The wallet was left at the café: how it finds its way home before you notice it is gone
Published 2026-11-14·4 min read·by AYA
It is an ordinary morning. You have a coffee at the café by the station, pay with your phone and hurry out to the train. Only two stops later do you realise your wallet is still on the table.
The waiter finds it a quarter of an hour later. Inside are a health insurance card, a couple of bank cards, a travel card and a receipt. None of them tells him how to reach you. The wallet ends up in a drawer behind the counter, and you have to hope you think of calling the right place.
A card that says who to tell
AYA Card is a credit card sized card made of PVC that you put in your wallet's card slot alongside your other cards. It carries a QR code. When someone scans it, they reach a page where they can contact you straight away.
This is how it looks from the waiter's side:
- He finds AYA Card in the card slot and scans the code with his phone. No app is needed.
- He sees your name and a short explanation of what the card is.
- He can share the location with one tap and call or write to you and your family through the page.
- You get a message with the place and can write when you will pick up the wallet.
He never sees your phone number. The location is only sent when he taps the button himself.
When it is about more than the wallet
AYA Card is also meant for situations where you are the one who needs help. If you are taken ill in the street or hurt on your bike, the wallet is often the first place a helper or a paramedic looks. Then it is good to have a card that points the way to your family.
When you activate the card, you therefore enter an emergency contact with a name and phone number. It is required. The emergency contact's number is only shown as a last resort, though: if the family cannot be reached through AYA. Otherwise contact goes through the page, just as with a found wallet.
You can also write a short, optional note under Medication and health, for example that you have diabetes and take insulin. Only write what a stranger needs to know to help you, and never your address or codes.
Why not just a business card?
A business card or a note with a phone number in the wallet helps too. But a number written on paper can be used by anyone who gets hold of the wallet, including people who have no intention of returning it. And a note says nothing about where the wallet is.
With AYA Card you are notified the moment someone scans the card, together with the place if the finder shares it. That means you often know where your wallet is before you have even noticed it is gone.
Get started
- Scan the QR code on the card with your phone camera.
- Enter your name.
- Enter an emergency contact with a name and phone number.
- Add a note under Medication and health if you like.
- Add an email if your account does not have one, and tap Activate card.
The card then appears in the app. You can always see exactly what a finder sees, edit the name, emergency contact and note, and pause the card.
12 months or lifetime
AYA Card does not expire by itself. When you buy it, you choose 12 months, where the first year is included in the price and the plan then renews once a year, or lifetime, where you pay once and there is nothing to renew.
The current price in your currency is on the product page.
For the whole family
AYA Card makes sense for the teenager with their first wallet, for the adult who cycles to work every day, and for grandparents who want a helper to be able to reach the family quickly. It takes up no more room than a bank card and does nothing until the day someone needs to know who to tell.
For your keys there is AYA Keychain, a small tag with the same idea: whoever finds them can reach you without knowing your address.