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PLEASE HELP: iPAD STOLEN - NEED ADVICE

S

sonosaeterno

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 3, 2008
12
0
So I had my iPad stolen from my hotel room about a month ago. It is synced with MobileMe but I do not pay for 3G service on it. I was about to just live with the fact it was gone forever. I filed a police report. Talked to everyone at the Hotel (acting like everyone is innocent) and nothing went through until just now. My ipad showed up on MobileMe maps and it is in NYC Airport (hopefully not on its way to Europe!) Is there a way to have Apple directly find it just through a serial number or something?? Steve Jobs has to have something to help his fellow Apple enthusiasts. Please help! I am so close to getting it back! Any advice would benefit
 
You are probably out of luck.

Depending how far you are from your iPad, you might be able to track it down, but by the time you get there, the person might have already flew somewhere else.
 
Call the airport police? Can your tracking software show you exactly where it is in the airport or that it is just at the airport? If the latter I'm pretty sure you are SOL for the time being.
 
taken from your room when you were out? I would place this one on the hotels liability and have them replace it at once. That means they have an employee with sticky fingers and are liable. I would not have paid the bill until I was reimbursed for the stolen item.
 
NicoleRichie said:
taken from your room when you were out? I would place this one on the hotels liability and have them replace it at once. That means they have an employee with sticky fingers and are liable. I would not have paid the bill until I was reimbursed for the stolen item.
Click to expand...

Most hotels have a policy where they are not liable for items stolen from the room. At least most hotels I've been to have this policy.
 
Yeah we know the only person could have been our cleaning lady and we told the manager but he seemed like he wasn't capable of much. You can't just go around accusing.. but who else would it have been.. I am very upset with the situation
 
I never trust hotel staff with anything. It's hard to believe that hotels can do nothing when it's so blatently obvious who took it, were there no CCTV cameras in the corridors of the hotel showing exactly who went in and out of the room?

I'd just claim it back on my home contents insurance and get a new one, you have a police report after all. Regrettably the police tend to be a bit crap when it comes to theft.

Chances that you'll get it back are very slim I'm afraid. Sorry that you were a victim of crime, it really sucks!
 
Guess I just have bad luck with Apple. I was jumped by 6 guys around this time last year in the city for my bag of camera equipment. I was lucky enough to fight them off to keep the bag but it cost me my iphone and a head full of staples + however much the ambulance was..
 
sonosaeterno said:
Guess I just have bad luck with Apple. I was jumped by 6 guys around this time last year in the city for my bag of camera equipment. I was lucky enough to fight them off to keep the bag but it cost me my iphone and a head full of staples + however much the ambulance was..
Click to expand...

Wow. What city do you live in? NYC? My advice. Move, to southern California. It's somewhat safer out here.
 
Most hotels I've been in, the cleaners will service a number of rooms at once, leaving all their doors open. Wouldn't be hard for someone to slip into your room and rifle your belongings while the staff are busy in another location.

If they get caught, it's not like the cleaners know (or care) if the person is actually staying in that room...

For that reason, I am very wary of leaving tech (or any expensive articles) in a hotel.
 
Usually hotels have a safe. That's where I put my laptops and ipads when I leave the room (if I don't take them with me).
 
jmann said:
You can give the serial number apple, they will "flag" it. But honestly not even that will do anything. I'm not even sure what the procedure would be if they brought it into an apple store.
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Just thought I would add that Apple will do absolutely nothing. They don't "flag" items as I learnt when I had my iPhone stolen. The guy told me if the thief brought the iPhone in they would service it as if it was theirs.

Useless I know, but thought I'd save you some time from trying to get Apple to help.
 
There was someone on here who saw their iPad flag up on MobileMe, they already had a police report, and they told them where it was, they went in and recovered the iPad :)

Best of luck, but you're probably out of luck.
 
sonosaeterno said:
Yeah we know the only person could have been our cleaning lady and we told the manager but he seemed like he wasn't capable of much. You can't just go around accusing.. but who else would it have been.. I am very upset with the situation
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It's likely a more sophisticated operation than that. The cleaning people probably case the rooms and then communicate where the valuables are to a third party. In all reality, the actual thief probably doesn't even work at the hotel. If someone at the front desk generates a duplicate room card key, then there won't even be any computer record of an employee entering the room.

In the future, put your valuables in a safe or bury them under clothes in your suitcase. Don't leave computer bags or cables laying around. If you give the perception that you have valuables with you, then they will know that they are somewhere close by... And always put the passcode lock on your ipad when travelling. If it gets stolen, at least you'll only lose hardware and not sensitive data.
 
dacreativeguy said:
It's likely a more sophisticated operation than that. The cleaning people probably case the rooms and then communicate where the valuables are to a third party. In all reality, the actual thief probably doesn't even work at the hotel. If someone at the front desk generates a duplicate room card key, then there won't even be any computer record of an employee entering the room.

In the future, put your valuables in a safe or bury them under clothes in your suitcase. Don't leave computer bags or cables laying around. If you give the perception that you have valuables with you, then they will know that they are somewhere close by... And always put the passcode lock on your ipad when travelling. If it gets stolen, at least you'll only lose hardware and not sensitive data.
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Surprisingly it was hidden, they must have did a hard search. I locked it on mobileme so they cant access it. I am just hoping that they eventually land somewhere permanent and use the ipad before restoring it so I can locate them and report it to police. Who wants to make bets I win this ordeal? :p

ATTN THIEVES: Don't mess with tech degrees
 
I can only hope that it was coincidence that the first time i get any reading from findmyiphone on mobileme was at a airport. What a story that would be if my iPad was used in a terrorist attack to make a bomb
 
sonosaeterno said:
So I had my iPad stolen from my hotel room about a month ago. It is synced with MobileMe but I do not pay for 3G service on it. I was about to just live with the fact it was gone forever. I filed a police report. Talked to everyone at the Hotel (acting like everyone is innocent) and nothing went through until just now. My ipad showed up on MobileMe maps and it is in NYC Airport (hopefully not on its way to Europe!) Is there a way to have Apple directly find it just through a serial number or something?? Steve Jobs has to have something to help his fellow Apple enthusiasts. Please help! I am so close to getting it back! Any advice would benefit
Click to expand...

Wow and I thought I was being paranoid, went to Boston for a 4 day weekend last week and I put my new iPad into the room safe whenever I went out.. Glad I did now after reading this, sorry for your loss sonosaeterno :(
 
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