Aussie site tracks missing mobiles
Although mobile phones each have a unique Individual mobile equipment identification (IMEI) number, many aren’t traced back to their original owner so to help shift the backlog, online mobile phone recovery service Find a Phone, www.findaphone.com.au, is offering its service free to non-subscribers throughout July.
Find a Phone subscribers, who pay an annual fee of AU$22, have their IMEI numbers registered in the Australian Mobile Telephone Association’s (AMTA) database and are notified if their missing mobile is handed into one of the hundreds of locations on the Find a Phone recovery network.
The amnesty will allow non-subscribers to be notified of where their phones can be found.
”Approximately 4000 phones are reported lost or stolen every week,” Find a Phone managing director Reg Robertson told ZDNet.
”It’s a shame to think there are thousands of phones up their that people can’t get back.”
Robertson claims there are around 3500 to 4000 missing mobiles currently registered on the site and about 450 police stations working with the Find a Phone program.
”There’s no simple fix for this situation,” AMTA chief executive Ross Monaghan, said Monaghan said. “It’s the responsibility of the carrier, consumer and law enforcement agencies.”
”People need to take responsibility for their phones…Because handsets are subsidised people don’t place a lot of value in them, when in fact they’re worth between AU$500 and AU$800.”