Help with a lost Droid Incredible!!

[jjny1016]

So this has become a long and complicated story centered around my missing Droid Incredible. I lost my phone when I was running to catch my train for work, and was devastated. The day after I lost it I learned about the app called "Plan B" to locate the phone. Ran the program and it was located within 10 meters of another person's house in my town.

It gets very complicated from here...but basically the owners of the house were "out of town" when the phone went missing and claim they therefore had nothing to do with it. My question is really, what else can I do at this point? Also how accurate is the GPS of the phone? Is it possible that the GPS was wrong?

 

[sdrawkcab25]

Gps is definitely not wrong, only thing left to do is call the police and tell them the story.

Or the phone is just sitting outside their house and they have no idea.

 

[Podivin]

Remember that GPS doesn't work well indoors, therefore Plan B may be using cell towers to triangulate to your phone's location. If that's the case then it could easily be off by several feet.

Once while playing with Google Latitude my wife and I (and our phones) were side by side in our house, her phone showed as being in our house, mine showed as being next door.

 

[euph_22]

Remember that GPS doesn't work well indoors, therefore Plan B may be using cell towers to triangulate to your phone's location. If that's the case then it could easily be off by several feet.

Once while playing with Google Latitude my wife and I (and our phones) were side by side in our house, her phone showed as being in our house, mine showed as being next door.

I had thought about this, if it was getting a location from the cell tower wouldn't it give a much larger distance then (just like the huge location circle if you're using maps with the GPS off)? Another thought, the phone could be somewhere close enough to their house where they can see their wifi, and is getting a location based on that (google has there wifi network logged at that location).

 

[jjny1016]

Thank you so much for responding! The GPS was right, my phone was in that house. The people that live there gave it back today. It was a strange circumstance, but I'm just relieved to have my phone back.

 

[today]

Don't let a great story die like that. Details please. Our it didn't happen. Lol.

 

[euph_22]

I'm guessing they were visited in the night by the ghosts of canada day past, present and future.

good to hear you got your phone back.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

The wonders of technology. Glad to hear you got it back. Would be a terrible thing to lose this phone.

 

[sharper4]

This story stinks without details.

...now put Lookout on your phone so you can lock and locate the phone next time. Only thing worse than not having your phone is knowing someone else is going through it.

 

[CKwik240]

Glad to hear you got your phone back. I installed a program called where's my droid. It can locate it with gps, and it can activate a ring at max volume even if the volume us turned down. I've never used it but I could see the potential to get in the area of the phone then set off the ringer. I don't know if it can be installed remotely though.

 

[ArmchairBear]

Yes, I vote for more details. Very interesting story.

What were their explanations or excuses for not being completely truthful to you the first time you talked to them?

 

[mitchellpaul]

probably tried to unlock it but later realized it's most likely to guess a pattern or code on someone else's phone. My friend had her phone taken from her while she was at work. Some kid thought it was his girlfriends, or so he said, so he called the place of work about an hour later asking if she was missing her phone. This was after the fact that she had called, reported it stolen, and deactivated it. When she finally got the phone back she realized it was locked from too many tries so we're pretty sure they just blatantly tried to steal it.

Most people are morons and think they can just steal a phone and go activate it under their own account Little do they know, once it's reported stolen you can't activate it without an authorized person on the account. I had mine stolen, and then returned when someone tried to do this with my crappy LG phone.

 

[xfuchsiax]

Glad you got your phone back You should send a note to Lookout about your success story involving their app.

I never understand why people suck and do stuff like this. I found an iPhone 4 at a graduation this past spring and the happiness and gratitude the owner showed me when I reunited them with their phone absolutely made my day.

 

[FramCire]

Glad you got your phone back You should send a note to Lookout about your success story involving their app.

I never understand why people suck and do stuff like this. I found an iPhone 4 at a graduation this past spring and the happiness and gratitude the owner showed me when I reunited them with their phone absolutely made my day.

Did the owner cry because they had to take the iPhone over the android they would have got for replacement?

 

[Crashumbc]

probably tried to unlock it but later realized it's most likely to guess a pattern or code on someone else's phone. My friend had her phone taken from her while she was at work. Some kid thought it was his girlfriends, or so he said, so he called the place of work about an hour later asking if she was missing her phone. This was after the fact that she had called, reported it stolen, and deactivated it. When she finally got the phone back she realized it was locked from too many tries so we're pretty sure they just blatantly tried to steal it.

Most people are morons and think they can just steal a phone and go activate it under their own account Little do they know, once it's reported stolen you can't activate it without an authorized person on the account. I had mine stolen, and then returned when someone tried to do this with my crappy LG phone.

While probably true, keep in mind, if they honestly did think it was theirs I could easily see them trying their code enough to "lock" the phone. I know if I picked -up someone else Dinc. by mistake, I would probably try my code 20 times going "wtf?"

 

[Deleted User]

While probably true, keep in mind, if they honestly did think it was theirs I could easily see them trying their code enough to "lock" the phone. I know if I picked -up someone else Dinc. by mistake, I would probably try my code 20 times going "wtf?"

That would be a pretty large coincidence for it to be the same case, wallpaper, and other quirks such as dents, dings, and scratches that make up what could only be your phone. I doubt anyone could seriously mistake someone elses' phone to the point they lock the phone from failed attempts.

 

[euph_22]

That would be a pretty large coincidence for it to be the same case, wallpaper, and other quirks such as dents, dings, and scratches that make up what could only be your phone. I doubt anyone could seriously mistake someone elses' phone to the point they lock the phone from failed attempts.

I don't doubt that for a second. I know I change the wallpaper 3 times a week on average. My phone has no dings, dents or scratches I'd miss on a causal glance (and if one suddenly shows up I'd be more likely to say "OMG WTH, where did this scratch come from!?!" versus "hmmm, is this really my phone"). And if I had a lock screen, and it failed the first time I'd just assumed my finger slipped. Second time I'd be sure to go slow, and careful. At that point I'd be incredibly p#$$#@ that my phone is broken and won't unlock and try again repeatedly with great force and anger till it locked me out.

People grab other peoples car keys, walk to the wrong car, grab the wrong bag, wrong meal, wrong jacket, etc all the time and don't notice. Why would a phone be any different. I agree it's not the most plausible scenario, but it's possible.