1. RichieHD's Avatar
    So, what if you hypothetically found an unlocked BB Curve 8300 and it was beat up badly (I mean, no trackball and screen scratch badly) and the phone was password locked so you couldn't reach anyone to contact to return it. Would it be unethical to keep it and throw a new house/ball on it and use it/sell it/give it to your brother?

    Note, you tried getting into the phone to look for a contact number but it was passlocked.
    09-02-09 10:41 PM
  2. nascarfan49's Avatar
    I would take it to the carrier that it was on, that's if the carrier logo was still visable an turn it in

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    09-02-09 10:43 PM
  3. amazinglygraceless's Avatar
    I would hypothetically take it to a carrier store and let them
    find the user and return it to them.

    Oh wait, it isn't a hypothetical. I've done that twice. Gave them
    the PIN, IMEI/ESN and my number for the owner to contact me. They
    both got their phones back.

    Your "hypothetical" of refurbing it and selling / giving it away
    is in "reality" dishonest.
    09-02-09 10:44 PM
  4. TheSultan's Avatar
    Return it dude, it's the right thing to do.

    Weird that it was missing a trackball though.
    09-02-09 10:44 PM
  5. RichieHD's Avatar
    It was unlocked. The phone was from ATT but the Sim was from T-Mo. ATT could only point me to the direction of whoever had the phone before it was unlocked and sold.
    09-02-09 10:45 PM
  6. RichieHD's Avatar
    Return it dude, it's the right thing to do.

    Weird that it was missing a trackball though.
    My friend had this to say "If it was beaten up so badly and missing a trackball, whoever had it, lost it on purpose. Anyone who treats a Blackberry like that was punished by the BB Gods."

    Haha. I'll end up calling ATT tomorrow. But if they can't help me, I dunno what else to do.
    09-02-09 10:47 PM
  7. pkcable's Avatar
    I'm with the others return it to the carrier they can look up the person based on the esn or imei

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    09-02-09 10:47 PM
  8. Josh.Harris's Avatar
    Keep it. :-)

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    09-02-09 10:56 PM
  9. amazinglygraceless's Avatar
    My friend had this to say "If it was beaten up so badly and missing a trackball, whoever had it, lost it on purpose. Anyone who treats a Blackberry like that was punished by the BB Gods."
    Your friend is a couple of raisins short of a full bag of trail mix
    09-02-09 11:01 PM
  10. RichieHD's Avatar
    Trust me, I know this. He knows this. He's the guy that stood outside of a T-Mo store all night for the 8900 when the manager said they were getting dozens in.
    09-02-09 11:02 PM
  11. xliderider's Avatar
    Try T-Mo instead of AT&T since it had a T-Mo sim in it.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    09-02-09 11:40 PM
  12. Bajanbastard's Avatar
    Try to return it. If that fails fix it up and keep it.
    09-02-09 11:44 PM
  13. zhelf's Avatar
    pop the sim in your curve to see if there are any saved contacts.
    Last edited by ReaperZ1013; 09-02-09 at 11:53 PM.
    09-02-09 11:48 PM
  14. jytvyj's Avatar
    Say the cookie monster took it if the owner ever finds it

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    09-02-09 11:49 PM
  15. danoh's Avatar
    New York State Code - Section 252

    "any person who finds lost property of the value of twenty dollars or more or comes into possession of property of the value of twenty dollars or more with knowledge that it is lost property or found property shall, within ten days after the finding or acquisition of possession thereof, either return it to the owner or report such finding or acquisition of possession and deposit such property in a police station or police headquarters of the city where the finding occurred or possession was acquired"

    [...]

    "any person who shall refuse or wilfully neglect to comply with the provisions of subdivision one or subdivision two of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars or imprisonment not exceeding six months or both. 4. A person shall not be subject to criminal prosecution for failure to report a finding or acquisition of possession of found property or of a found instrument to the police and deposit such property or instrument with the police if, in lieu thereof, he delivers the property or instrument to the person in possession of the premises where the property or instrument was found"

    FYI
    09-03-09 12:01 AM
  16. McCracken's Avatar
    I would hypothetically not sell a hypothetical device that had the ESN/PIN hypothetically locked. I would drop it off at a TMO office or move a long and pretend it never happened. Trying to activate it or sell it for the purpose of activation is a bad idea. A hypothetically criminal bad idea that is rather easy to find out.
    09-03-09 12:02 AM
  17. oasissux's Avatar
    pop the sim in your curve to see if there are any saved contacts.
    Agreed. Undoubtedly, the user's phone number is on the SIM. Call them.

    Or just have the balls to keep the thing without trying to get other Blackberry users to support your decision.
    09-03-09 01:50 AM
  18. berryite's Avatar
    So, what if you hypothetically found an unlocked BB Curve 8300 and it was beat up badly (I mean, no trackball and screen scratch badly) and the phone was password locked so you couldn't reach anyone to contact to return it. Would it be unethical to keep it and throw a new house/ball on it and use it/sell it/give it to your brother?

    Note, you tried getting into the phone to look for a contact number but it was passlocked.
    No need for a hypothetical here. The story actually happened to me. Someone left a phone on the floor in one of my company's cars. I was using the car and found it. It was a Pearl back in the day when Pearl sales were red hot.

    Checked. Couldn't find any owner ID info in the user screen. Saw it was an AT&T phone. Called AT&T. Told them I found it. They asked me to hold onto it. Called me back a week later and said that they couldn't find the owner.

    I gave the phone to a colleague.
    09-03-09 02:14 AM
  19. Duvi's Avatar
    You can actually call T-mobile. AT&T wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

    T-mobile should have the SIM card number in their system (even if the user changed it to a new one) and possibly the updated IMEI.
    09-03-09 02:18 AM
  20. Kmak159's Avatar
    nvm lol

    im dumb

    10 char
    09-03-09 02:25 AM
  21. barbwyr's Avatar
    You are assuming it was abused by the owner. You have no way of knowing if it was stolen and then when the creep couldn't get it to work he destroyed it. Even if the user has gotten a new phone there may be contacts in there that he needs for his financial livelyhood or just piece of mind and you getting it back to him would be some real good juju..lol. Contact TMo and if they won't help take it to the police station as close to where you found it as you can. After all....wouldn't you want that to happen if it was your's? We'll leave the criminal aspects of selling a device you don't own to the hypathetical.
    09-03-09 02:32 AM
  22. redman213's Avatar
    ...hope you don't live in NY lol anyways dude same rules if you can find the owner than return it and hope they don't neglect it however if you can't find a good home for it...
    09-03-09 02:40 AM
  23. cdaiscool's Avatar
    Man. Return the phone. Why steal something that really shouldn't be anyways?

    Besides - could be Bill Gates' illegitimate child's phone - and he may pay to get Catherine Zeta Jones' number back
    09-03-09 03:40 AM
  24. davidnc's Avatar
    But dude I would still turn it into the carrier and let them try and find who owns the phone from the esn or imei. (like pkcable posted)
    09-03-09 05:16 AM
  25. giantstepp's Avatar
    Id make a basic effort to find the owner to return it. But going to the store or talking to CS getting esn #'s etc. would be a little much for me. I've lost phones and no-one ever contacted me to return them. I would've liked for that to happen, but I remember learning at 3 or 4 years old "finders keepers, looser weepers" lol. Sometimes we take losses in life. Do try to see if you can find the owner, but dont loose any sleep if not. Put a new housing on it and be done.
    Last edited by giantstepp; 09-03-09 at 08:36 AM.
    09-03-09 08:34 AM
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