On Monday morning, I discovered that my iPhone 4 was missing. Someone had taken it right off my desk at work. First of all, what kind of a person steals a phone from a co-worker?? I think we could have a lengthy discussion about that alone! My guess is that the same type of person who'd come to your home, see your engagement ring on the mantel and stick it in her pocket when you step into the kitchen to pour her a glass of wine.
For years now, I have been a loyal MobileMe customer, forking over my $100 at the beginning of every October to keep my cloud alive. When my Sprint contract was finally fulfilled and I was free to switch to the AT&T network and purchase that iPhone I'd had my eye on for years, I was ecstatic. One of the first things I did was set up MobileMe on my brand new iPhone 4. And when I saw that little option at the bottom of the settings page for "Find my iPhone", I didn't even think twice before turning the feature on.
So when my phone went missing, after turning my home, desk, and car inside out, I logged into my MobileMe account and tried to locate my iPhone through "Find my iPhone." Whoever had taken my phone had turned it off. No data communication, no location.
I slept terribly Monday night, thinking about what pervert was looking through the thousands of pictures featuring me and my loved ones, sifting through my calendar, and checking out the calorie counter app I recently downloaded to keep track of what I ate throughout the day. When I woke up on Tuesday morning, all I could think about was logging onto MobileMe with the hope that sometime during the night the perve had turned my phone on. My heart rate shot up when the blue dot appeared on top of a house in Hawthorne, about 20 miles south of where I actually live. I zoomed into the location and took a screenshot. Then I google mapped the location, went to street view and zoomed into the house. I printed all the pages out and went to work optimistic that I had enough evidence to incriminate the person living in that house. My only challenge: finding the person who lived in that house!
Once I got to work, I asked around the office a bit and found out that the house in question (where my phone spent the night) belonged to this girl who works two cubicles over from me. She's a legal secretary for a lawyer. I spent all of Tuesday in meetings with the office security, management, hr, etc.
Finally, the manager called me, the girl, and her boss into her office. She showed the girl the picture of the house and said: "Do you know this house?"
"Yeah. That's my house." the girl answered without hesitation.
Then we shared with her and her boss that my phone was taken from my desk yesterday morning and that at 10:51Pm last night, my phone was at her house. The girl denied taking it. Said someone was trying to "frame" her. Started to cry. Then said: "You want me to pay for it? I don't have your phone. I didn't take it. But I'll pay for it."
Her boss asked her to empty her purse and as she did, she said: "You can come and search my house from top to bottom. It's not there. Because I don't have it."
On Friday, she handed me cash for the phone which I used to purchase a new iPhone 4 at the AT&T store that same day. The matter was resolved without a police report. I did not want to press charges if I could avoid it because I felt bad about what that would mean to her three small children. What baffles me is that she still has her job. One thing is for sure, I am not leaving that phone laying around any more, even if it's on my own desk for a minute or two while I run the lady's room.
There you have it folks! MobileMe and "Find my iPhone" helped save the day!
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