retiredHSmom Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 (edited) On Saturday my mother, my daughter and I attended a one day women's retreat at our church. When we went up from the parish hall for adoration, the parish priest told us all to take our purses. Most women did. A few hours later when we went up to the church a second time for Mass many of us (including my daughter and I) left our purses in the parish hall. Retreat staff was to be there the whole time. When we came back down an hour later for lunch, my daughters purse was not on her chair where she left it. Mine was under the table where I left it. We just assumed that someone had moved it. So we called it and heard nothing but my daughter was pretty sure the ringer was off. One of the features of "find my iPhone" is that it plays a very sound beeping use even if the ringer is off so we pulled it up on my phone and to our shock and dismay her phone reported that it was in a shopping center about 11 minutes away. Shocked we called the police, they said they would send someone out to take a report. We went outside to with for the police and proceeded to call and cancel her debt and credit card, neither of which had any new charges on them. She is graduate student and poor so she had no cash in her purse. The main losses were her credit and debit card, student ID, drivers license, military ID, phone and the purse itself which was a birthday gift last month. Plus a bible, a chapel veil, a bunch of receipts and the usual paper trash that accumulates in a purse. An hour late the phone had not moved and the police had not shown up. The phone showed it being in the parking lot in front of the post office in a shopping center that we were familiar with. We were sure that the thief, upon discovering that the purse had no cash and stolen the cards and dumped the purse. So we did what all good women in our family would do and called the police and cancelled their visit and took off to go dumpster diving. As I told my daughter, if there was ever a woman that you would choose to go chasing down a stolen phone using the built-in GPS and then probably have to dumpster dive to retrieve it, it would be my mother. When we arrived at the shopping center we went straight to the dumpsters in the parking lot and triggered the loud "find my iPhone" beeping. No sound came from the dumpsters although they were very clean and everything was bagged which gave me hope. At this point the location pin was jumping between the parking lot and the post office so we headed to the post office. It was a busy Saturday afternoon in the post office. We kept triggering the beeping and didn't hear anything in the first bay of PO Boxes. In the second bay we could faintly hear the beeping. We entered the service counter area and the beeping was loud, I kept triggering it. My daughter thought that it was coming from the purse of the lady in front of us and so did the lady as she reached for her purse. My daughter later told me that she was totally ready to jump the lady. I looked up and saw the purse on the shelves behind the counter. I am not kidding when I say that I pointed at it and practically yelled, "there it is, thats our purse". The postman behind the counter looked up and said "this belongs to you", as he handed it to my daughter. I told him that it was stolen one hour ago from a church a few miles up the road. He added and told us that they dumped it in the outer bay of the post office and the only thing that they did was to remove my daughters drivers license fro the very outside pocket of her purse and drop it back in the main body, that is how he recognized her. After many thanks we returned to the car and searched her purse. Every single thing was in it including both her credit and debit cards, her IDs and her phone. Oddly enough whoever stole it removed her drivers license from her wallet and put it in the very outside pocket of the purse before they dropped it at at the post office. We think that someone entered the parish hall thinking that it was empty and probably began thinking about taking purse or cash. When they heard the woman come out of the kitchen they were startled and grabbed my daughters purse off her chair and ran. Later an attack of conscience caused them to drop it at the post office with ID easily accessible so that it could be returned. It probably would have reached us eventually but because of the "find my iPhone" feature and the fact that my mother and I and my daughter have never met a challenge that we couldn't attack together we had it back within two hours of it being stolen. It was quite a day. Edited February 13, 2017 by Tania 33 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooCow Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 Wow! Glad you guys found it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katy Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 What a story! Glad you found it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlett Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 My SIL and her roommate were at a gym and roommates car was stolen. Their phones and purses were in the car, and find a phone helped the police find the car and 13 year old thief. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catwoman Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 Wow! What an amazing story! You guys were incredible! :hurray: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IfIOnly Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 I wonder if the phone tracking device going off at the shopping cented freaked them out and they ditched everything? I'm very impressed with your and your DD's quick thinking and investigating! What a blessing she has her purse and all its contents back. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trulycrabby Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 That's an amazing story and such a great ending! :hurray: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 I wonder if the phone tracking device going off at the shopping cented freaked them out and they ditched everything? I'm very impressed with your and your DD's quick thinking and investigating! What a blessing she has her purse and all its contents back. That was my thought! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Outdoorsy Type Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 I got my iPad back a year after it was stolen with that app! The thief sold it (from what I could gather) and when the buyer turned it on and hooked it up to wifi it alerted me. I called the police in that town (halfway across the country) and they visited the house for me. Whatever they said either scared the people or they had a guilty conscience and handed it over. It was locked at that point so they could never use it anyway. So I mailed a check and the police mailed me my iPad 🎉 I was sure it was gone forever. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardenmom5 Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 tbh: you still need to file a police report. this was probably not the first time there was such a theft at the church if the priest was warning women to keep their purses with them. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelle in MO Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 What a story! I'm glad she got everything back! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retiredHSmom Posted February 13, 2017 Author Share Posted February 13, 2017 I got my iPad back a year after it was stolen with that app! The thief sold it (from what I could gather) and when the buyer turned it on and hooked it up to wifi it alerted me. I called the police in that town (halfway across the country) and they visited the house for me. Whatever they said either scared the people or they had a guilty conscience and handed it over. It was locked at that point so they could never use it anyway. So I mailed a check and the police mailed me my iPad 🎉 I was sure it was gone forever. That is great. While we were waiting for the police a friend at church told me that her daughters iPhone was taken by a kids at school. "find my iPhone" showed it was at his house. The police were called and the mom denied that her son would do that and the police told my friend that nothing could be done. They never got the phone back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retiredHSmom Posted February 13, 2017 Author Share Posted February 13, 2017 tbh: you still need to file a police report. this was probably not the first time there was such a theft at the church if the priest was warning women to keep their purses with them. I probably should, just so that there is a record that it happens that the offender likes to target the church hall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barb_ Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 What a great story! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitten18 Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 My wallet was stolen out of my purse in a store once and a couple hours later I got a call from the post office that they had found it in a mailbox. I had already canceled the cards but everything was in it except for the cash. I was just happy to have the wallet back. And my family is totally the type that would go dumpster diving for a purse/phone. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzanne in ABQ Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 I wouldn't be surprised if it was taken by accident. Perhaps a mom picked it up, thinking it looked like her daughter's, Or a sister thought it was her sister's, or something like that. They got several miles away before they realized that they had someone else's purse, but didn't have time to drive back (or were embarrassed). They looked at the license, but then they saw the post office, and decided that would be a safe place to leave it. Even if you didn't find it there, the post office would be able to deliver it to you or notify you that it had been found. Perhaps I'm naive, but the evidence shows a scenario like this, rather than a thief. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Outdoorsy Type Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 That is great. While we were waiting for the police a friend at church told me that her daughters iPhone was taken by a kids at school. "find my iPhone" showed it was at his house. The police were called and the mom denied that her son would do that and the police told my friend that nothing could be done. They never got the phone back. The officer told me beforehand that it was highly unlikely to work, so you are correct to point this out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xixstar Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 The officer told me beforehand that it was highly unlikely to work, so you are correct to point this out. We had a couple show up at our house telling us their phone was stolen and the app was showing that it was at our house. The police came and we just reiterated that we had not stolen a phone, had not driven to the nearby city where they said it was stolen from, etc. it was quite an odd orderal and I felt bad that they lost their phone but we didn't have the phone -- they assumed we were lying, perhaps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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