OK. So I found a phone laying by the side of the road Saturday afternoon, while walking my dog, just as the heavy snows were starting. I picked it up, brought it home, and it works. It's locked but I could tell the vendor. Yesterday I was able to call one of their stores and was told they have no way of checking who a phone belongs to if it is locked so I put an ad on CraigsList in the Lost & Found.
Today I went to the post office to see if there was any mail since they haven't delivered to my house since the storm and there was a Metro PCS store right across the street so I brought the phone since I found it hard to believe they couldn't look up info from the SIM card. Different person working the counter than I talked to on the phone yesterday so that saved an awkward "I didn't believe you" conversation but apparently the guy I didn't believe was right. Apparently they can only see the last 4 digits of the phone number on the SIM card these days. Hooray for "improved security" or whatever the idiotic reason is behind that. But it occurred to me to check to see if my CraigsList ad had gotten any hits. It had. I got:
-A screencap of an October 2025 receipt (with no supporting explanation or text). It did have a serial#, but there is no serial# anywhere on the phone (DuckDuckGo says you need to get to "settings" which you can't do if the phone is locked.
-A message saying "I'm interested?"
-A message saying "Did you really find a phone or is this code? lol"
And in case I didn't mention it, I was out shoveling yesterday afternoon so I had a conversation with a girl walking by and decided to ask her if she knew of anyone who'd lost a phone on the street recently. She said she'd lost 4 phones on that street and I said something to the effect of "Oh, that's too bad," while my brain was actually screaming "HOW IN THE FUCK DO YOU MANAGE TO LOSE 4 PHONES--APPARENTLY IN THE SAME WAY!?"
I hate humans so fucking much.
(Incidentally, some jackassery was happening at the supermarket a few weeks back and I muttered that under my breath and a little old lady near me heard me, looked me in the eye and smiled about it.)