Why did store manager keep phone?

Isaiah Beard wrote:
> Ron wrote:
>
>> I found a Motorola cell phone at the end of my front walk. I figured
>> a neighbor lost it jogging. Battery was dead so I couldn't get any
>> info from it. I put a sign on my house and posted a note on a town
>> Yahoo list. No takers. The phone said "Cingular" on it, so I took it
>> to the nearest dealer,
>
>
> Which is what you should have done in the first place.
>
>
>> asked them to charge it a bit so I could get the number. Turns out it
>> was the manager who waited on me. He said he can find the owner
>> without charging it. He took the battery out, and using info that was
>> inside, looked up the owner on the computer. Using a speakerphone, he
>> called who he said was the registered owner. Got an answering
>> machine. He left msg to effect that the phone was found and is at the
>> store and they could call to claim it. But he didn't give them my name
>> or number.
>
>
> Which is exactly what he was supposed to do, and should do.
>
>> I wanted the neighbor to know who found it,
>
>
> Why? So you found a lost cell phone and returned it. Why is it
> absolutely imperative that the neighbor know it was you who returned it?
>
>
>> and I also figured the phone was mine if no one actually claimed it.
>
>
> So if I find your car parked on the street, I guess that automatically
> makes it mine? Of course not, because the car has been registered by an
> established authoritative body (the state DMV) that lists you as the
> registered owner of the vehicle. Even if you abandon the car for a
> whole year, I still have no claim to the car whatsoever, and the car is
> still under your ownership and your responsibility.
>
> The phone you "found" did not belong to you, and you have no claim of
> possession of it. Unfortunately for you, "finders keepers" is not the
> rule of the land in situations where ownership of property is documented
> and traceable. The IMEI of the phone is, similar to the car analogy,
> registered in a database that allows Cingular to trace the phone back to
> its owner, and that means the phone STILL belongs to its owner, even if
> they appear to have abandoned it.
>
>> I asked for it back and told him to give them my number if they
>> called. He refused.
>
>
> I would have refused, too!
>
>
>> He kept giving me a line about how the owner was a Cingular customer
>> and he would make sure they got the phone. When I argued that I
>> wanted to do that, that I wanted to close the loop myself, and that
>> frankly I trusted myself to do it better than I trusted him, he said
>> let's call the police and have them settle it.
>
>
> You have to understand a few things.
>
> First, the manager of the Cingular store is just as suspicious that YOU
> won't close the loop as much as you *claim* to be that HE won't close
> the loop.
>
> Second, you've done your part. Accept it! You've returned the phone to
> a place where any reasonable person would expect that efforts would be
> made to return the property to its rightful owner. The phone's IMEI is
> registered to its owner, and presumably, if the owner was that concerned
> about their phone, they could request that Cingular blacklist the
> phone's IMEI so that no one else can use it UNTIL it is returned to them.
>
> You also saw the manager make a reasonable effort to contact the owner.
> That, I think, is proof enough that he wants to get phone and owner
> reunited. He has no reason to give YOU the owner's info. In fact, he
> has a separate obligation to protect the owner's privacy, and by
> witholding the owner's information he was doing just that. Besides, if
> the manager is as unscrupulous as you think he is, then really, that's
> between him and Cingular.
>
> Third, if the phone's owner had insurance and he or she made a claim on
> the phone and got a replacement, then technically it's no longer their
> property. Rather, the found phone now belongs to the insurance company,
> and thus it's the obligation of the Cingular store manager to return the
> phone to insurance company, NOT the owner. YOU do not know the status
> of that phone. The Cingular manager does. Therefore he is in the best
> position to do what is right, NOT you.
>
> And finally, your actions quite frankly smack of suspicious and ulterior
> motives. A truly good deed done doesn't require that any lavishing of
> praise be bestowed upon the doer, and it appears that you're holding out
> for some kind of special acknowledgement from the owner, or some kind of
> reward. Sometimes rewards are offered, and that's great! In fact, if I
> wanted something returned to me, *I* would offer a reward. But, you are
> not automatically *entitled* to that sort of thing, so you should not
> expect anything of the kind. And if you ARE expecting that sort of
> thing, then maybe the world would have been better off if you left this
> "found" phone exactly where you "found" it.
>
> Or, for all I know (and for all the Cingular store manager knows) you
> could be some creepy guy with an stalker's obsession towards this
> person, and your "finding" of the phone was really a ruse to get this
> person's personal info. In which case, it's the Cingular store manager
> who deserves the reward, not you.
>


Altogether sing now... ah...1...anna 2...anna 3...

For he's a jolly good fella,
For he's a jolly good fella,
For he's a jolly good fella-a-a-a,
That nobody can deny!
Hugs.

There ya go Ron. Better now?


--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'

---

› See More: Why did store manager keep phone?

>>> Ron wrote:
A tale of woe about not getting satisfation from a Cingular Corp. Store
manager
>> Isaiah Beard wrote:
A well thought out, and appropriate managerial actions, responce.
>>
>"Jer" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
> Altogether sing now... ah...1...anna 2...anna 3...
>
> For he's a jolly good fella,
> For he's a jolly good fella,
> For he's a jolly good fella-a-a-a,
> That nobody can deny!
> Hugs.
>
> There ya go Ron. Better now?
>
>
> --
> jer
> email reply - I am not a 'ten'
>
Ron is better. I guess. He just wanted to do it himself. NO middle man.
The middle man in this case did the right thing. Ron didn't like it.
Methinks there's more to the story.

MY opinion.
--
Andrew D. Sisson
LG VX8100
VZW<BAM<FRONTIER CELLULAR<ROCHESTER TEL. MOBILE
SID 154 EV-DO PRL 50463
SINCE APRIL 1993

And "Jer" once again gets that 1 last "Jer Jab" in. Lets all count how many
times he can respond and put in his own whopping 2 cents in before he gets
tired of hearing himself. Can that happen???? Lets wait and see. To Be
Continued




"Jer" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Isaiah Beard wrote:
>> Ron wrote:
>>
>>> I found a Motorola cell phone at the end of my front walk. I figured a
>>> neighbor lost it jogging. Battery was dead so I couldn't get any info
>>> from it. I put a sign on my house and posted a note on a town Yahoo
>>> list. No takers. The phone said "Cingular" on it, so I took it to the
>>> nearest dealer,
>>
>>
>> Which is what you should have done in the first place.
>>
>>
>>> asked them to charge it a bit so I could get the number. Turns out it
>>> was the manager who waited on me. He said he can find the owner without
>>> charging it. He took the battery out, and using info that was inside,
>>> looked up the owner on the computer. Using a speakerphone, he called
>>> who he said was the registered owner. Got an answering machine. He
>>> left msg to effect that the phone was found and is at the store and they
>>> could call to claim it. But he didn't give them my name or number.
>>
>>
>> Which is exactly what he was supposed to do, and should do.
>>
>>> I wanted the neighbor to know who found it,
>>
>>
>> Why? So you found a lost cell phone and returned it. Why is it
>> absolutely imperative that the neighbor know it was you who returned it?
>>
>>
>>> and I also figured the phone was mine if no one actually claimed it.
>>
>>
>> So if I find your car parked on the street, I guess that automatically
>> makes it mine? Of course not, because the car has been registered by an
>> established authoritative body (the state DMV) that lists you as the
>> registered owner of the vehicle. Even if you abandon the car for a whole
>> year, I still have no claim to the car whatsoever, and the car is still
>> under your ownership and your responsibility.
>>
>> The phone you "found" did not belong to you, and you have no claim of
>> possession of it. Unfortunately for you, "finders keepers" is not the
>> rule of the land in situations where ownership of property is documented
>> and traceable. The IMEI of the phone is, similar to the car analogy,
>> registered in a database that allows Cingular to trace the phone back to
>> its owner, and that means the phone STILL belongs to its owner, even if
>> they appear to have abandoned it.
>>
>>> I asked for it back and told him to give them my number if they called.
>>> He refused.
>>
>>
>> I would have refused, too!
>>
>>
>>> He kept giving me a line about how the owner was a Cingular customer and
>>> he would make sure they got the phone. When I argued that I wanted to
>>> do that, that I wanted to close the loop myself, and that frankly I
>>> trusted myself to do it better than I trusted him, he said let's call
>>> the police and have them settle it.
>>
>>
>> You have to understand a few things.
>>
>> First, the manager of the Cingular store is just as suspicious that YOU
>> won't close the loop as much as you *claim* to be that HE won't close the
>> loop.
>>
>> Second, you've done your part. Accept it! You've returned the phone to
>> a place where any reasonable person would expect that efforts would be
>> made to return the property to its rightful owner. The phone's IMEI is
>> registered to its owner, and presumably, if the owner was that concerned
>> about their phone, they could request that Cingular blacklist the phone's
>> IMEI so that no one else can use it UNTIL it is returned to them.
>>
>> You also saw the manager make a reasonable effort to contact the owner.
>> That, I think, is proof enough that he wants to get phone and owner
>> reunited. He has no reason to give YOU the owner's info. In fact, he
>> has a separate obligation to protect the owner's privacy, and by
>> witholding the owner's information he was doing just that. Besides, if
>> the manager is as unscrupulous as you think he is, then really, that's
>> between him and Cingular.
>>
>> Third, if the phone's owner had insurance and he or she made a claim on
>> the phone and got a replacement, then technically it's no longer their
>> property. Rather, the found phone now belongs to the insurance company,
>> and thus it's the obligation of the Cingular store manager to return the
>> phone to insurance company, NOT the owner. YOU do not know the status of
>> that phone. The Cingular manager does. Therefore he is in the best
>> position to do what is right, NOT you.
>>
>> And finally, your actions quite frankly smack of suspicious and ulterior
>> motives. A truly good deed done doesn't require that any lavishing of
>> praise be bestowed upon the doer, and it appears that you're holding out
>> for some kind of special acknowledgement from the owner, or some kind of
>> reward. Sometimes rewards are offered, and that's great! In fact, if I
>> wanted something returned to me, *I* would offer a reward. But, you are
>> not automatically *entitled* to that sort of thing, so you should not
>> expect anything of the kind. And if you ARE expecting that sort of
>> thing, then maybe the world would have been better off if you left this
>> "found" phone exactly where you "found" it.
>>
>> Or, for all I know (and for all the Cingular store manager knows) you
>> could be some creepy guy with an stalker's obsession towards this person,
>> and your "finding" of the phone was really a ruse to get this person's
>> personal info. In which case, it's the Cingular store manager who
>> deserves the reward, not you.
>>
>
>
> Altogether sing now... ah...1...anna 2...anna 3...
>
> For he's a jolly good fella,
> For he's a jolly good fella,
> For he's a jolly good fella-a-a-a,
> That nobody can deny!
> Hugs.
>
> There ya go Ron. Better now?
>
>
> --
> jer
> email reply - I am not a 'ten'

"Marty" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Somewhere around Tue, 21 Feb 2006 10:44:34 -0600, while reading
> alt.cellular.cingular, I think I thought I saw this post from Jer
> <[email protected]>:
>
> >subdude wrote:
> >> On 21 Feb 2006 05:02:44 -0800, "tom glaab" <[email protected]> graced
> >> us with:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Ron wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>Maybe someone wiser than I in the ways of the cell
> >>>>phone business can explain what was going on. ... I can't think
> >>>>of any other reason he would insist on keeping it.
> >>>
> >>>Perhaps Cingular tagged you as the "cell phone stalker," a deviant who
> >>>steals cell phones then uses Customer Service to lead him to his
> >>>victims' homes. Perhaps the computer noted that the phone's owner was
> >>>your ex-boyfriend who has a restraining order against you.
> >>>
> >>>Personally I'd be rather annoyed if Cingular started sending total
> >>>strangers to my home. I'd much rather they act as a trusted agent to
> >>>relay the phone to me (as this manager did).
> >>>
> >>>tg.
> >>
> >>
> >> Excellent, albeit scary, thought.
> >
> >
> >Considering the recent spate of news stories related to identity theft
> >and/or fraud via cell phone records, sounds like this store manager has
> >been reading his corporate email blog about using prudence when dealing
> >with customer records. IOW, he did the right thing for all the right
> >reasons. Kudos to him for giving a ****.
>
> Perhaps, but Ron never asked for the information, he only wanted to charge
> the phone, probably in case the owner called. I once found a phone, and
the
> owner did call, and I met him close by to return it.
>
> If someone is a stalker or whatever, he's probably not going to a Cingular
> store to have it charged.
>
> Besides, maybe the owner was a stalker.
>
> I usually like to ask myself "What would Jesus do in a case like this?"
> But then I decided Jesus probably didn't have a cell phone.
>
> --
> Marty - public.forums (at) gmail (dot) com
> "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...
> well, I have others." - Groucho Marx

Now really. Let's all take a moment and think about this. A person walks
into a store and says " I found this phone. Would you charge it and give it
back to me so in case the owner wants it he can come to me and get it?"

Would you want the store manager to give someone a working phone that was
not his after he (the store manager) charged it up? And as has been said in
previous posts, if he released the phone back to Ron then he has violated
policy. And we won't even mention possible suits be the original owner over
privacy violations should it ever come out that the manager charged the
phone and then gave it back to the person that found it. And who would pay
for the calls to Nigeria, that's what I want to know.

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Thu, 23 Feb 2006 17:06:56 -0500,
Isaiah Beard <[email protected]> wrote:

>The phone you "found" did not belong to you, and you have no claim of
>possession of it. Unfortunately for you, "finders keepers" is not the
>rule of the land in situations where ownership of property is documented
>and traceable.

True.

>The IMEI of the phone is, similar to the car analogy,
>registered in a database that allows Cingular to trace the phone back to
>its owner, and that means the phone STILL belongs to its owner, even if
>they appear to have abandoned it.

In the case of GSM, it's actually the SIM that's registered to the account
holder, and the identification is the IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber
Identity). <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSI> The carrier may or may not
have a record of the phone (IMEI) itself, depending on how it was purchased
(carrier or third-party) and whether it's insured or not.

Your other points are likely nonetheless valid, since the carrier can trace a
GSM handset back to its owner if a valid SIM for that carrier is installed in
the handset.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>