[cienguey]

Hello everyone,
I lost my iphone about a week ago (it was actully stolen). I decided to leave the service active (I had a lot of reasons to do that). Anyway, one of the good things about that is that the person that has my phone actually started calling some of his relatives and friends with my phone. I'm also able to locate the phone using FamilyMap from AT&T (problem is that FamilyMap is not very accurate and so I only have a half a mile radius of where this people live). In anycase, I have a lot of details about the people that this person calls. I'm about to make the move to start calling this people and tell them what is going on and report them to the police if they do not cooperate in getting my phone back. I anticipate that this people will try to get rid of the phone. If they do, I would like to broadcast their phone number information so that they start getting inundated with calls and are forced to change their phone number. This would be like getting back to them for not cooperating in finding my phone. Any ideas you may have on how to do that would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you know of any other software that can locate the phone more accurately that does not require software to be installed on the phone, let me know.

[Phileas]

Do you have a mobile me subscription?

[Big Mac]

Sorry to hear about the theft, cienguey - that sucks. What Phileas is referring to is a feature of Apple's Mobile Me service that lets you register your iPhone on it and remotely wipe its data in case it gets stolen. You can read about the features here. It really makes sense to have this if you're at all concerned about iPhone loss or theft.

[imitchellg5]

Sounds like an awful idea ("revange" often is). Report it to your local police, with the numbers that you know the phone has called. Flooding someone's phone with calls isn't going to get you your phone back, it's gonna get your phone left in a ditch and/or destroyed.

[JMan09]

I agree with imitchell, give the information you have gathered to police and see what they can do.

[Eriamjh]

My guess: the police won't do squat.

Try this: call one of the numbers pretending to be from a company awarding a prize. Ask for the name of the person who has your phone number so you can properly put together the information to award his prize.

Be creative and say he entered something using his phone (like sent a text, etc.), but say in order to properly award it, you need to surprise him at his home address and that's why you are contacting a friend/family member (say that he/she provided their info and that they CANNOT tell him or he won't get his prize).

Think it out in advance and be prepared for a few questions. The prize can be something small (like $1000) and say it will be recorded for a future promotion which is why they haven't heard about it.

Remember that Apple won't help you. They don't believe people when they say the phone is stolen (at least without a police report). Did you file a police report? It's a good start.

Good luck. Keep us posted.

[ghporter]

Eriamjh's idea sounds like a good way to wind up getting beat up. Report the theft to police, provide the police with the information that's been gathered about who is calling whom, and tell the police that you want your phone back. With all the info you have, it should be an easy opportunity for your local police to look good-and if the thief is likely to try to hurt anyone, he's a lot less likely if that "anyone" is an armed, uniformed police officer.