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Found iPhone

M

monaarts

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 16, 2010
1,168
51
Kennesaw, GA
Hey everyone...

I am new here and kind of need peoples help... Today I went to a gas station and while pumping my gas I had noticed something under my car. I went and picked it up - it was an iPhone 3Gs. I brought it into the gas station and told the guy I found it and he told they cant take it because they dont want to be responsible for anything or whatever but recommended that I try calling someone from the phone book to see if I can return it. I thanked him for his time and left.

I went outside and turned the phone on (it was off for whatever reason). When I turned it on I was presented with a passcode screen. I dont know the passcode and cant unlock it to get to the home screen. I tried calling ATT to speak to someone and they pretty much told me the person is out of luck which I think is crazy. No one has tried calling it for the past 4 hours I have had it so I am thinking they might have tried calling it before I found it while it was off and gave up on it but IDK....

I happen to have a iPhone 3G, not the 3Gs... If no one claims it by tomorrow I am thinking that I will just use it by reformatting it. I honestly attempted to give the phone back to the original owner but that didnt work, obviously. If anyone could give me any advice I would appreciate it... Also, if I decide to just use it after tomorrow can I get into any type of trouble or anything? Thank you very much guys!



- Joe
 
if you planned on keeping it from the start, and didnt make much effort to return it IE the gas station and a moron at att....whats the point of this post? to brag you have someones phone and will keep it?
 
Have you thought of trying other avenues? Like the local Police Department? I know today's society believes that possession is 9/10th of the law, but How about doing the honourable and right thing and get it back to the original owner.

The other thing you can do is take it to your local ATT store. They can pull the IMEI number off the phone and trace that to the original owner. They can pull the SIM card, grab the numbers off the card, and call one of them. They could easily get the main number off the SIM card, and trace that back to the owner.

The tech you called at ATT has NFI what they are talking about. There is a lot more that can be done, so try exhausting all options. After all of them are done, then see what comes up.

I'd definitely take it to the Police Department first. Think about it: if they reported it lost or stolen and filed a report with the PD, if you have the phone, and they have MobileMe running on it, they can find the phone themselves, get the PD involved, and you could possibly be on the bad end of this.

Something to think about.

BL.
 
Joe, ordinarily I'd say you're a lucky boy, having found yourself a shiny iPhone 3GS but I actually lost my wallet yesterday which contained by driving license, debit cards and some other important stuff.

Knowing how inconvenient it is to lose something important, I have a lot of sympathy for the original owner and I think you should do more to return it to them. Perhaps report your find to the local police?

If nobody calls you on the phone in a couple of days then I'd probably restore it, grab the IMEI by calling *#06# and report it to AT&T again. If you give AT&T (or perhaps even Apple) the IMEI, they WILL know to whom the phone belongs and should help you to return it. You could also leave your name and number with the gas station so that if the owner returns to ask about it, they can forward them on to you.

I know it's tempting to keep it for yourself, but a poor somebody has paid a lot of money for that phone and I'm sure they'd love to have it returned to them.
 
The gas station will get a call shortly from the owner, if not already. Will not take long for the owner to figure our where he was when he lost it. Leave a number at the station and you will get a call.
 
Wow... some of you are what is wrong with the world...

I GENUINLY attempted to return the phone... I went into the gas station... Called AT&T... tried the phonebook but the phone is passcode protected... At what extreme is my duty over... I am not going to attempt to drive to the police station... I have already spent enough of my time. I can either throw the phone away or use it. I used enough of my time! Geeze people, give me some credit.


- Joe
 
I think that the contacts are stored in the phone and not in the SIM. So if you put your sim, you could boot the home and get to the contacts screen.

Even so, if you sync the phone using iTunes, it maybe works even if you don't know the SIM code. I'm not sure about this last.
 
Hold down the home button to enable voice control.

Say "call home" or say a bunch of names. Eventually you should get to someone.. lol. GL

robj said:
I think that the contacts are stored in the phone and not in the SIM. So if you put your sim, you could boot the home and get to the contacts screen.

Even so, if you sync the phone using iTunes, it maybe works even if you don't know the SIM code. I'm not sure about this last.
Click to expand...

Neither will work.
 
Just remember Karma is a B*tch. If you feel like you have done enough, then by all means go ahead and use it. If you feel like you need to do more, then do more. You'll get what is due. I feel like most people on here could really care less what you do, but everyone will certainly feel free to give you their opinion.
 
acfusion: Thanks for that suggestion... I tried call home, call mom, call dad, call gf, call bf, and call work... the only one that worked was call home and I got a "the number you are trying to call is no longer in service, please try your call again."

Any other suggestions?


- Joe
 
monaarts said:
acfusion: Thanks for that suggestion... I tried call home, call mom, call dad, call gf, call bf, and call work... the only one that worked was call home and I got a "the number you are trying to call is no longer in service, please try your call again."

Any other suggestions?


- Joe
Click to expand...

Just say random names, like Joe :p and etc.. you get the idea.
 
monaarts said:
Wow... some of you are what is wrong with the world...

I GENUINLY attempted to return the phone... I went into the gas station... Called AT&T... tried the phonebook but the phone is passcode protected... At what extreme is my duty over... I am not going to attempt to drive to the police station... I have already spent enough of my time. I can either throw the phone away or use it. I used enough of my time! Geeze people, give me some credit.


- Joe
Click to expand...

No, you're what's wrong with the world. If you think you've done all you can, hand the phone to the police, even if you have to stop a cop on the street and hand it to him. They might help return it, or the cop might keep it for himself. Either way, you've lost nothing because it's not yours to keep!

I hope I never drop my phone and have it found by somebody like you!
 
monaarts said:
I used enough of my time! Geeze people, give me some credit.- Joe
Click to expand...

You came here and took the time to write a post and asked for answers, you got them. Pick up your 3G and call the gas station and have them leave a note by the register. Unless it was a tactical nuke or get a free phone day, you will get a call from the owner. You are looking for someone to tell you that someone probably did not want the phone, so you should keep it. That probably will not come from a group of iPhone owners.
 
in the voice control say:
"call cell"

that should bring up a few numbers.....

it's ridiculous/sucks that AT&T or Apple can't help you out.... I mean you are trying to do the right thing and they have all that "tech crap" stuff registered.... heck the number on the sim card should get you the owner via AT&T.... ATT has that number, they call the owner and waaaahhhhlaaa... owner has his lost phone.... seems like your trying to do the right thing....

I found 120 music cd's in a park once, dropped it off to the PD and 90 days latter they called me up and asked me if I wanted the CDs.... I said yes, picked them up, I told them to keep my number in case they find the owner....... owner never called I got 120cds..... (15 years ago) (maybe I got an honest PD, I'd like to think they all are though)

there will be a point to where you've done all you can... maybe the guy had insurance through work and won't bned over backward to find the phone... who knows....

good luck......
 
-Garry- said:
No, you're what's wrong with the world. If you think you've done all you can, hand the phone to the police, even if you have to stop a cop on the street and hand it to him. They might help return it, or the cop might keep it for himself. Either way, you've lost nothing because it's not yours to keep!

I hope I never drop my phone and have it found by somebody like you!
Click to expand...

Your right... Your better off having someone find it that will just keep it without giving any efforts. Good luck with that!

And I dont know about where you live - but where I live there arent cops driving all over the place. Let's just say Garry... Would you mind not doing anything for me for an hour and then driving 15 miles for me, even though you dont know me and will gain nothing from it? Please go do that right now and then tell me how you feel.
 
Wow

I had a samsung impression from ebay that had a passlock screen on it. I tried everything in the world to open it. I contacted the ebay dealer but he couldn't figure it out and I didn't feel like waiting 3 weeks for an exchange (a Christmas gift two weeks before the holidays). I went to ATT but they had no way of formatting it or looking up information on an account that's not yours.

I called Samsung but all they would do is a format to it and send it back to me. I finally had to send it in to Samsung for a format due to being so close to Christmas and the service center is a city over from me. I have no clue who's previous phone it is and couldn't find out unless I wanted to try all possible number combination's.

He came on here to ask if anyone else had suggestions and you throw stones at him. He is right if the police get it and find out it can't be opened to find the owner then it will either sit in the backroom forever or have it formatted and used by a tech savy officer. That's the thing about a passcode lock you keep people out of your phone but don't expect anyone to find you as it is the reason for them nowadays.

A lot of stores don't take that kind of liability like the old days because someone can just as easily say that store stole it or broke there item and then come after them for damages. The sad thing is they have a 50/50 chance of winning the case. Welcome to America.

You went through everything I did with no luck and you asked people on here for help and these yuppies belittle you :mad:. I say contact the gas station and leave your number for someone inquiring about an iphone (if they are not the lazy type). Write the serial number down and if they call you have them recite the serial for it. If they lost it they should be able to give it to you. Then I would give it back. If no one calls then keep it as they have written it off.


I will also agree that Karma can be a beast.
 
If I were you, I would wait for a few days until someone tries to call it. If after like 4 days no one has called yet do the following thing:

(Not sure if this still works) If I'm not mistaken there's a way to get out of that 4 pass code. I thought it was something like make a backup in iTunes and than recover it with that back up. Now you can enter the iPhone without any problem, I believe. Via there you can try to call someone in the contact list or use the mail app to find the owner's email.

If you haven't found the owner after a week, I guess you should keep it.
 
Wow guys, why are you giving him so much trouble over this? From what I understand it sounds like he has good intentions and to be honest, I would just keep it! So good for you monaarts. I'm impressed at how hateful people can be for…what was it again?

Anyway, I wouldn't go straight to reformatting yet. Do you have an iPhone? If so you could try swapping the SIM cards and getting contacts off their SIM, or at least try getting the phone number of the phone. Use the voice control feature and just say "Call *mumble*" and hopefully it will pick up something. I don't really see how reformatting would help. You could also take it to apple or try calling AT&T again.

Good luck. Sorry about these people.
 
I'm stunned that anyone would even think about keeping something that someone had lost. You must make every attempt to return it. You can't just walk around with someone else's phone that they paid for! :eek:
 
applemax said:
I'm stunned that anyone would even think about keeping something that someone had lost. You must make every attempt to return it. You can't just walk around with someone else's phone that they paid for! :eek:
Click to expand...

"EVERY attempt".... ok so when is enough enough then, if he makes "EVERY attempt" as you say, then what do you propose he does? do you want him to run a $60 ad in 2 daily newspaper? is that reasonable?

if i lost my phone AND CARED ABOUT IT like I do my iPhone, I would call all over for it.... call ATT, Apple, Police, Gas Stations, Stores (call everywhere I was the day I lost it) ..... A LOT IS ON THE OWNER OF THE PHONE HERE..... like I said above maybe he doesn't care about it that much.. maybe he bought a new one already.......

he's not thinking on keeping the thing but there is "reasonability" here..... sheeeeessshhh...... HE. MIGHT. JUST. HAVE. A. NEW. IPHONE.
 
monaarts said:
Hey everyone...

I am new here and kind of need peoples help... Today I went to a gas station and while pumping my gas I had noticed something under my car. I went and picked it up - it was an iPhone 3Gs. I brought it into the gas station and told the guy I found it and he told they cant take it because they dont want to be responsible for anything or whatever but recommended that I try calling someone from the phone book to see if I can return it. I thanked him for his time and left.

I went outside and turned the phone on (it was off for whatever reason). When I turned it on I was presented with a passcode screen. I dont know the passcode and cant unlock it to get to the home screen. I tried calling ATT to speak to someone and they pretty much told me the person is out of luck which I think is crazy. No one has tried calling it for the past 4 hours I have had it so I am thinking they might have tried calling it before I found it while it was off and gave up on it but IDK....

I happen to have a iPhone 3G, not the 3Gs... If no one claims it by tomorrow I am thinking that I will just use it by reformatting it. I honestly attempted to give the phone back to the original owner but that didnt work, obviously. If anyone could give me any advice I would appreciate it... Also, if I decide to just use it after tomorrow can I get into any type of trouble or anything? Thank you very much guys!



- Joe
Click to expand...

I lost an iphone 3gs yesterday at a gas station.. is it black ??
 
In theory, if you have another ATT phone you could move the SIM card to that other phone, then call a phone with caller ID, and at least you get the phone number of the phone. Or, if it has already been cancelled, you will learn that.

If not cancelled, and you have an iPhone charger, you could leave it on a couple days for someone to attempt to call it. Even the original owner. Or, if they have Mobile Me, maybe attempt to locate it.

If you have the number, and it hasn't been cancelled, a call to that number could be made and voice mail left. Maybe the owner will call for messages.

I wish there was an intermediate level of locking, where you could make calls (from specially labeled contacts), but still prevent you from getting at the data on the phone.
 
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