Part of what makes this particular defection so egregious, I think, is that he didn't just take the value in the card for his own use. Doing that might almost b

Part of what makes this particular defection so egregious, I think, is that he didn't just take the value in the card for his own use. Doing that might almost be understandable, at least if the person doing it had (a) no better income options, (b) few personal scruples. But going to the trouble of taking the money just to piss it away on some random charity does not constitute, as you say, "getting a high per-hour return" on one's effort. In exchange for destroying $650, all Sam got is the warm fuzzy of knowing he's "done something nice" in giving to charity. Offset with the cold pricklies of knowing he's "done something rotten" in stealing money from others for a use the donors didn't intend, it's at best a wash. He inflicted a cost of $650 on others without them or him receiving any compensating benefit! Which brings us back to the analogy: A committed vandal could easily do $130/hour worth of damage to random companies or people with minimal risk - if, as Sam did, they had no intent of personally profitting from it. That's what Sam was: a vandal, more than a thief. Like the teen who throws a rock through a window when nobody is watching or destroys bathroom fixtures. An awful lot of what makes civilization work is our tacit agreement to the code immortalized by Wil Wheaton: "don't be a dick." The fact that you can do something nasty and damaging to other people doesn't mean you should. The fact that in some circumstance it's particularly easy to steal from others doesn't give you a moral obligation to do so; quite the reverse. Some people are very trusting. They might leave doors unlocked or purses unguarded. They choose to go out in public without armed guards and trust that a random stranger on the street isn't going to be a mugger or rapist or kidnapper. When somebody who is especially trusting gets taken advantage of by someone unscrupulous, people generally find that especially worthy of criticism. The first thing we think of isn't to blame the victim for being too trusting, but to blame the scammer or thief for taking unfair advantage of trust.