How to find out who owns an iphone?

SuziQ

My son found a brand-new looking iphone on friday, coming back from his football club. It was apparently lying in the bottom of an over-hanging bush. The little toe-rag didn't tell me about it until this morning, and I have spent all day trying to figure out how to find the owner.

There are no contacts messages or personal details on there except in 'my number ' is a female name and when we rang that number it said 'not recognised'. I am not tech-savvy, so please excuse my ignorance, but it doesn't seem to be connected to i-cloud either? The 'find my iphone' is switched off- do we just switch that on and she'll be able to track it and we can get it to her? It seems to be on 'tesco' sim.

My husband runs minibuses, and whenever he has found iphones on there after taking drunken parties out, someone always phones or tuns up at the door quickly, having tracked their phone quite easily. Why wouldn't this owner do the same? It's fully charged and been turned on since Friday by the way.

Please don't criticise my son-he has been given an earful already today about not telling me immediately that he had found it, I think curiosity got the better of him and he just wanted to see what it was like- he has a pretty great phone and ipod/ ipad already but I wish he had told me sooner he had found this!

I would be gutted if my son lost a new-looking phone like this and really want to reunite this one if anyone can suggest anything? I suppose as a last resort, we take it to the Police station, but the closest is about 5 miles away.

DUTR

So you hand it in the the local police station, if nobody claims it after a time, then it is your son's to keep.
(Although he may well wish he found a Samsung S2 instead)

grumbler

Try contacting Tesco Mobile? It's 4455 while the sim is alive.

http://phone-shop.tesco.com/tesco-mobile/about-us/contactus.aspx

No point it trying to keep the phone as it is likely to get blocked anyway.

SuziQ

That's just it though-he already has the Samsung so why he was interested in this I don't know!

Apparently that police station doesn't take lost property, they take the details and you take the property home again, they contact you if someone comes forward. Who ever heard of anything so daft?

SuziQ

Oh thanks, Grumbler, that seems more proactive!

DUTR

SuziQ wrote: »

That's just it though-he already has the Samsung so why he was interested in this I don't know!

Apparently that police station doesn't take lost property, they take the details and you take the property home again, they contact you if someone comes forward. Who ever heard of anything so daft?

Well they can't store every lost item, tbh I would not stress too much about finding the owner, as long as you have done your legal bit then wait to see if in a few months it is yours, perhaps the owner left in the gutter when he realised , no FM radio, no video calls, no widgets support, does not possess features that are available on basic phones from years ago, does not support flash , does not support 16:9 aspect ratio etc etc

grumbler

Also, the list of the recent calls can be of interest - both outgoing and incoming.

SuziQ

That's just it-there's no calls on there at all, no messages, nothing-could the owner have wiped it to protect data?

SuziQ

One thing I will say-there's a pretty cool range of music on there, lol! David Bowie, stereophonics, prince, florence and the machine, pink, lily allen, michael jackson, texas, guns and roses, Bruno Mars-oh, and Dolly Parton! PMSL!!

reclusive46

SuziQ wrote: »

That's just it-there's no calls on there at all, no messages, nothing-could the owner have wiped it to protect data?

PM me the imei. I have a tool that might be able to trace who the owner is. Depending where it was bought. The imei is located in settings, general and about

SuziQ

OK, seem to have this sorted. I have spoken to Tesco and they say the person who owns the phone has already claimed on her insurance. They are supposed to be ringing me back within the hour to tell me whether I will be returning the phone to them or whatever- they weren't sure whether her replacement had been arranged yet. Methinks this person wanted a new phone-turns out this one is the one before the latest model (how would I know lol? )

Thanks to everyone who replied to help.