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Help Question regarding found phone

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John_Roger

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My father just got home from our cabin (secluded in the middle of the woods) and he brought home a Sprint Evo 4G with him. He contacted all of our family up there and nobody is missing a phone. None of my pals have been up there. So whoever It was should not have been there. I would like to call whoever it belongs to put it has a pattern password on it. Is there a way to get around this?

I called sprint and the offered to credit my dads account, but they can not tell me who owns it, since it has not been reported as lost.

If this sort of thread is not allowed, I apologize, mods.
 
I would get back with Sprint and get someone on the line that knows what they are talking about. That is nonsense. If they won't you could call the police and report it in the area of the cabin. Police or Sheriff's office there.
 
lewwill said:
I would get back with Sprint and get someone on the line that knows what they are talking about. That is nonsense. If they won't you could call the police and report it in the area of the cabin. Police or Sheriff's office there.
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I've posted a CL in the city it was found in. I hope to find the owner. I would want the same thing to happen to me. Karma is the real deal. Currently calling another sprint store.

Thank you.
 
The Motorola Droid Bionic (the subejct of the forum where you posted the question) stores the phone numnber assoicated with the phone at ...
Settings | Status | My phone number
... perhaps it is also stored on the phone you found.

Call Sprint and give them that number.

... Thom
 
Are there any contacts on the phone? If so, try calling a few and see if they can give you a way to contact the owner.
 
I posted it under the Bionic because that's the phone I have, and you are all my pals :-)

The phone has a screen lock enabled, so I can't get into it. I figured I could put the sim in my Bionic to get contact numbers, but this smarty pants has no SD card.....
 
If you think about it, it makes sense that Sprint will not tell you who the phone belongs to. Imagine, if you will, that your phone was stolen. The person who stole it would love to know where you live, if possible, to see if you have some other cool stuff. You really do not want Verizon Wireless telling them that information. I think what you have done - contacting Sprint to report a lost phone; contacting the local police to report a found phone; posting a Craigslist ad (though you'll want to be careful about that) - sounds like all that you can do.

I suppose that you could figure out how to do a hardware factory reset to get rid of the pattern lock, which will give you a way to get to the settings to find the phone number assigned to the account - but all of the contacts would also be gone, so I'm not sure how useful that would be.

Sprint is a CDMA carrier like Verizon, with WiMax for 4G, so I don't think that their phones have SIMs.
 
Yeah I'd take it to an actual Sprint store. Im sure they have a way to figure out who it belongs to (at least account) by the IMEI number of the phone.
 
John_Roger said:
Would you believe that Sprint actually gave me two numbers off the ESN? The owner has been located!
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I am going to assume 1 of 2 things.

1. They where able to contact the customer and get his permission to release his contact info to you.

2. The person that did it for you is a complete moron.


If I ever gave out someones personal information over the phone to someone for ANY reason without verifying who they are I would immedietly lose my job. And it's a rule that makes sense. If I was the rep you dealt with, I would take your information and call the customer and give him your info. But still, I'm happy this worked out for everyone :D
 
I actually called customer support. The guy actually did not hesitate to give me two different numbers, and names of the possible owners of the phone. He first informed to take it to the store and just leave it there. I told him I would prefer to give it back to the customer myself. I was never once placed on hold.

I was shocked all the information that he gave me. The kid who owns the phone is stoked.


bigbabys said:
I am going to assume 1 of 2 things.

1. They where able to contact the customer and get his permission to release his contact info to you.

2. The person that did it for you is a complete moron.


If I ever gave out someones personal information over the phone to someone for ANY reason without verifying who they are I would immedietly lose my job. And it's a rule that makes sense. If I was the rep you dealt with, I would take your information and call the customer and give him your info. But still, I'm happy this worked out for everyone :D
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Without any information available from the phone itself (it was locked) how could thye possiblly tell whose phone this was?
 
Everybody is happy. I'm just looking forward to asking him why his phone was found on my private property, right next to the door of my cabin (secluded in the woods)
 
Well ... almost everyone is happy ...

What I learned from your adventure is that I will never do business with Sprint.

You said there were two names/numbers gicven to you and you found the phone at the door to your secluded cabin. Why do you believe the kid you talked to? (I guess you could watch him unlock the phone when you return it to him.)

... Thom
 
Almost as bad as giving you the person's contact info for privacy concerns, is the fact they gave it to you with you hoping to contact the person.

I don't want to be a jerk, and I'm assuming you have the best of intentions, but this could go wrong very quickly. Let's say instead of finding a random phone at your dad's cabin, you found it in your lady's car or something, and you were looking for some confrontation. Sprint would be suffer HUGE problems and exposure in a situsation that ended badly in a situation like that.

I hope the best for everyone involved, but I would drop it off at the Sprint store and be done with it. If you or your dad are wound up abotu it being at the cabin, file a police report for trespassing and they can track down the owner and get the story. Done deal.

Just my $.02... Good luck!
 
bulla16 said:
Almost as bad as giving you the person's contact info for privacy concerns, is the fact they gave it to you with you hoping to contact the person.

I don't want to be a jerk, and I'm assuming you have the best of intentions, but this could go wrong very quickly. Let's say instead of finding a random phone at your dad's cabin, you found it in your lady's car or something, and you were looking for some confrontation. Sprint would be suffer HUGE problems and exposure in a situsation that ended badly in a situation like that.

I hope the best for everyone involved, but I would drop it off at the Sprint store and be done with it. If you or your dad are wound up abotu it being at the cabin, file a police report for trespassing and they can track down the owner and get the story. Done deal.

Just my $.02... Good luck!
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You all have made some very valid points. My side of the story is I would like to get my phone back if it was lost. My dad is pretty peeved about it being so close to your cabin. However since we are not there too often we don't want to upset the neighbors with something so trivial. I agree that it was completely wrong for sprint to give me this information. Within minutes of getting this information I tracked down the address to a few streets over from my cabin. I could be an upset boyfriend, etc.

Luckily for this kid I am not a serial killer, I'm just trying to do the right think. I believe that he will appreciate it, and tell his friend to please stay off our property. (He told me he had let his friend borrow the phone, and it was lost) I did ask him what kind of phone was lost, and he confirmed it was a Evo 4G. I did mention that our property is closely watched by some family who happen to be police officers :-)


Thank you everybody for the advise.
 
I'm pleased the original owner was found and the phone returned. I think this thread has reached its conclusion and needs to be closed down.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice!
 
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