Almost two weeks ago, a woman accidentally left her Sidekick in a cab, where the next passenger found it. That person did not return the device, choosing instead to keep it and use it, taking pictures and sending messages with the true owner’s account. The phone’s rightful owner and a friend accessed her account, found the messages and pictures, and figured out where the finder lives. Rather than apologizing and returning the Sidekick when confronted, the finder was abusive, obstinate, and self-righteous. The owner’s friend then made it his mission in life to shame and hector the thief until she gave in and did the right thing. Two weeks later, the shaming web site has been linked to and talked about everywhere online, including, now, here.
What has held my attention about the story is not the utterly banal evil of the thief, who with brazen entitlement actually seems to be citing the precedent of Finders v. Losers. There is nothing about that I find surprising anymore. It’s not even the thief’s incredibly bizarre illiteracy in e-communications (do people really expect anyone to understand that gibberish?). What keeps me coming back is the Kafka-at-the-DMV journey the guy has gone through with the authorities in NYC since solving the mystery. Someone took somebody else’s stuff; they know who it is and where she lives; they have indisputable proof from the phone company that she has the phone; they have e-mails in which she changes her story ten times, admits she has the phone, refuses to give it back, and threatens the owner for pursuing the matter; they have literally done the entire investigation themselves, and now simply need someone with a gun to go over and get the phone back; and they absolutely can not get the NYPD to give one single, tiny crap. If you scroll through the days, you gradually notice that the site stops becoming about shaming the thief and becomes about shaming the police department into deciding whether or not taking somebody else’s stuff is a crime. This goes straight to the top of my “future book premises” list.
June 30th, 2006 at 10:25 pm
The reason for this is simple: NYPD does not care about petty theft, and in their eyes, for the manhours involved, it’s not worth their effort. I dealt with ID theft of checks for 7 years, and they were all traceable to an apartment in New York City. 12 cell phone accounts, about $5000 accumulated dollars in unpaid charges and getting the people ON THE PHONE AND ANSWERING TO MY NAME meant nothing. The NYPD told me flat out, when I called the exact precinct where this individual lived, that the company defrauded, not the victim has to press charges. AT&T can scoff at the meager 5K, because it will cost them 5 times as much in legal fees to prosecute. Nevermind that the nature of the crime indicated an obvious inside job–that AT&T employees were using their access to the system to create phony accounts.
And Americans wonder why vigilante justice and shaming websites continue: Unless there’s a dead body on the scene (either victim or cop), no one cares.