Resolved A Blackberry lost by one, and found by another - morality?

[iphonepiephone]

I want to ask of you, a question of ethics and morality. I know someone who found a lost BlackBerry in the street, who says it was barred (and it was) at the time of discovery. Said person who found BB, kept it for 1.5 months, and then sold it to another person, with NO sim card, NO personal data on it, nothing!

Herein lies the question; it was obviously a contract handset, and the case being that the phone had been barred for over 1.5 months (ish), surely service provider of said BB would have issued a new one, under insurance, so is it immoral that the person who bought it, bought it as barred, and empty, and without SIM?

IMHO, I see no immorality nor harm in buyer keeping it, as it is now useless, and contains nothing from the original owner - how about you?

Thank you

 

[callmemike20]

If your pet is missing for 1 months and I find it in my yard one day, it's mine to keep (or sell)

 

[Phil A.]

I want to ask of you, a question of ethics and morality. I know someone who found a lost BlackBerry in the street, who says it was barred (and it was) at the time of discovery. Said person who found BB, kept it for 1.5 months, and then sold it to another person, with NO sim card, NO personal data on it, nothing!

Herein lies the question; it was obviously a contract handset, and the case being that the phone had been barred for over 1.5 months (ish), surely service provider of said BB would have issued a new one, under insurance, so is it immoral that the person who bought it, bought it as barred, and empty, and without SIM?

IMHO, I see no immorality nor harm in buyer keeping it, as it is now useless, and contains nothing from the original owner - how about you?

Thank you

If it was replaced under insurance, then the original belongs to the insurance company (legally and morally), so, yes, I do see a problem with it

 

[samiwas]

An interesting conundrum. Since it's "barred", which I guess means locked and wiped, there is no way to figure out who it belongs to, so what do you do with it? If there is any way to figure out who it belongs to, I would absolutely say that is the first priority.

I left my iPad on a plane a few weeks ago. I didn't realize it until the next day. I thought that it was gone for sure...I mean, how often does something get returned from a plane??? Almost never. Anyway, I called the airline, but never expected to hear anything back. Well, what do you know? Three days later, I get a call from the airline, in a different region than I had been traveling in, and they had found my iPad. It was returned to me in a few days.

The employee who was tasked with figuring out whose it was turned it on and was able to track me down by looking through it. Violation of privacy to some, but not to me...and it got me my iPad back. Obviously, you can't do that with a locked and wiped unit, so I don't really know what the ethics would be here. I guess, in that case, you'd either turn it into the police if you were really moral, keep it if you were average, or sell it for huge bucks if you were a little more unethical.

 

[r1ch4rd]

I would have no problem with someone selling something that they found as long as they put some effort into trying to return it first. Really, your friend should have handed the phone into the police who would have let him keep the phone if the owner couldn't be found.

You have stated in your post that an assumption has been made, that the phone was insured. It is entirely possible that it wasn't. Let's say I lose my phone and it contains personal information about me and my work email. Let's also say that I don't have insurance. First thing I would do is have it locked - having to buy a new phone is a pain but the alternative (losing your data to an unknown) is worse. I would still want the phone back. Obviously, as your friend was able to sell it, the phone has some value.

As for the buyer - I have no problem. Do they even know the back story?