UPDATE 2: the phone has been returned!

UPDATE: Dino says the guy in the pictures saw our blog, called him, and is going to return the phone to his dad tomorrow.

Do you know this guy? [ed. photos removed] He seems to be in the possession of the iPhone that Dino’s dad lost. Before losing the phone, his dad set up a rule where any email sent from the phone blind-cc’ed his personal email address, which we think is a pretty brilliant low-tech security solution for tracking down a lost/stolen phone or laptop.

Was hoping you could give me some advice. My dad (64) lost his iphone today. He went to the At&T store and had the service stopped and got a SIM card to put into his old cell phone.

Well he checked his aol account tonight and saw pictures of some guy holding an iphone up and taking pics in the mirror. My dad had it set up that he was BCC on emails sent out on the iphone.

We emailed the the recipient of the emails to ask who was in these pictures and that we would like the phone back. He hasn’t responded back yet.

What should we do? I think in the morning my dad will file a report with the police. I tried googling the email address ([redacted]@hotmail.com) and no luck with that. Do you have any other advice we should do to get back the phone?

I posted the pics on flickr. If this is seen widely on the Internet do you think it would shame the guy into give us back the phone?

– Dino A.
Paramus , NJ

If he found the phone and didn’t immediately bother looking through it for a way to contact the owner, we imagine he plans on keeping it. If it was stolen, we’re pretty certain shame will not help. But who knows?

One guy whose Sidekick got stolen was able to track down the culprits because they took pictures of themselves on it. He set up a site posting the pictures and an ad-hoc internet manhunt formed and eventually they caught the guy.

On the off chance this was all a good-natured mixup (or he bought it used and didn’t know it was stolen/lost), we’ll post your story.

You might want to email him again with a detailed description of what was on the phone, as well as any identifying marks and likely places where it was lost or stolen, so that he knows you’re not a scammer yourself.

Oh, and before anyone does or says anything too douche-y about the guy in the photos, remember that we really don’t know how he came about it.

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Sidekick Return From Thief, After Mass Internet Shaming

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