New York Man Sets Online Dating Honey Trap to Recover iPhone

U wanna meet with me instead ? I don’t kiss on the first date, though, LOL !

And leave the wine.

uh… so what was the 20 for?? and why would u ever agree to meet at YOUR apartment?? if he is/was a real a-hole, what’s to stop him from waiting for you there in the future to mess with you?? clever way to get back the phone, but also filled with stupidity.

To Christopher, I lost my iphone a while back. It was used to call Bank of America and some other private numbers. I went to my cell phone provider, got the numbers and called one of them – looks like a young person picked up my phone. They said no call was made to their number. Since I had a BofA call, I called the police and told them about it. The police registered the information but did nothing with the call records. With BofA, there was a call, a time and it could have been traced. I just ended up going an buying a new one. Frustrating!

Sweet. The only downside is the guy knows were you live. Also, how was the thief going to explain not looking like the victim when he showed up for his OK Cupid date?

So weird that the guy with the dinner jacket and wine ready-to-go had to use some other guy’s online dating profile to get a date. I guess booking a kiss in advance shows the level of his dating skills.

Should have called the police to meet him there too, who knows what the guy would do. I have a funny lost phone story… I work in DC and found a Blackberry on the sidewalk near the White House. It had a “if found, please call” number on the back. The Blackberry was locked so I called from my phone. When I did, the Blackberry erased and bricked itself!! Very James Bond-ish!

I’m confused. Since when is finding a cell phone and keeping it considered a crime? You guys keep calling this guy a criminal, but what crime did he commit? What happened to “finders keepers”? If you can’t keep track of your cell phones, ipads, laptops and mp3 players, thats your loss. You can’t be upset when someone finds your stuff out somewhere and decides they’re make it their own. Seriously, where’s the crime? Are there really laws on the books that require you return lost items to their owners?

Malicide, it’s a crime to pretend to be the owner of a found phone. It’s a crime to use the owner’s service because the finder is stealing the owner’s money. Those cell phones contain a lot of personal information and it’s illegal to access that information if you find a phone. Good honest people do not keep things that don’t belong to them. When I found another woman’s purse I did not snoop in it. I found a check book, which had her phone number on it and called her because if I kept it I would have been a thief. Keeping someone’s cell phone is like keeping their ID and using it, which is illegal. Your mother obviously did not raise you right if you think passing yourself off as someone else is ok.

Sounds to be it’s just advertising for OK Cupid!!!!!! Fake.

Why wouldn’t he call police? This makes no sense to me.

Malacide- Ok under law that would be theft of services and theft of the phone. He is using another persons phone and account services which do not belong to him and for which he was not given permission to use. That would be like you deciding to run an extension cord to your neighbors house for electricity. You were not given permission to do so and you are stealing services for which someone else pays for. As for the actual phone, many states have laws which say if you find something you must make a reasonable effort to return it to the owner…which is why there are lost and found departments rather than selling departments. Otherwise cab companies, airports restaurants and police stations could just sell what they have found. A reasonable effort to return must be made. Which is why when you turn something found in to the cops the owner has so many days to claim it or it can be given to the “finder”. While I agree when we lose something now days we might as well just write it off, however, that is because of the people who have the finders keepers mentality. Instead of doing the RIGHT thing, they choose to steal instead. It wasn’t always that way, I’m 47 and remember a time when most people chose to do the right thing instead.

I would have beat his head in your a good man for holding back theives should have limbs amputated first offense second offense loose another limb third offense loose all limbs!

T.Blanton. Theft of services perhaps, but theft of the phone? Come on! Lets be reasonable. You can’t honestly claim this person “stole” anything. And as far as theft of services, you making the comparison with someone running an extension cord to someone’s house in order to steal electricity is kinda weak. When you sign a cell phone contract you agree to pay for any and all charges made on your phone. Including long distance and data charges. You also agree to notify your provider when your phone is lost. They shut the phone down and and prevent those charges from happening. That’s the agreement that everyone signs with their provider. If you don’t make the call, YOU are negligent for not only losing your phone in the first place, but failing to notify your provider so that those charges don’t occur. It’s the same with a credit card. If you lose your credit card and then fail to notice that you account balance is steadily increasing and then fail to notify your bank, YOU are negligent and obligated to pay back those charges. Granted, you have 60 days to do so, but still. And by the way, cab companies, airlines, restaurants and even the police DO sell those items that are never claimed. They are not obligated to provide a “lost and found”, they do it because it’s good customer service and makes perfect sense to not get a reputation as a heartless greedy company. You can’t define “reasonable effort” any more than anyone else can. Reasonable to you might mean something completely different to someone else. There is absolutely no crime when someone finds a lost item out in a public place. And for all these people wondering why the cops aren’t helping all these idiots who lose their stuff, there’s a perfectly good explanation. THERE WAS NO CRIME! No crime, no cops. Is that so difficult to comprehend people?

Identity theft IS ILLEGAL. The man that used that cell phone, and hid his OWN identity, was using the identity of the man that actually owns his person, name, etc. THAT identity theft.

Ok malacide…..fact….MOST states have LAWS which state you MUST make an attempt to return found property to owner. In that is says something to the effect of due diligence/reasonable effort….such as contacting police OR lost and found department. Like it or not that is the law. Had the man in this article contacted the police and had them meet the thief….he WOULD have been arrested. Now we can sit and twist and turn this around till the cows come home….the law is the law regardless of how much we don’t like it or how ridiculous it may seem.. I think many of these laws were put on the books back when people still had a sense of right and wrong, morals and common decency…..something we apparently lack these days since people think it is or should be ok to find property that belongs to someone else and keep it.