The airplane cleaner stole my AirPods.
About six months ago, I had a layover in Houston. After deplaning and going through security, I realized my headphones had fallen out of my pocket. I submitted the lost item claim with United and gave the description of the color of the silicon case they had on them, plane info, seat number, the whole thing.
I also set it to lost mode and included my phone number to call me. I emailed United a few times, stating I could see they had moved from the plane to what seemed to be the United office space. I now realize, it was probably employee lockers.
After about 24 hours, I saw them go to an apartment building. I watched them go from the apartment building to the airport, back and forth, and tracked the schedule. I gave United the address of the employee, their schedule, and what days they had worked. Surely the home address and schedule was enough to pinpoint who it was, so they could at least deal with it internally. Wasn’t exactly excited to get the AirPods back if they had been wearing them.
United told me that because the AirPods had left the property, they wouldn’t do anything and I had to file a police report with Houston PD.
I live in Arizona. They closed my claim.
I use “find my” a lot for various AirTags and things. So, for the last few months, whenever I see my lost headphones with the earbuds out, I hit “play sound” on the earbud and blast the wearer’s ears out. I see them quickly go back into the case.
If they would have called me when they found them, I happily would have sent them a reward, even enough to buy their own basic pair. I understand they are expensive and not everyone can swing a pair.
I am slowly working toward making them go deaf, so no one else loses a set of headphones to them. I think this is the pettiest thing I’ve ever done…
Here’s what people had to say to OP.
I think apple needs to create a tone called “these missing items are in the possession of someone I dont know” – really fucking loud
When a friend picked up my phone by accident, I used “find my” and we watched my phone go down the highway. I didn’t know who had my phone and my son made it make a very loud noise and had a message to call my husbands phone to return it. She said the noise was really obnoxious and it worked great
Did this when my daughter’s phone was stolen at school. I blew that fucker up. Guess it scared the kid who took it because my daughter found it under a portable building. Didn’t stop making it sound off until she called me from it.
My teenaged daughter put her mobile phone down in a supermarket and only thought about it 15 mins later.
We went back to the supermarket and asked at Lost and Found. Not there. We used FindMyPhone and tracked it to a nearby home. We went to the police, but they wouldn’t help.
We then sent a message to the phone saying “We have tracked this phone to Address, and we are on our way to the police station.”
Then we got a call from the supermarket saying that a granny had returned our phone to Lost and Found.
Hope this story helps someone recover their item.
I used to work at an airport a couple of years ago. A passenger came in who left their Iphone on a plane the day before. They had used another person’s Iphone to find it and it showed it was at the airport. I hadn’t worked the previous day and didn’t know anything about it, but I went searching. It appeared to be at gate A1 and I looked everywhere there but no luck. I went back to the desk and then the person let me borrow the other Iphone to go back to the gate with it and try some more (luckily I had time it was slow, small airport). I tried making it play a sound, and nothing. Finally it hit me that it was in the room below, not actually up at the gate. Went down there and someone had secured it in a manager’s desk with a note to send to lost & found. We’re not all dishonest jerks.
My sister literally tracked her AirPods to the person’s house and went to the door and demanded them back, lol, and the person looked so guilty and handed them over
Had couple come to my house demanding I return lost iPods. I didn’t have them. Refused to leave and called cops. She showed them her screen and demanded they search but cops declined and right then an update showed them on the next block. She then said someone must have sneaked out back. Cops said they’ve seen this before and told her to leave my porch. Next day neighbor said they circled the block for maybe an hour before finally leaving
