Comments on: My Overly Mobile Mobile

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:53:23 +0000

I can relate to this lost phone experience. Yea, it happened to me in Wuhan, China. Got out of a taxi and it slipped out of a side pocket on my pants. Called the phone and the driver answered and just laughed….Each time I called, the same response!!! I lost a camera in a taxi in the Philippines and no luck getting it back…..However, in Tokyo, I lost my wallet and didn’t even know it until the taxi driver tracked me down at my girlfriend’s flat! To this day I don’t know how it all went down, but all my money was still intact and I’m still sure that if you lose something, Japan is the best place to lose it!

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:14:59 +0000

give the phone back – taxi drivers aren’t rich by any means but they make a decent salary – it was probably another customer who snagged your phone, Ryan, and anyone who can afford to take a cab ride in China can afford to not steal the phone.

But you and I are not the one who took the phone…

By: Ryan

Ryan — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 07:04:57 +0000

@Jenn: Apparently I have the phone of one.

By: Jenn

Jenn — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 06:38:48 +0000

I thought I did the same thing yesterday and spent an entire dinner thinking about how I no longer had a phone.

When I got home it was sitting on the kitchen table.

I swear I have the memory of a 90 year old some days. Glad you got a new one.

By: canrun

canrun — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 03:35:19 +0000

But of course…

Waffle House=American south!

By: Gabrielle

Gabrielle — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:59:20 +0000

I once left my cell phone in a bathroom of a Waffle House. No, I wasn’t sitting on the pot and making phone calls. Anyway, 5 minutes down the road it hit me that I had left it on the sink and rushed back to get it. I didn’t see it in the bathroom and felt really bummed, but thought I should ask any of the waitresses if they had seen it before crying a river. I was rather lucky. Someone found it and handed it over to the staff and then the staff called the number that said Mom. I was a very happy individual. And this was in the American south by the way.

By: canrun

canrun — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 06:32:06 +0000

“Do you think it’s the same the world over? If you found someone’s phone (or other personally identifiable thing for that matter), would you return it? Do you expect others to do so?”

You are obviously not from the American south, are you?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:08:18 +0000

All I can say is I’m a bit jealous of all these people that had their phones returned I’m off tomorrow to get a new one. Hopefully I’ll not lose it on the way home.

@Steven: I recently learned that about keeping the number – that’s a blessing.

@Woaizhongguo: I agree, I can definitely see there being more of a temptation to keep it here. It doesn’t make it right though.

By: b. cheng

b. cheng — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 06:57:40 +0000

sorry about your bad luck…I had a friend who forgot their phone in a cab in Chicago, fortunately she realized it quickly and called the driver from a friend’s phone after 10-15 minutes. The driver returned to where they were and gave it to her and didn’t even make her pay the price to return to that location or anything.

By: Woaizhongguo

Woaizhongguo — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 05:25:01 +0000

I would and I have returned a lost phone and refused the 100 rmb the owner tried to give me as a reward but I think it’s important to bear in mind I earn a reasonable salary and someone else’s phone is of no special value to me.

I am not justifying people keeping phones they found but think it’s important to understand that for some people this is like us finding a bag with 2000 US dollars in cash. And what if it was 10,000 dollars or 50,000 dollars or 100,000 dollars?

I’d probably still return it because of the karma reason but we have to accept many would be tempted not to.