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My older foster brother has had several strokes and is crippled. He lives alone in our hometown about a two hour drive from me. I bought him a Samsung Note smartphone, placing it on my account. On June 2nd I got a message from Verizon that it had used 50% of its monthly Text Messaging allotment in 4 days. My brother doesn't text, so the next morning I drove down there. I had been calling the number for a couple of days with no response, but tried it again on the way down. A lady answered. I asked who she was. She asked why I wanted to know. I said, "Because you are talking and texting on my phone". She responded, "It's my phone now".
So, I tracked it. It was stolen on May 28 at 3:13 am, and went to 164 Westwood (1 block from my brother's home) where it remained for 12 minutes. It then came back to 178 Westwood (next door neighbor's house) where it remained for 18 hours. Then to Best Western Inn (located 350 feet east of 164 Westwood) where it remained for several hours. After my talk with the lady, it vanished for a while (turned off), then showed back up at 164 Westwood from 4:29 am to 10:57 am. It mostly goes back and forth from there to the Best Western.
I reported all this to the Helena-West Helena Police, but they said all they do is make Police Reports - that they could not help me recover the phone even if it was sitting in a chair in the Police Department lobby with Verizon simultaneously reporting it to be there. Knowing the identity of the person who has it (determined from property public records) doesn't help.
This didn't surprise me much -- it's the same police department that told me who murdered my Dad a month after he was killed, but never arrested them.
So, I tracked it. It was stolen on May 28 at 3:13 am, and went to 164 Westwood (1 block from my brother's home) where it remained for 12 minutes. It then came back to 178 Westwood (next door neighbor's house) where it remained for 18 hours. Then to Best Western Inn (located 350 feet east of 164 Westwood) where it remained for several hours. After my talk with the lady, it vanished for a while (turned off), then showed back up at 164 Westwood from 4:29 am to 10:57 am. It mostly goes back and forth from there to the Best Western.
I reported all this to the Helena-West Helena Police, but they said all they do is make Police Reports - that they could not help me recover the phone even if it was sitting in a chair in the Police Department lobby with Verizon simultaneously reporting it to be there. Knowing the identity of the person who has it (determined from property public records) doesn't help.
This didn't surprise me much -- it's the same police department that told me who murdered my Dad a month after he was killed, but never arrested them.
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