My husband bought a used vehicle from an impound lot in the neighboring county. The owner had been arrested for DUI and the vehicle had been held for the required number of days and then sold off either because it was abandoned or because it was forfeited. While my husband was cleaning the interior (58 cents in change and a few tools, bonus!), he found a Verizon cell phone in the glove compartment. Alas, the battery seems to have completely discharged and there is no charger, so we’re not able to retrieve the owner’s information (or any funny pictures) from the phone itself. It’s a Pantech Jest, which doesn’t ring any bells as one of the must-have phones these days.
Now, given the number of court papers and warrant notices (from multiple counties :eek:) that were also left in the vehicle, I think there’s a fair chance this phone was stolen, and I’m also pretty sure we don’t want this character to come over to our house for coffee. Would it be best to drop it off at the nearest cop shop. (The county seat pertinent to the impound is nearly an hour away.) If we just drop it in a mailbox, will it get to Verizon? Should we just toss it into the trash at the grocery store?
I don’t understand these newfangled things. Back in my day, we kept our phones attached to the wall where they belong :mad:.
Depends on if you feel like going above and beyond the good citizen role.
If you don’t, then just chuck it, or take it with you to a grocery store or thrift store to see if they have those dropboxes where they recycle old phones to give to women who are escaping abusive homes.
If you do, then find out the mailing address of your police department, and mail the phone, along with all of the court papers and warrants left in the car, and a note listing the VIN of the car, and explaining that you bought it from the county(state, city?) impound.
They might be able to get info off the phone to get the dude on other charges if they have it in their possession legally. Or, they may not find anything and then they’ll ditch it, or give it to the people that refurbish old cellphones for needy people.
Either way, this isn’t anything that can come back to bite you in any way I can tell.
Ah, I’d forgotten about the cell phone collection angle. I’m pretty sure they have one at our pharmacy, which is only 10 miles away! That sounds like a good plan. Might as well do somebody some good. Thanks for the suggestions!
I volunteer with the ywca safe house and second the suggestion to give the phone to a charity like that. We get lots of random phones and chargers, match them up and give them to women for 911 calls. (You can make a 911 call on any cell phone, even if it’s not registered with a provider.)
Given the history of that car I’d be far more concerned with getting it a new license plate number and ensuring the local police depts in my area know that that particular car description & VIN no longer belongs to Mr. Meth Lab & now belongs to Mr. Law Abiding.
When Deputy Fife remembers that he should be on the lookout for a 1998 blue Saturn sedan with a known armed and dangerous driver and your hubby is driving home from work after dark in, surprise, surprise, a 1998 blue Saturn sedan, things could get ugly quickly.
It sounds like you’re rural, so it shouldn’t be too hard to connect with somebody who gives a hoot in your local police agency.
The cell phone: Any trash can, including your own.
Please do NOT just throw it in the trash. The proper way to dispose of a cell phone is electronics recycling, if you don’t donate it to charity. Old cell phones used lead based solder. I remember transitioning to lead free sometime in the mid to late 2000s at my old job, to match some European standards.
Newer ones still have components that can be harvested and properly recycled.
-D/a
Here they are required to issue new plates for cars sold from impound, so that’s been taken care of. As a matter of fact, it all has to be done before the vehicle can be released from the lot. I’m not terribly concerned about law enforcement recognizing the vehicle since it is pretty generic and the guy who owned it lived in yet a third county, so I think we’re okay. It would be kind of funny to redecorate it, though; I’ll suggest that to my husband.
Oh yeah, we wouldn’t just toss it in the trash. Our county lets us bring electronics to the recycling center. This is, of course, on the opposite side of the county, so we save stuff up for months.
I have found cell phones morec than once. I took them to the nearest police station or campus police (if on a college campus). I haven’t been in a situation where the phone was stolen, and in least one case I heard from the owner, who was glad to get the phone back. But if the phone was stolen, uit seems to me the police are still your best bet.