After a Wednesday night out at the USC-classic 901 Bar and
Grill, I unfortunately ended the carefree night by forgetting my iPhone in the
back of my Uber ride home. Without the drivers phone number, my first instinct
was to call my phone and turn on “Find My iPhone” – a popular GPS service from
Apple that can locate your iPhone as long as it is switched on. Well, it was
just my luck that my phone went “offline” somewhere in West Hollywood. Uber
headquarters got back to me that night with the driver’s phone number, and no
surprise when Salah failed to answer any of my calls. This guy was stealing my
phone.
After pathetically finishing my McChicken through tears I made it to bed
for a short night’s sleep. My anxiety did not fail to wake me up the next
morning at 8am, and first thing I did was call Salah again. He shockingly
answered, but told me that he did not find any iPhone in his car. When I told
him that according to Find My iPhone my phone was switched off somewhere in
West Hollywood, he said he had taken two passengers after me in West Hollywood.
“Typical Hollywood guys,” he described to me, “maybe early 30s, British
accents, they must have swiped it.” I asked Salah if could send me any further
information about them – their name, number, address, whatever I could use to
track them down. He had to go to work, but he was happy to send me anything he
had. He actually seemed pretty nice.
Twice that morning, Find My iPhone notified me that my phone
had been quickly switched on and off in two locations: the first near UCLA campus,
the second at an address in Culver City.
Plugging the Culver City address into Google Maps, I saw that it was
residential. Meanwhile I had been
talking to Salah all day. He sent me screenshots of the maps of his Uber rides
after me, which gave me a residential address in West Hollywood. Salah said
this was where the British men lived. So I had two addresses to investigate:
one in Culver City (where the iPhone was last switched on) and one in West
Hollywood (where these supposed “typical Hollywood guys” lived). That’s when I
decided to go on the manhunt.
Frantically explaining my story to my best friends on
iMessage on my Macbook and iPad, I wanted to see if anyone could drive me to
check out these addresses. Some warned against the safety of showing up at random peoples' doorsteps.
Obviously it seemed like a wild-goose chase and an overall dumb idea. More than
likely the addresses weren’t going to lead me anywhere, and even if they did I
could easily be putting myself in danger. Finally I found a friend on the same potentially
naive wavelength as me: “Let’s go on an adventure and hunt these Hollywood club
douches down,” she texted me.
We went to Culver City first, reluctantly got out of the car
and knocked on some doors, armed with an iPad in hand with Find My iPhone
evidence of an address that lead us to their door. Obviously no one had any
idea what we were talking about. Defeated we got back into the car, but took
notice of a car pulling up to a driveway nearby. For some reason, we both
instinctively felt like we should wait a few minutes in the turned-off car.
Then we spotted a man approaching us. “Jordan?!” the wide-eyed man was shocked
to see us there. It was Salah – my Uber driver from the night before. So much
for these British “Hollywood-type guys” I was looking for.
Find my iPhone had lead us to his home. I warned him of how
suspicious this looked. After immediately denying it, he knew it was game over.
“Don’t make a scene, my wife is right over there. I have your phone, I’ll go
get it,” he conceded. Shaken up, my friend urged me to get back in the car. I
rolled down my window, he gave me my phone in one piece, and we drove off.
Some real modern day Sherlock Holmes shit.
Technology has caused the nature of petty crime to change
tremendously. People are not as easily able to hide behind anonymity, and
frankly opportunists, like Salah, who don’t know what they are doing, are idiots.
I would be surprised if anyone born before 1965 completely understands all the
technology steps identified – from Find my iPhone, to screenshots of his Uber maps,
to iMessaging on my Macbook and iPad. Yet to anyone born after 1985 this is all
extremely basic. This technology at my disposal is exactly why I was tempted to
take this mission into my own hands.
Despite my personal success, the New York Times cites
similar examples to mine, and warns of this Find my iPhone vigilante justice:
"With smartphone theft rampant, apps like Find My iPhone offer a new option for those desperate to recover their devices, allowing victims like Ms. Maguire to act when the police will not. But the emergence of this kind of do-it-yourself justice -- an unintended result of the proliferation of GPS tracking apps -- has stirred worries among law enforcement officials that people are putting themselves in danger, taking disproportionate risks for the sake of an easily replaced item."
Although law enforcement deplores citizens taking these
unnecessary risks, LAPD’s ambivalent response to my problem deterred me from
pursuing their help as a first-step. Earlier in the day I had called LAPD and
despite my evidence, the woman who answered wondered if I had just lost my
phone at the bar. She said they receive many reports of missing iPhones, but I
could come in and file a report if I wanted. I suspected LAPD would do absolutely
nothing. To be fair, with countless more serious
crimes to investigate in the area, I wouldn’t blame them. I mean, it was my fault for leaving my phone in the backseat to begin with. But to me,
personally, this was a $700 item at stake and it was time-sensitive.
