Couple Keeps Getting Accused of Stealing People’s Phones

Since smart phones have become such a huge part of day to day lives, taking the place of pretty much any paper notebook or schedule tracking device, of course it’s awfully inconvenient when it goes missing. Fortunately, there are apps to track your phone in case it got stolen. Read on to find out what happens when those sites get it wrong, as a couple keeps getting accused of stealing people’s phones.

Not even Christina Lee and Michael Saba can remember exactly when everything started, not very accurately anyway.

On much more than just a few occasions, the couple had people showing up at their doors with police officers, claiming that the two had stolen their phones.

The two have had multiple dealings both with people and the police because of this, but it has already been a couple of years since the whole thing started, and they have pretty much gotten used to it.

One of the most unpleasant circumstances for them was when they were involved in a missing child case, as the police showed up at their door claiming that the girl’s phone was inside their house.

As it turns out, this is an issue partly caused by the “Find My iPhone app”, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the app’s fault, mainly because it’s not the only app making the same mistake.

Nothing really seems to matter in this case, as pretty much all carriers and smartphones brands seem to be tracked to the couple’s house.

The issue isn’t dependent on any one thing in particular, but it would seem to be caused by a triangulation problem.

Usually, device tracking apps use a multi layered system of tracking locations. First, a technician looks at the phone’s GPS location, followed by the nearest cell towers to which it was connected, and finally to a sort of Wi-Fi fingerprint generated by the phone’s connection to the internet.

Apparently, it is this process, as well as a very unlucky address, that are to blame for the couple’s repeated run-ins with law enforcement and disgruntled citizens asking for their phones back.

Surprisingly, the majority of people showing up their house are quite quick to understand the situation, and aside from some measure of disappointment in not finding their phones, they seem to be ok with it, and to believe the unlucky couple.

The two are scared, however, of the inevitable angry perdon that will show up in fron of their house, so the next step is to talk to the Federal Communications Commission and eventually to the senate, to see if they can end their current predicament.

Image source: Wikimedia