An Aussie teenager who handed in $3,500 he found outside a Gold Coast petrol station has been tracked down and rewarded by the money’s owner.
Coastal Demolitions owner Daniel McKellar received the cash as payment for scrap metal on Friday but the bundle fell out of his pocket when he stopped for a coffee near the service station in Tugun.
He went back and found the cash had been handed in, but was shocked to discover the young man on a bicycle had not even left his name or number, and shared the CCTV footage on his Instagram page in the hope of tracking him down.
An Aussie teenager who handed in $3,500 he found outside a Gold Coast petrol station without even leaving his name has been tracked down a rewarded by the money’s owner. pic.twitter.com/mtAAHUAo0c
— The Noticer (@NoticerNews) October 27, 2025
“Can the internet do its magic and find the young fella, we want to thank him by giving him a reward of $1,000. The rest will be donated to a GoFundMe of our choice this afternoon, as we feel it’s only right to pay it forward!” Mr McKellar wrote.
The next day the mother of 17-year-old Josh Pache recognised her son in the video and reached out to Mr McKellar, who gave Josh the $1,000 reward, offered him a job when he finishes school, and started a GoFundMe to help buy him a ute after he said that’s what he would use the reward for.
“It’s pretty rare to find the younger generation having a good moral compass and obviously knowing what to do, being the right thing to hand in the money,” Mr McKellar told news.com.au.
“He didn’t even go home and tell [his mum] about finding the money, that’s another selfless thing, that he didn’t find it a big event that he found money on the floor.
“For him to just not hesitate, take it straight to the counter and then walk off and not even leave his name, it’s pretty remarkable. He’s obviously been raised right.”
When asked why he returned the money, Josh told 7News: “I probably couldn’t live with me taking that, just didn’t feel right.”
But Mr McKellar said that his Instagram post also showed that not everyone as honest as Josh, and was disappointed to see several people try to trick him into handing over the reward.
“We had one person make up an AI account of Josh’s face and then like use an AI image of the shirt that he had on with the shorts to present themselves as him,” he said.
“It wasn’t them. So, that was pretty disappointing but it just shows that there is definitely a good and bad side of the human race and Josh is definitely on that good side.”
Header image: Left, Josh Pache (GoFundMe). Right, CCTV of Josh handing over the cash (supplied).
