How many of us have experienced the loss of an unreturned phone?  Recently,  I was wondering what goes through any person’s mind who finds a phone belonging to someone else, and decides to keep it, or sell it.  What are their thoughts about keeping something that is clearly an important personal item of someone else?  Is it that they relate to the ancient Roman law, Finders, Keepers?

♦ Finders, keepers is the adage with the premise that when something is unowned or abandoned, whoever finds it can claim it. This idiom relates to an ancient Roman law of similar meaning and has been expressed in various ways over the centuries..via Finders, keepers – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Have you ever had the opportunity to return something of value to someone else?  What makes a person do his/her best to return an item to the owner? Is it moral conviction/training value within a person?

♦ Honesty refers to a facet of moral character and denotes positive, virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness along with the absence of lying, cheating, or theft. “Honesty is the best policy.” — William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Steve Landesberg and Tony Farrugia. all said this saying.via Honesty – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The next time you find yourself in this situation, below are some guidelines and links to websites for details on what you can do if you believe that “honesty is the best policy”…

If you find a locked iPhone

Since you can’t unlock the phone, you can’t poke around… But you do have options.

• The first is to hold down the Home button for a few seconds, which may—depending on the owner’s phone settings—trigger either Siri or Voice Control. In either case, when prompted by the beep, say, “Call ICE.” If the phone’s owner has an ICE contact as described above, the phone will either start calling that person right away or ask you to clarify which number to call (as in, Home, Mobile, Work, etc). If you luck out and connect with the emergency contact, you can explain the situation to that person.via What to do if you find a lost iPhone | Macworld.

Call the police

• You can also turn to your local police department. Manalapan, N.J., police officer Joe Felicia told Macworld that after you turn a found phone into the police, “if the owner responds to the police station and can identify the phone, the police department will return the phone to the owner. If not, the phone will go in a bin with hundreds of other phones.”

Felicia said that he sees “no problems” with trying to search the phone to locate the owner, if “it is being done in good faith.” The one catch: “If you are searching the phone and you stumble onto something that is obviously illegal… the phone would go directly to the police.”via What to do if you find a lost iPhone | Macworld.

Find the owner of a lost cell phone

• Power the phone off. This can be done by holding down the power button on the phone. The power button is usually on the right side of the phone, toward the bottom. On some phones the power button is highlighted in red..
• Turn the phone back on by pressing the power button again. You may need to hold the button for a second for it to power back on..
• Watch the screen to discover the service provider. Once you know the service provider, contact the company’s customer support phone number. Many phone companies’ websites have “Contact Us” sections where you can find this number…
• Answer questions from the representative the best you can. The agent may ask for the phone’s serial number and the type and style of the phone. If you are not sure of these answers, the support agent can help you locate information. The information you provide should be able to give the agent the information he needs to find the owner.
• You may be asked to bring the phone to a local store or mail the phone back with a prepaid envelope the company sends you. via How to Locate Cell Phone Owners | eHow.com.

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I hope this is helpful 🙂