Redditor's mother-in-law finds missing Steam Deck on train, returns it to its rightful owner in a soap box nine months later

A redditor's mother-in-law found a Steam Deck OLED on an Amtrak train—and ever since, the redditor has been trying to send it back to its rightful owner. Now it's finally on its way home.

Apparently, the redditor's mother-in-law found the device several months prior, but "she had no idea what to do with it or how to even turn it on. She just came to visit and handed it over to me this weekend."

The user, vgalz, originally tried looking on the Steam, Steam Deck, and Amtrak subreddits to find the owner. Having no luck, they then reached out to Steam Support representatives, who said they couldn't connect the finder with the owner but did recommend reporting the missing Deck to local law enforcement.

Vgalz also tried to befriend the owner on Steam, tried to log into their account to get their name, and commented on a Redditor's post who they believed owned the Deck, all to no avail.

It turns out that the original owner posted about their missing device on the Steam Deck subreddit, but it was missed because they made the post nine months ago.

And so, with the user found (and with the owner of the device verified), the redditor sent it back home in a hand soap box.

Vgalz says, "It took a little bit of effort but it feels amazingly good to have helped get this baby home"

They continue, "And to everyone reading.. if you get the opportunity to do a good deed for someone, please do. If everyone does the selfish thing every time, then the world just sucks. Everyone has the ability to be better than that. And it feels really good to do it."

In between the device being lost and being found again, the Steam Deck has seen a significant price increase, with the 512 GB OLED model going from $549 to $789 and the 1 TB OLED model going from $649 to $949. That had to have made the loss sting even harder, but, it's always nice to see a happy ending.

And even Vgalz benefited from the situation, as a separate redditor gifted them a game as a reward for their kindness. Everyone involved, give yourselves a pat on the back.