My Wife was Robbed (And I got it back)

Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “My Wife was Robbed (And I got it back)”.
Uh find my device expansion. Oh yeah, I got an email about this. Google is finally rolling out its promised find my device expansion, which will help users locate both online and offline devices, and it works pretty much the same as Apple’s find my network um. There’S a billion plus Android devices in the network that will ping your device over Bluetooth if it’s nearby and send the endtoend encrypted information to find my device. The system also stores recent locations with timestamps, so it can be used to find offline devices and, as recently as a couple of weeks ago, we managed to get ivonne’s purse back using an Apple Air tag. This is very really useful things I told Luke about it already. That person was definitely going to keep it until oh yeah.

I disclosed that there was a tracker on it and I was going to be able to make new make noise with it as soon as I got in touch with my son back home to Ping it because I didn’t bring an iPhone with me on the trip. Um any who users that wish to opt out of the feature can do so through settings, and users can also manage when they want to participate, whether it’s only in high traffic areas or all areas. Perhaps, controversially, users have the option to benefit from the network by using it to find their device without participating themselves. I am against that yeah me too.

I think that if you complely agree, if you want to be able to find your device, I think Google should just draw the line here and basically say no. What you want to you want to use the network to find your missing device, but you’re not going to contribute to it. Why don’t you just go drink a nice, cold, glass of off and cuz like it’s? It’S it’s not like. It’S not encrypted, not receding! Yeah! Yeah, not cool yeah you’re, going to download a Linux ISO. You should help other people download Linux isos. Unfortunately, the purse story.

We were in a pretty chaotic head space, I’m not going to remember all the details, but we were at lwigs for the shoot uh. We got an Uber back to our hotel realized when we got to the hotel holy crap. We don’t have it. We assumed that she had accidentally left it in the Uber uh, remember or not remember, but you might not know this um. We had pulled an allnighter right before the trip painting, pl’s car. She stayed up with me um and we were working on it together. Neither of us was really at our best on that trip um, so we assumed it was in the Uber. We called the Uber driver, cuz, that’s a feature and he was like.

I have a fair right now, um I’ll check. You know when I pull over um. He didn’t call back so Ivon calls him back later. He goes yeah checked in the back seat.

It’S not there and she goes well okay. What about the trunk and he’s like? I have a fair I’ll check later we’re like okay! Well, just in case it’s not in the Uber. Why don’t we head back to lwig Studio, yeah um? It was not simple to get in touch with um, with my son to check the air tag location because I had left my iPhone back home. What am I going to need my iPhone for I’ll just bring my regular phone um, so we hadn’t managed to get in touch with him. Yet so we were like okay.

Well, why don’t we just head back to the studio? Maybe we accidentally left it in the studio we got there and it was right around that time that we learned a bunch of things, so the driver got back to us eventually that it wasn’t in the car. So we went uhoh. We searched the studio, it wasn’t there, we got the ability to to uh see where it was, but we couldn’t ping it yet long story um and oh no, we could ping it, but we couldn’t find it in lewig studio.

So now we’re really worried. Now we’ve got the like last known location, but it was a long time ago and it was at a park that was like a little ways away from lwig studio and we’re like. Okay, that’s a bad sign Because unless we drove past someone with an iPhone as we were leaving – and that was the last time it got pinged and it was in the Uber which the guy said it wasn’t.

But, like you never know, I had a cabby lie and say that I didn’t leave a jacket in a cab once and they definitely had it uh. Unless that’s what happened um, this thing is pretty lost and even if that’s what happened, this thing is pretty lost. Uh but then it started to get updates more recently, and it was just like at the intersection near this park, and I I had already had the idea that if we left it on the sidewalk um, someone might have just grabbed it Chuck been walking. You know cuz you’re going to be moving just ditch the tracker like in the park just hucked it in a garbage can or something like like that and and then and then took the purse with them. Cuz, the tracker’s just hanging in plain sight off of the purse: it’s not like in a hidden pocket or anything and uh.

So I had already kind of walked past the spark a couple times earlier and I was while we were waiting in stuck and not able to get in touch with my son um. I I had suggested to Ivon that we like walk around the park and like look in garbage cans and stuff like that um, because it would be, it would be great if they just took the cash and then chucked the whole per tracker included. So I was kind of Still Holding Out for that um, so I didn’t realize, because I was looking at the find my app never actually had to use it to find anything before. So I was looking at the find my app through my son’s phone at the other screen and it’s like a huge icon like this and I didn’t realize it actually comes to a pinpoint.

So at some point I realized no. No, it’s exactly at that point. In the intersection where that weird, like hoarder, looking truck full of garbage and with like a a kid and someone in it and clearly like no intention of moving there’s a lot of like RVS and stuff parked around like it, was clearly a um, a poorer neighborhood.

Where people were living out of their vehicles um so clearly, so so that vehicle had caught my eye before and now I realized that the pin was like right on it. Um, they didn’t speak any English, so we um we had interacted with them just sort of casually already. But finally, we were like okay. Well, we need to talk to them because uh yeah, we’re going to have to like Google translate moment figure this out. At some point, so we pull out, Google translate and Ivon basically goes. I lost my purse um have you seen a purse and they go no and we kind of go okay, um. Well, I need to wait a little bit longer before I can ping this on. My own, because by then my son was doing something else and we couldn’t just have like him ping it. Oh right.

Oh, I remember why we couldn’t just have him ping it because uh it wasn’t near anything on the F, my network, so we had the loc. The last location we had the ability to Ping it with the iPhone, but we didn’t have an iPhone, so we had to go back to see. This is why I told you I was going to get the details wrong.

We had to go back to the studio. My phone battery was dead, so I couldn’t call ion. I was worried.

The truck would like leave uh because they had seen me kind of walking around a lot um right. We had to go back to Studio, they did they had an iPhone, but it belonged to an employee who wasn’t there anymore and they didn’t have the PIN to to to reset it. So we we had to like search for whether a Macbook participates in the find. My network, we finally got that we brought it back.

We had to connect it to an internet connection which wasn’t working on my phone cuz, my phone died, so we had to tether it to Ivans. Her phone was almost dying, so we finally got to that point. So then we talked to them again: cuz we’ already talked to them. We already said we lost the purse, but we hadn’t, we didn’t have any way to Ping it. So now we had a way to Ping it. I could right.

I couldn’t sign into my Apple ID on the MacBook, because my 2fa was on my phone, which wasn’t charged I had to so I was like I was in the middle of reverse charging. While Ivonne was sitting there, cuz there’s an Android app that you can use to Ping unfamiliar trackers, but it has to be near you for 10 minutes. So we have these multiple timers, I’m trying to reverse Wireless charge. My phone I’m trying to figure out how to log into my Apple ID, maybe without it or something or like I could team viewer into something and get something, and then Ivonne is meanwhile waiting for this countdown Tim for the 10 minutes.

So finally, we get there and we’re ready to talk to them again and we’re ready to Ping it, and so I go over to the Taco Stand. That’S like on the street next to I’m, like hey uh, Google translate moment again. Do you mind turning down your music, I’m trying to hear a Tracker and we go back and ask one more time: uh, hey um! We’Ve got a tracker on the purse um and so have you seen it because it’s going to make a noise soon and they go oh yeah yeah. I was going to give it to you um you, my my kid was sleeping.

So I couldn’t before Oh yeah and we kind of go totally okay and she goes yeah yeah uh I was, I was going to give it to you, and – and this is oh right – a kid has been brought in a neighborhood. Kid has been brought in to translate yeah yeah I was. I was going to give it to you uh my my husband found it and um and and gave it to me, and I was going to give it to you and we’re like okay, anytime now so um. She goes and gets it and sure enough. It’S yvon’s purse. I guess they had no idea what an air tag was CU.

It was still sitting on it. She hands it back to Ivonne uh, who immediately opens it up to give her the cash as a reward as she’s saying everything’s in there uh and Ivonne goes oh well. I guess you helped yourself to your reward already, which may not have actually been the lady. It might have been the husband who found it or even someone before that or even someone before that, but one way or another the cash wasn’t in it uh.

But you know what honestly we were so happy to have it back that we had to go bother. One of Ludwig’s poor team members for like this is probably the fourth or fifth time by this point. Cuz we went in to look for it and then we went in to like borrow an iPhone, and then we went in to go like hey um. Actually, how about a Macbook and then we went in for some other reason, we’re like ringing the door every time right who who the heck are these guys? No, I knew who knew we were um, but then the last thing we had to do was because we no offense to anyone, didn’t really want to walk around and look for an ATM um.

We’Re like hey. Do you have any cash we can like PayPal, you replacement cash, but we had no cash on us because I don’t carry it and ion had her cash taken uh, so we still gave her a reward thinking. Maybe someone cuz? Why would why would you confidently hand someone their purse going everything’s in it when it’s not when it wasn’t so, at the very least, she probably didn’t, know um or maybe didn’t know who knows she, she very possibly didn’t know and they clearly hadn’t time hadn’t had Time to go through it in detail, so what I suspect was Buddy picked it up grabbed the cash immediately so that he didn’t have to tell his wife that he had cash cuz like some relationships are like that and I can def. I definitely got a Vibe um that you know there might have been some dishonesty right around yeah um. You know so probably grabbed the cash dumped it in the in the like hoarder looking truck thing. That was just it was like full of garbage, like full of garbage um, which is weird because there were garbage cans in the park that were empty. They could have easily put their garbage in there, but no, they chose to keep it in their truck um and then intended to go and look through it later is is the vibe I got, because her airpods were still in there.

Um and airpods Pros like if you have any idea what those are. That’S one of the first things, those pretty quick, yeah y, her airpods Pros were still in there uh there were no transactions on any of the credit cards. None of them had been removed. Clearly, they thought they had all the Time in the World to come back and and go through it and figure out. You know what was a value other than the cash um, so so thank you.

Thank you Apple for your air tag system that you um are now finally have done done your part to help Google also have their own system, so I don’t have to buy your air tags anymore and I’ll actually be able to um ping stuff myself without carrying Around my stupid iPhone, but but does Google have like what tracker can we get on the Google side? Well, they’ll they’ll be coming. Okay, yeah yeah very excited. It’S going to be that’ll, be really nice. Yeah yeah! I am um, I’m very, very happy that we got it back. We ended up giving we offered them a meal uh, because there was the food stand right there and they were like. No, I don’t want that, and so we went and got cash and brought it back.

I’M like, okay, sure sure sure fine I decided on $ 60 for those of you who must know I felt like that was there were apparently three of them, so they can get some food and I figure I didn’t owe them any more than the bare minimum. Since I mean they weren’t, they were clearly not intending on giving it back one of them or another already had our cash yeah and the other one clearly didn’t intend to give us back the rest of the stuff. I like what are you talking about? You were going to return it if you’re going to return it, you could have easily found the phone number in it and called it that would have been an option um anyway. It was very, very stressful.

This was like the first day of our trip. Second, this was the second day of our trip and we had two more more days to come and it would have just been. Fortunately, her passport was not in there yeah. She had her passport separate, never have everything.

Some countries some countries force you to walk around with your passport. That is utterly insane yeah, but it is a thing. But if, if that’s not the case, leave it in your hotel, safe .