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Found IPhone at airport in Europe and need to unlock passcode- help please

N

newbie07

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 11, 2009
1
0
Hi-
My Uncle who knows nothing about technology found an Iphone at the airport in Switzerland. He mailed me the iphone he found thinking i could use it. Right now the phone is in another language and the passcode is screen is locked. I've been trying to lookout how to unlock the passcode but it's not working for me? Any suggestions on how to unlock the passcode and also change it to English? Thanks
 
If the owner is smart he/she'll contact their network provider and get the IMEI blocked. All you can do is hand it in to the police or the airport.
 
At this point, I highly doubt returning it would do any good (time from being found, time from being sent to the US). Still, I would not suggest using that iPhone. I'm sure can conduct a search.

Even though I think try returning would not do anything I think the best thing is to Ccll Apple, give them the Serial, try to get a hold of the owner. Do not accept no for an answer.

Try an decipher the language, maybe that gives you a clue what language and hence what country the iPhone is from.
 
Of course if the owner has mobileme and it was a 3G(S), they might already know where their stolen iPhone is.
 
ihonda said:
i will buy it for $250.00 USD
Click to expand...

The person who has it isn't the owner and apparently hasn't made even a minimal, common sense, due diligence attempt to get it back to the owner. I didn't realize that buying/selling hot, or otherwise having fallen off the back of the truck, merchandise was allowed here.
 
Hmmm, if I lost my phone and the finder didn't even try to return it or hand it in and I subsequently found out where it was, I would pay them a visit to 'discuss' it on principle no matter where it was :mad:
 
If you bring it to the carrier for the country in question, they can probably figure out the owner from the SIM card and send it to them.
 
seriously guys why are you all so holy?

If he'd returned it to the airport the owner would've obviously never got it, employees stick things like that into their own pockets.

How the hell is it a good idea for him to turn it in to a police station in the U.S? Do you really believe cops in america is going to actually return a foreign phone found in a foreign airport to it's owner? come on! get real.. The cops are just gonna pocket it.

The phone is locked and thousands of miles away from it's owner, Dude just restore it, if you're lucky it might not be carrier locked, if it is, you might get lucky with some yellowsn0w.

Either way I think some of you guys are being pretty irrational and no the police is not going to show up to his house because of a lost and found mobile phone.. seriously what's up with the fear mongering?

Finders, keepers...
 
I believe there is still a weird glitch in the phone where you can access your favorite numbers by double tapping the home button from the unlock screen. Or something like that. Do that, call a number and give the phone back.
 
NSK123 said:
Finders, keepers...
Click to expand...

If you lose something valuable I hope the finder shares your fantastic morals.

Anyway, you're wrong. Airport employees will not pocket it. The police will not pocket it. Most often they will make every effort to find the rightful owner. Not everyone in the entire world is a thief. I work for an airline and am constantly amazed at how many people will turn in large sums of CASH hoping to get it back to the rightful owner. And every time we get a valuable item turned in, we have always been able to find the owner and return it.

Sorry to break it to you, but your dishonesty is fortunately the minority from what I've seen. OP and OP's uncle obviously excluded. :rolleyes:
 
if it

has a SIM card in it remove it and put it in another phone...that way you'll at least get the phone number
 
go ahead and roast the man for the simplest of questions.... geez, it pains me sometimes to even read these posts.
 
I wonder how these dishonest idiots would feel if it was theiir iPhone that had been lost?
 
sparrky said:
If you lose something valuable I hope the finder shares your fantastic morals.

Anyway, you're wrong. Airport employees will not pocket it. The police will not pocket it. Most often they will make every effort to find the rightful owner. Not everyone in the entire world is a thief. I work for an airline and am constantly amazed at how many people will turn in large sums of CASH hoping to get it back to the rightful owner. And every time we get a valuable item turned in, we have always been able to find the owner and return it.

Sorry to break it to you, but your dishonesty is fortunately the minority from what I've seen. OP and OP's uncle obviously excluded. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

And had the uncle returned it to the airport in the first place, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. I'm sure the poor sap who lost it called the airport, and they said, "no, we haven't had an iPhone turned in to the lost and found," all because of the crappy uncle.
 
What makes any of you think a police department in the U.S. is going to give a darn about a phone found in a Swiss airport?
It will get tossed into a box and then sold at auction a year later. The police don't try and find rightful owners of lost cell phones, they have better things to do with their time.

Either send it back to your uncle and have him return it to the airport where he found it or do like 99.9999% of the members here would do.
Wipe it and keep it for yourself.
 
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