Mott, United States product manager for Aveo.
The car and the stowaway wallet made their way to a port in
South Korea, where the car was loaded on a ship and transported
to a port in California.
From there, the car was taken by train and truck across the
country to the Fuccillo dealership, a trip of many weeks and
about 6,600 miles.
The Aveo sat on the lot for some time before a customer
purchased it and Fuccillo employees started getting it ready for
delivery.
Vinny Ricigliano, a Fuccillo detailer, was giving the car a
thorough once-over when he found the wallet under the back seat.
"You're more apt to find Pepsi cans, soda cans," Kanaley said.
"You usually don't find a wallet in there."
Ricigliano gave the wallet to Kanaley without opening it, the
general manager said.
Kanaley found South Korean currency, credit cards and a driver's
license in the billfold.
He contacted his zone manager, Mike Howse, who then contacted
Mott at GM.
The wallet held an ID card from the South Korean plant that
helped Mott track down the employee. It also had about 40,000
won - the South Korean currency - inside, or about $43 at the
current exchange rate.
Mott made arrangements to pick up the wallet from Fuccillo while
he was on a long-scheduled drive from Detroit to Washington,
D.C.
And rather than ship the wallet to Joh, he was able to deliver
it in person during a business trip to Seoul in December.
Joh told Mott through a translator that he was glad to get the
wallet back because it had been a gift from his wife and had
sentimental value.
The wallet story even merited coverage in the plant's in-house
magazine.
"After the U.S. trip by Aveo, the wallet, which actually was the
present from his wife, became much more meaningful with the warm
kindness from GM family," a draft version of the article stated,
according to a translation provided by GM.
Mott said the story sounded familiar to him.
"It kind of reminds me of that children's story about an Indian
boy's canoe that floats through the Great Lakes and out the St.
Lawrence," Mott said, referring to "Paddle-to-the-Sea," by
Holling C. Holling.
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