[SOLIDAge]

I found a cell phone today while waking out of the store
It isn't my carrier but its my sister's, she was with me.
Being as it is good friday i figure i'll call the "MY NUMBER" leave a voice mail for the person and wait...thats me being good.

Out of curiosity if this person never gets back to me etc, etc how hard would it for her to use the phone? It has a SIM card which her current phone does not, i know that if her current one had it, it would just be a matter of swapping em out...so in this case since she has an older model Cingular used before sims, does she just go, say "hey i found this, couldn't find the owner" and they'll give her a sim w/ her number and stuff? its a fairly nice Colour Samsung phone...but i'm sure no-adays the buyer payed like $40 for it ...
anyway...whats your ideas/thoughts/ambitions on the subject.

[starman]

Simply call the carrier's 800 number, give them the serial for the phone, your contact info, and let them do the rest. Or, tell the place where you found it where to get you.

Mike

[phoenixboy]

keep it and wait t'ill the owner calls. i lost mine last summer. some biatch found it, and even answered when i called...

me: "hi, great, you found my cellphone..."

she: "no!...", and hung up!

should i ever find out who she is, i'll stab her to death with a dull spoon.

[benb]

You could call people who are stored in the phone. You'll probably get someone with caller ID and they can tell you whose phone it is.

Or call the carrier.

[SOLIDAge]

you guys don't seem to think that calling the voice mail is the best idea? why is that?

[AlbertWu]

All phones have IMEI numbers. It's kind of like a universal serial number that the carriers store in their database. I would call Cingular and report the IMEI number. They can look it up and find the owner.

Also, if the owner reports their phone as stolen, the carriers generally block the IMEI number, making the phone useless.

[waxcrash]

I found a cell phone in the back of a cab. By the time I got home the battery had died on the phone. I didn't have a charger so now the phone sits in my junk drawer.

[phoenixboy]

Originally posted by AlbertWu:
Also, if the owner reports their phone as stolen, the carriers generally block the IMEI number, making the phone useless.

blocking the IMEI number of a cellphone won't do anything. all you can do is block your carrier account. if the cellphone isn't directly linked to the chip, you can just substitute the card and use the cellphone. (at least that's how it works in europe)

[disectamac]

I lost a samsung, I'm not kidding. I doubt the one you found is mine because I lost mine on new years eve in Boston


The model was s307 and I have a bunch of downloaded ringtones and a few pictures in the pictures folder.


Well, the best thing you could do is call the numbers in the memory and ask them how to get in touch with the owner. Leaving a voice mail isn't a bad idea either.

[brapper]

Originally posted by phoenixboy:

should i ever find out who she is, i'll stab her to death with a dull spoon.

[Diggory Laycock]

Originally posted by waxcrash:
I found a cell phone in the back of a cab. By the time I got home the battery had died on the phone. I didn't have a charger so now the phone sits in my junk drawer.

The IMEI should be under the battery - at least it is on Nokias and Ericssons

[scadboy]

I found a phone on the street once, it was the exact same model as mine, so I picked it up, thinking I (or my b/f, who also has the same phone) might have dropped it. It wasn't ours, so I looked through the address book on the phone thinking I could find one of the person's friends to call, but there were a billion names and numbers listed. I eventually found "mom and dad" listed, and figured it was my best bet. So I called them and awkwardly explained that I found their kid's phone, and gave them my number so their kid could get it back. Sure enough, later that day, the kid called me, and I was able to get it back to him that afternoon.

Another funny cell phone story...
My friend Jason had just gotten a cell phone, he didn't have it for more than a day before he started getting calls from this deranged woman looking for her boyfriend. It started with a 10 minute voicemail asking him (her boyfriend, not Jason) to come home, she went on and on about how he hadn't come home in three days, and how she was worried about him. The woman had the scariest gravely crack-whore type voice, and she sounded like she was high through all the messages.

After the first message, Jason was afraid to answer his phone, so he just let all of her calls go to his voicemail. Before the end of the day, she had left three more, progressively angrier and more deranged (going on about how "reggie" was "****ed up real bad" and how angry she was with him for not coming home, getting down-right violent and threatening to stab him like "she'd done before").

This all happened while Jason and I were at work, and he'd pass his phone around to everyone in the store as he got a new message. We all had a good laugh, but Jason was genuinely disturbed and wanted it to end. So, the next time she called, he answered the phone. At first, she thought one of her boyfriend's buddies was trying to trick her, and then she accused Jason of stealing her boyfriend's phone, and she started to get violent with Jason, so he freaked out and hung up. She left three more angry voicemails before Jason decided to call the police.

The cops came to the store, one of them listened to the messages while Jason explained what was going on. Sure enough, the phone rang. It was the crazy crack-whore bitch. So jason answers, and explains that he's speaking with a police officer about filing harassment charges against her. True to crazy crack-whore bitch form, she doesn't believe him, and ask to speak with one of the "supposed" cops. So Jason obliges and hands the phone over to one of the cops, who really seems to be getting a kick out of the whole situation. He basically explains to her that this isn't her boyfriend's phone, and asks her to stop calling Jason.

She doesn't believe that he's a cop, so she starts yelling at the cop and carrying on, until the cop's radio goes off, loudly. Loud enough for the crazy bitch to hear, and loud enough to convince her that he really is a cop. So, she apologizes, says she'll never call again and hangs up. Jason breathes a heavy sigh of relief, the cops leave, and tell him to let any of her calls go to his voicemail, in case she calls again. Of course, she calls again, this time apologizing for bothering Jason and offering, get this, to take him out to dinner!

Crazy ****ing bitch. Needless to say, Jason had his number changed the next day.

sorry for the long post, hope you enjoyed the story as much as we enjoyed that crazy bitch's voicemails.

[Truepop]

I had my car broken in on a sunday and had money, cds, and cell phone in the console and they only took the cell phone. I called my number and asked for me and the guy said I had the wrong number. I called a few more times that night and he said would you quit calling me, you have the wrong number. I called back and asked why he took my phone and he hung up. I had free night and weekends so I had my powermac dial the number over and over again like it was going to connect to the internet with an auto redial every 30 seconds just to piss him off where he would either have to turn the phone off or just be annoyed.

Monday morning (I couldn't cancel the service til monday) at 8am I went to AT&T and canceled the phone.

I don't know why he took it, It was one of those cheap ass nokia's that were free with a plan back in 1999 and here it was 2002. better phones were on the market.

[OwlBoy]

Originally posted by Truepop:
I had my car broken in on a sunday and had money, cds, and cell phone in the console and they only took the cell phone. I called my number and asked for me and the guy said I had the wrong number. I called a few more times that night and he said would you quit calling me, you have the wrong number. I called back and asked why he took my phone and he hung up. I had free night and weekends so I had my powermac dial the number over and over again like it was going to connect to the internet with an auto redial every 30 seconds just to piss him off where he would either have to turn the phone off or just be annoyed.

Monday morning (I couldn't cancel the service til monday) at 8am I went to AT&T and canceled the phone.

I don't know why he took it, It was one of those cheap ass nokia's that were free with a plan back in 1999 and here it was 2002. better phones were on the market.

hahahahah Good job with the Modem!

-Owl

[DeathToWindows]

i have soldered my cellphone to my ass.

[iMOTOR]

Originally posted by DeathToWindows:
i have soldered my cellphone to my ass.

wow.....you can talk with your butt?!?

[Mr. Blur]

Originally posted by iMOTOR:
wow.....you can talk with your butt?!?

i am not sure i want to hear that.....(or at least be within nose range)

[ghotirking]

Put this in the 'stupid crook's even dumber girlfriend' file:

Dempsey's role began on Feb. 22 when she went out to her 1989 Buick Riviera, which was parked in her family's driveway, and found her brand new LG picture phone was gone...As the day went on without it surfacing, she said she decided to take a chance and call her cell phone.

The first time a male answered the phone but then hung up, she said.

Dempsey said she called again a short time later -- using *67, so the person on the other line would not know who was calling -- and a woman answered the phone.

"'Who is this?'" Dempsey said the woman asked.

Dempsey said she answered, "Guess?"

The woman on the other line began running through a list of potential names, Dempsey recalled.

"She guessed a couple of names and then said Tiffany. I was like 'Yeah this is Tiffany.' She was like 'What's up? I haven't seen you in so long. Why don't you come out and hang out?'"

"I was like, 'Well I don't have to work. I'll come down, where are you.' She gave me the address, then I called the police and they did what they had to do," Dempsey said.

[AlbertWu]

Originally posted by phoenixboy:
blocking the IMEI number of a cellphone won't do anything. all you can do is block your carrier account. if the cellphone isn't directly linked to the chip, you can just substitute the card and use the cellphone. (at least that's how it works in europe)

blocking your carrier account only prevents them from making calls on your account. you can still swap out the SIM card and use it on a different account. blocking the IMEI number prevents the phone (using any account) from logging onto the network at all.

[phoenixboy]

Originally posted by AlbertWu:
blocking your carrier account only prevents them from making calls on your account. you can still swap out the SIM card and use it on a different account.

err...that's what i said.

Originally posted by AlbertWu:
blocking the IMEI number prevents the phone (using any account) from logging onto the network at all.

that's not what they told me at the local nokia store. the only thing you can do with the IMEI number is report it (the phone) stolen, so that if it gets brought in for repair somewhere, the cell will come up as "stolen".

there is no way though, to make the phone itself "unusable". which makes sense, since you log onto the network with your SIM card, not the phone itself.

[Diggory Laycock]

Originally posted by phoenixboy:
err...that's what i said.

that's not what they told me at the local nokia store. the only thing you can do with the IMEI number is report it (the phone) stolen, so that if it gets brought in for repair somewhere, the cell will come up as "stolen".

there is no way though, to make the phone itself "unusable". which makes sense, since you log onto the network with your SIM card, not the phone itself.

Wow - You mean the US doesn't have a pan-network Database of stolen IMEIs? We do in the UK - Government forced the networks to do it because phone theft was so rife - Of course they needed to be forced - because Handset manufacturers like it when consumers have to buy a new phone more frequently. (and handset manufacturers and network providers are often close friends.)

[phoenixboy]

Originally posted by Diggory Laycock:
Wow - You mean the US doesn't have a pan-network Database of stolen IMEIs?

i dunno, i don't live in the us (i asked in a nokia store in germany). now that you mention it, it could be the same in the us as it is in britain...

[Mastrap]

Originally posted by phoenixboy:
i dunno, i don't live in the us (i asked in a nokia store in germany). now that you mention it, it could be the same in the us as it is in britain...

It is the same in Germany. Stolen phones are routinely blocked and cannot be used by the thief.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by phoenixboy:
that's not what they told me at the local nokia store. the only thing you can do with the IMEI number is report it (the phone) stolen, so that if it gets brought in for repair somewhere, the cell will come up as "stolen".

there is no way though, to make the phone itself "unusable". which makes sense, since you log onto the network with your SIM card, not the phone itself.

Every phone, when logged on, transfers its IMEI code, though, (theoretically) making it trivially easy for carriers to block phones reported stolen.

Also, most phones (at least the last three I had) have phone PIN codes that you can set to lock the phone to a specific SIM (not talking about the SIM's PIN code here), so once you block your SIM card, the phone itself becomes unusable without the unlock code.

-s*

[phoenixboy]

Originally posted by Mastrap:
It is the same in Germany. Stolen phones are routinely blocked and cannot be used by the thief.

well, from all i have heared it is not possible by simply blocking the IMEI number. it would be great if you could post a link, because i tried to get my stolen phone blocked last year, and everybody told me it wasn't possible through blocking the IMEI.

[phoenixboy]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Every phone, when logged on, transfers its IMEI code, though, (theoretically) making it trivially easy for carriers to block phones reported stolen.

interesting, who would be responsible for blocking the phone, since you don't know which carrier the thief is using. - the govt.?

[DoGoodDrugs]

yea, if the phone is reported stolen its useless. your best bet is trying to give it back to the owner. if you cant get a hold of her, keep the phone and take it apart to make a toaster oven or something. most old cell phones can be modified into toasters, microwaves and mp3 players, but you'll never get a new number for it.

[Langdon]

Originally posted by DoGoodDrugs:
yea, if the phone is reported stolen its useless. your best bet is trying to give it back to the owner. if you cant get a hold of her, keep the phone and take it apart to make a toaster oven or something. most old cell phones can be modified into toasters, microwaves and mp3 players, but you'll never get a new number for it.

That might have been true for all GSM carriers. If the phone is unlocked and you take it off the service the phone was sold through it might be possible to use it on another carrier. I don't belive all services share the database of lost or stolen phones. So long as you are using your SIM card and phone is unlocked your chances of using it are 50/50.

[Diggory Laycock]

Here's a link (but of course it doesn't prove anything about Germany)

http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/stolengoods5.htm

[CharlesS]

Back to the original topic:

If you found someone's cell phone but can't figure out who the owner is, shouldn't you be able to look up the cell's phone number, then call the provider, explain what happened, and ask who has that number?