Mum tracks down cabbie who kept her mobile using Find my iPhone app

A TAXI passenger took matters into her own hands when a Melbourne cabbie appeared unwilling to return her forgotten mobile — she used the Find my iPhone app to track him down.

A taxi passenger retrieved a phone she left in a cab by using the Find my iPhone app.

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A TAXI driver who apparently pocketed a passenger’s forgotten phone was forced to hand it back after the woman tracked him to his Balaclava flat using the Find my iPhone app.

Fiona, from Newport, realised she had left her phone in a taxi on Friday night, and started calling cab companies to no avail.

She also set her iPad to alert her as soon as her mobile phone was switched on.

“I got pinged by Find My iPhone App with his street address in Balaclava on Sunday morning, plus I pinged it back to make a sound on the phone,” Fiona says.

“So I knew he’d seen my message to call me on XX number at 7.52am, but he ignored it. That’s when I thought, ‘right, I’m not getting this phone back unless I step things up a notch’.”

Fiona sought advice from police, who said the address was a block of six units.

“So I typed up a letter saying police had been notified and the phone IMEI blocked, so it’s useless to anyone else,” she says.

“I drove over there and pushed the note under each door and then went to St Kilda police station.”

Amazingly, just as Fiona was giving the police a copy of the note and her details, the taxi driver rang to say he had the phone.

“He sounded a bit panicked that I may have been reporting him,” she says.

“Ten minutes later, he came to the station with my phone. Victory! It was like a true crime adventure — my kids and I were high-fiving at the police station.”

Have you tracked down a stolen or lost mobile with the Find my iPhone app? Let us know.

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