Resolved Help: brand new AirPods Pro were lost/stolen

[citivolus]

Totally my fault. I bought them on Monday while on vacation to use on the flight home to Newark Airport on Thursday and forgot them in the seat back pocket. Got home at midnight then realized it and immediately filed a missing item report with the airline. FindMy showed them still at the airport so I enabled Lost Mode. Called the airline but they said the luggage claim office at the airport was closed for the night.

The following morning I see them moving in FindMy to a location just 10 minutes from where I live. My guess is someone from the cleaning crew took them but of course that is just a guess. I went to the police stations at both Newark Airport and the town where they are currently showing in FindMy, but neither said they would do anything.

I know this is an incredible long shot, but does anyone have any suggestions for how I could get them back? Maybe change the message in Lost Mode offering a reward? I know i should just move on but it’s so aggravating continuing to see them in FindMy at a location just 10 minutes from my home.

 

[russell_314]

Nothing you can do, but just forget about it. Police won’t do anything about stolen property unless it’s stolen from the government. Any attempt to recover them would be dangerous and the police will side with the thief.

 

[citivolus]

According to this Apple support article:

“If you misplace your AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods Pro (1st generation), or AirPods Max, you can mark them as lost and create a message that provides your contact information.”

Has anyone actually been able to see such a message? I tried it with my daughter’s AirPods Pro after putting them in Lost Mode and “found” them with my own iPhone but never saw or was able to display the message with my daughter’s contact info.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Lost mode message won't show on a Family account, that's probably why you didn't see it with your daughter's.

Put a message on - possibly someone will see it and possibly they'll send you a message. But, AirPods don't have Activation Lock so it's also possible (maybe "Likely?") that they'll just reset & use the AirPods themselves.

 

[citivolus]

Lost mode message won't show on a Family account, that's probably why you didn't see it with your daughter's.

Thanks, but I tried it with a blank iPhone 8 which was logged into an iCloud account not part of our family plan.

Put a message on - possibly someone will see it and possibly they'll send you a message.

I did do this but don't believe that the AirPods will actually send the message. I spoke to numerous people at Apple tech support and the Genius Bar and literally no one could explain how it works.


After a lot of persistence, I finally got a detective to take the case. He said that there's little he can do since no prosecutor will provide a search warrant even though the Airpods continue to ping from the same address just 10 minutes from my home.

 

[citivolus]

Incredibly, after three weeks of persistence, I have finally been able to retrieve my AirPods. I literally had to do all of the detective work myself as none of the law enforcement I contacted would help. As I suspected, a cleaning person from the airport had stolen them. For the entire time they were lost, they never left the address they were pinging from. However this morning they were at the airport again. I used my hunch that they would follow a similar path back to the residence that they took the first day they were lost and headed to that vicinity. I then tracked them down to a nearby grocery store and raced over. Using the FindMy feature, I went up and down the aisles and was able to identify them with precise location to a person wearing a hat with the name of the airport cleaning company I had learned from my investigations. I then got a security guard to walk over to her with me. At first she denied having them, but with my persistence and showing her that I knew she had them in her bag according to Find My, she decided to start looking in her bag and eventually pulled them out. When she hesitated giving them back to me, I played the sound to "prove" they were mine. All of a sudden her story changed and she said "I'll tell you a secret--when we clean planes and we find these, we throw them out" as if to say you're lucky I kept them so you could find them again. I'm still in shock that this all worked out.

 

[AZhappyjack]

Incredibly, after three weeks of persistence, I have finally been able to retrieve my AirPods. I literally had to do all of the detective work myself as none of the law enforcement I contacted would help. As I suspected, a cleaning person from the airport had stolen them. For the entire time they were lost, they never left the address they were pinging from. However this morning they were at the airport again. I used my hunch that they would follow a similar path back to the residence that they took the first day they were lost and headed to that vicinity. I then tracked them down to a nearby grocery store and raced over. Using the FindMy feature, I went up and down the aisles and was able to identify them with precise location to a person wearing a hat with the name of the airport cleaning company I had learned from my investigations. I then got a security guard to walk over to her with me. At first she denied having them, but with my persistence and showing her that I knew she had them in her bag according to Find My, she decided to start looking in her bag and eventually pulled them out. When she hesitated giving them back to me, I played the sound to "prove" they were mine. All of a sudden her story changed and she said "I'll tell you a secret--when we clean planes and we find these, we throw them out" as if to say you're lucky I kept them so you could find them again. I'm still in shock that this all worked out.

I would argue that they were not stolen by anyone, rather they were lost by you. Finders-keepers. And you are lucky that you weren’t shot or stabbed or incurred similar bodily harm. There’s an incredibly thin line between “brave” and “stupid”. Happy ending makes it all worth it, I guess.

 

[citivolus]

I would argue that they were not stolen by anyone, rather they were lost by you. Finders-keepers. And you are lucky that you weren’t shot or stabbed or incurred similar bodily harm. There’s an incredibly thin line between “brave” and “stupid”. Happy ending makes it all worth it, I guess.

She told me she cleans planes at Newark airport and found them on my flight in my seat back pocket. I asked her why didn't she turn them into the lost-and-found at baggage claim but instead kept and used them for three weeks, and she replied that usually they throw them out instead so I was "lucky" that she didn't do so.

As I said in my original post, losing them was "Totally my fault". However, keeping property that isn't yours when there is a reasonable course of action is whatever you want to call it, but it isn't right, regardless of the label.

 

[Howard2k]

Glad you got them back.

Do you think the time investment and risk was worth it? It ended well, but might not have done so.

 

[citivolus]

Yes