Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2019 March 2

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March 2

find owner of old phone

Some months ago I found a crappy old Android phone literally on the street in a not so good neighborhood. I tried turning it on but the battery was dead. It took me a few days to get around to charging it up, and then when I turned it on there was a lock screen. I set it aside and some months went by, but I just looked at it again and noticed the back cover pops off and that let me find that it's a Tracphone Pixi Unite, plus I have the IMEI and sim card. Any idea what now (regarding how to find the owner)? I guess I can call Tracphone customer service since they have no stores around here, but it's been months since I found the phone so the person's prepaid balance has probably been used up or transferred to another phone (i.e. if the phone was registered with them).

Alternatively I figure I can use the phone for something (it's a low end Android 6.0 phone from 2016, no longer sold new but I see some for $15-20 on ebay). It's likely to be sim locked to tracfone, right? I don't want to buy a new subscription but a wifi-only phone can be useful. I found hard reset instructions online but that would wipe the person's photos and stuff, and I figure I should make some kind of effort to locate the old owner before wiping and re-using it. If I can't find them though, is it likely that I can unlock the phone? It supposedly supports 4G LTE, but could it make voice calls on T-mobile? I have some T-mobile prepaid minutes I could move over from an even worse phone that I have with them.

Thanks. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 23:06, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

See theft by finding. No, you did say you would try to locate the owner. Never mind. --76.69.46.228 (talk) 01:14, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes if it wasn't clear, the request (per the title) was initially for suggestions how to find the owner. Calling Tracphone support occurred to me while I was writing the post, as did unlocking it. I made a small edit. This is a crappy enough phone that it doesn't present much of a temptation anyway. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 03:14, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

In many jurisdictions the police will try to match up lost property. If the SIM was registered to a person, they can likey track them down. However it will cost more than the value of the phone for them to do it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:41, 3 March 2019 (UTC)