Travel Technology - Found an iPhone, can't find owner - Now what?

So I found an iPhone on an airplane. No one else was on board so I have no idea how long it has been there. I plugged it in to iTunes and it says "Can not connect to M***** J******'s iPhone". But I have no way of knowing where he lives or any way to contact him. I am nowhere near an AT&T store or an Apple store so I have no way to ask them to help find the owner. When I turn on the phone it say iPhone is Disabled - connect to iTunes, but as I said, iTunes won't connect to it unless the passcode is entered, and that's why it's disabled in the first place.

Any suggestions? I would like to do the right thing and return it, but if I can't I would like to make use of it somehow, it just does not feel right to throw it away.

So I found an iPhone on an airplane. No one else was on board so I have no idea how long it has been there. I plugged it in to iTunes and it says "Can not connect to M***** J******'s iPhone". But I have no way of knowing where he lives or any way to contact him. I am nowhere near an AT&T store or an Apple store so I have no way to ask them to help find the owner. When I turn on the phone it say iPhone is Disabled - connect to iTunes, but as I said, iTunes won't connect to it unless the passcode is entered, and that's why it's disabled in the first place.

Any suggestions? I would like to do the right thing and return it, but if I can't I would like to make use of it somehow, it just does not feel right to throw it away.

Might sound stupid but look at the contact list and see if you can find a contact called ''home'' or ''mom'' or ''work'' etc....

Thats how I traced the owner of the last phone I found....

iPhone disabled could mean that the owner has reported its loss, such that the iPhone number is put under the 'black' list which is for like stolen cell phones.

I believe the error code you are seeing is what happens when you enter an incorrect passcode to many times. The passcode is a security feature that you can choose to turn on to protect your contact info and other sensitive information such as private emails, in case the phone gets lost or stolen. If a person enters an incorrect code to many times the device locks up until it is plugged into the computer and reset.

A few things I would try are to Google the persons name if it is not too generic and see if you can get a hit. Also if you are on Facebook, see if there is a person on Facebook with the same name and send them a message.

I have also read stories about how people have brought the phones into Apple stores where they can look up the serial number and see who it is registered to and contact them.

Edit: I also notice that your handle implies that you are an airplane mechanic, if you work for the company on which you found the phone do you have access to the flight manifests to match the tail number of the plane and you can look it up that way.

A few things I would try are to Google the persons name if it is not too generic and see if you can get a hit. Also if you are on Facebook, see if there is a person on Facebook with the same name and send them a message.

I have also read stories about how people have brought the phones into Apple stores where they can look up the serial number and see who it is registered to and contact them.

Edit: I also notice that your handle implies that you are an airplane mechanic, if you work for the company on which you found the phone do you have access to the flight manifests to match the tail number of the plane and you can look it up that way.

A couple of thoughts about the above suggestions:

I'm assuming that the phonebook is locked up because of the security feature which is too bad. Scrolling through it was how I once found the owner of a cell phone :(

If you contact someone using Google/Facebook, I'd send them a note asking if they were recently on a UA/AA/CO flight and did they happen to lose something? I wouldn't say "Are you John Doe and did you lose an iPhone?" It could be too tempting for someone who is not the real owner.

Also, although you may live far from an Apple store, you could call them and explain the situation. They might be willing to have you mail it to them so they can follow up on the iTunes/registration/owner.

Good luck with it. Let us know if you find the owner.

DD

IMEI number should be a quick way sorting it out? If you call Apple...

IMEI number should be a quick way sorting it out? If you call Apple...

How would one go about finding it? The phone is locked.

Out of curiosity, why didn't you just turn it into the airport lost and found?

If I lost my phone, I'd be calling lost and found, not sitting at home hoping a random stranger took it off the plane and brought it home trying to find ways to contact me.

FWIW; Call Apple and give them the serial number. They'll be able to get in touch with the owner.

As others suggested, call apple or if it's an AT&T Iphone you can call AT&T too. If you can get to the IMEI *#06# (I think you can do this on some phone even when it's locked). The chances of you being able to use it are very slim anyway. I would think apple or AT&T will not mind footing the the cost to send it in to them.

I think you can dial 611 on the phone and it will connect you with ATT customer service. They should be able to get through to the owner.

I think you can dial 611 on the phone and it will connect you with ATT customer service. They should be able to get through to the owner.and if the phone is locked so you can't turn it on or access any of the information as noted above, call at&t customer service at 1-800-331-0500 as i'm sure there is a way that they can help in i/d'ing the phone by a s/n since they are the provider in the u.s (or perhaps you could pop into an apple store?)

Out of curiosity, why didn't you just turn it into the airport lost and found?

If I lost my phone, I'd be calling lost and found, not sitting at home hoping a random stranger took it off the plane and brought it home trying to find ways to contact me.

FWIW; Call Apple and give them the serial number. They'll be able to get in touch with the owner.

Along these lines... If you are a mechanic and found this on a plane doesnt your employer have a policy requiring you to turn it in? Are you supposed to play detective trying to find the owner.. The owner may very well have contacted the airline and is hoping that it was found.

Also even considering "just throwing it away" Is absurd. I don't find what you are doing to be in the best interest of the owner or the airline.

Out of curiosity, why didn't you just turn it into the airport lost and found?

If I lost my phone, I'd be calling lost and found, not sitting at home hoping a random stranger took it off the plane and brought it home trying to find ways to contact me.

Or better yet, hand it to an FA and tell them in which seat you found it.

Out of curiosity, why didn't you just turn it into the airport lost and found?

If I lost my phone, I'd be calling lost and found, not sitting at home hoping a random stranger took it off the plane and brought it home trying to find ways to contact me.
Exactly what I was thinking. What's wrong with dropping it off at the airport lost and found?

OP already has the name of the owner, assuming the flight #, date/time & the airport where the plane landed and phone found. Any airline that provides good customer services shall be able to match all these info and locate the original owner. There's no need for OP to play the detective and find the owner.

You can turn it over to the police and let them find the owner.

I would take it to an AT&T store and have them pop the SIM card out (not easy on an iphone) and look up the owner. Once the iphone locks you are SOL if you don't know the password. I personally would be afraid if you turned it in to lost and found or airline employees that it would never makes its way back to the owner.

I take it the phone isn't giving you the option to make the "emergency call?"

Out of curiosity, why didn't you just turn it into the airport lost and found?


That is the black hole that never gets the actual owner in touch with the phone again.

The other year I left a cell phone to a UA plane. FA on a later flight had found it and called the number few times for letting me know and to see if I would like her to mail it back to me. Couple of days later she turned it in for the SFO UA lost and found that never replied to any of my phone calls etc.

Actually UA employees are not even suppose trying to contact the pax if they find something left behind.

"Can not connect to M***** J******'s iPhone".You found Michael Jackson's iPhone?!?!?

...have them pop the SIM card out (not easy on an iphone)...

?? Not sure what this means. A small paper clip and the sim holder pops right out.

OK. I will try to clear up some of the misunderstanding here.


The phone was found on an airplane that was ferried in for maintenance and was found six days after the airplane arrived. It appears, based on the dusty, dirty condition to have been on the airplane for some time, not just the last leg of the flight. Turning it in right away to the "lost & found" department is almost a guarantee that the phone will be gone forever and never be seen again or end up shipped to some lost luggage warehouse in Arkansas. My comment about "throwing it away" was a reference to the futility of sending to lost and found, sorry I did not make that clear. I am trying to find the real owner, I am the person who would send it in, it was turned in to me and I am trying to do the right thing.

So, I called AT&T after popping out the sim card, read them the number and they said the number was so old it must have been deleted out of their system already. It appears to have been lost a while back, reported, disconnected and then eventually dropped out of the system. So I guess I will stop being a nice guy and ship it to the lost and gone forever department.

Thanks for helping.

?? Not sure what this means. A small paper clip and the sim holder pops right out.


Yes, that is correct. The SIM holder is on top of the phone with a small paper clip sized hole next to it. Push in gently and the tray pops out.

So, I called AT&T after popping out the sim card, read them the number and they said the number was so old it must have been deleted out of their system already. It appears to have been lost a while back, reported, disconnected and then eventually dropped out of the system. So I guess I will stop being a nice guy and ship it to the lost and gone forever department.

Thanks for helping.

I think AT&T should do much better than this..."so old", iPhones didn't even go on sale until summer of 2007, so it couldn't be more than 1.5 years old, they are just being lazy, plus the IMEI number is not on the SIM card, Apple should have a record as well...you are really trying to do the right thing here, perhaps you can be a bit more persistent with AT&T...lost and found will just dump it to a warehouse as you said...I certainly would have been overjoyed if something I lost were returned to me...don't give up just yet!

Other options
http://ifoundyouriphone.com/

I think AT&T should do much better than this..."so old", iPhones didn't even go on sale until summer of 2007, so it couldn't be more than 1.5 years old, they are just being lazy, plus the IMEI number is not on the SIM card, Apple should have a record as well...you are really trying to do the right thing here, perhaps you can be a bit more persistent with AT&T...lost and found will just dump it to a warehouse as you said...I certainly would have been overjoyed if something I lost were returned to me...don't give up just yet!

Other options
http://ifoundyouriphone.com/

Sounded strange to me too. I can only assume that the SIM card was from a previous phone and that is why it is "too old", but I don't know. I agree, if I lost an iPhone I would be very happy to get it back.

Unless you tried over and over again to get it to work and caused it to lock up, somebody else probably did. They probably figured the SIM card of the person who lost it was deactivated so they put a pay as you go or something into it.

If you have another ATT phone or an unlocked phone, you can try putting the sim card in it and seeing if they stored the phone directory on it and there is an ICE entry, though I would bet if there is, the card was not in the Iphone before, that one has probably been tossed.

That is the black hole that never gets the actual owner in touch with the phone again.

I know this personally to be untrue. I once left a phone on a plane at DCA. It took them a few days, but DCA lost and found contacted me and got it back to me.

Could you not contact Apple and let them know that you have found the iPhone with serial number XXX? If the customer registered the product, Apple would know who the customer was.

Out of curiosity, why didn't you just turn it into the airport lost and found?

...

FWIW; Call Apple and give them the serial number. They'll be able to get in touch with the owner.

1. Because it would be on eBay before you left the airport?

2. "Privacy" policies mean most companies will do little to nothing to return lost/stolen hardware to its owner. Unless something was stolen from an Apple Store apple won't lift a finger.

Although sometimes things do work out, a few years ago a TSA moron chased after a guy to give him MY cell phone - guy noticed it was not his and gave it to a United gate agent and I got it back.

The ICCID number on the SIM card actually does drop out of the system almost immediately after the card is deactivated, it resides only on a blacklist of disused SIM cards within the activation system and isn't actually accessible to a CSR.

I had battle royale with Cingular a couple of years ago after they decided out of thin air to deactivate my phone, I was outside the US so I couldn't just go to a Cingular store to have the SIM replaced, it took several hours to get my SIM restored to the active list.

Okay, I didn't read all the info that the iphone is locked out.

So, the IMEI and ATT should be able to find the owner.

If you don't find an owner, PM me, I'm looking for another :-)

On my 1Gen iPhone, the IMEI number is in tiny letters on the back.

This reently happened to me. I went to the airport to pick up a frien and while I was sitting at the terminal I found an I phone. I immediatly gave it to the TSA lost and found. Everything seemed to work. A week later while dropping my friend off I followed up to see if it had been picked up. they said no and gave it back to me. It had a red screen saying phone disabled hook to itunes.
The next morning on the way to work I stopped at the police station to give it to them and they said since it was left at the airport and tsa returned it to me there was nothing they could do. So when I got to work I called apple and could not help, I posted on craigslist and the local paper to no avail, so I called at&t customer care. Nothing. I found a website I lost my phone and filled out the info but because it asks for a serial # and this one is not registered it woulnt go through. So after work I stopped at our local at&t to see what they could do. The answer was without the phone # or billing address they could do nothing so go ahead and trash it. I asked them to check the card or run the imei nimbers but they have said it would not help.
These phones are expensive and someone has just lost alot of info. Another thing I will never own an I phone as long as it is distributed from at&t. These guys make 0 effort to help or more the less seem to care. the one thing this experience has taught me that you will remain paying for an Iphone weather it was lost or stolen forr the remaining of the contract but it will be with another phone since they wont replace it. Sorry planemechanic it seems futile, Im done with the head ache. It's tough trying to be the good guy.

This is a good reason why, if the phone is password protected (and it should be) that one should have a app like Close Call which allows you to save an emergency or other message in the image that is used on the password/log on page. Mine has an emergency number to call in case I'm lying there dead and they don't know who the hell I am. It hasn't had to be used yet, though. But I could see its use in a case like this.

How bizarre. Every other smartphone I've had (WinMo and Blackberry) will show the owner information screen when remotely locked. I know my BB will even do a remote lock, remote wipe, or remote owner info update. You'd think AT&T could do this with the eyephone.