Considerate iPhone Thief Returns Owner's List Of 1,000 Contacts In 11 Handwritten Letters
A iPhone thief in China copied down a list of all his victim's contacts (by hand!) and returned it to its rightful owner. All 1,000 of them. Let's give it to the thief's professional ethics here. What a considerate thief, right?
By Sadho Ram — 26 Nov 2013, 05:39 AM — Updated over 10 years ago
Thieves usually don’t show any mercy when it comes to your data, but an iPhone thief in China was considerate enough to pen down the victim’s over 1,000 strong contact list and send it over
A Chinese iPhone thief may have atoned somewhat for his crime, sending his victim a handwritten list of nearly 1,000 contact numbers. The list ran to 11 pages.
Zou Bin said he was 'astonished' when the thief of his iPhone sent him 11 handwritten pages of his entire contact list, including name, phone numbers and email addresses
Image via dailymail.co.ukAccording to state media, the pickpocket took Zou Bin's phone earlier this month when they shared a taxi in the central province of Hunan.
Zou had nearly 1,000 phone numbers saved on it, a loss which he said bothered him more than the phone.
dailymail.co.ukWhen Zou Bin realised that his iPhone was stolen, he bombarded his stolen iPhone with threatening texts demanding the thief return it to a supplied address
According to the Independent, as soon as Zou got to another phone, he texted the stolen handset and demanded that the robber return it to the home address stored inside.
themalaysianinsider.com
"I know you are the man who sat beside me. I can assure you that I will find you," he said in a text message to the thief.
hindustantimes.com
A man who stole an iPhone painstakingly copied out 11 pages of contacts and sent them to the owner, who had threatened to track him down and make him pay
Image via memegenerator.net"Look through the contact numbers in my mobile and you will know what trade I am in," he added. "Send me back the phone to the address below if you are sensible."
news.com.au
The tone of the message was unmistakably threatening -- Zou works in the pub industry, which in China is widely held to have links with gangs.
ubergizmo.com
Days later, Mr Zou received a parcel containing his SIM and 11 pages of carefully handwritten contact numbers. He told Chinese media that he was astonished by the result.
"It would take a while to write from one to one thousand, let alone names and a whole string of digits. I suppose (the thief's) hand is swelling," Mr Zou was quoted as saying.
hindustantimes.com
The theft earlier this month is believed to have happened somewhere between Yiyang and Changsha in the central province of Hunan.
It's not exactly a happy ending, but getting back a SIM card back is definitely better than not getting a SIM card back. Meanwhile, the thief's actions haven been praised by Chinese internet users.
Chinese internet users have dubbed him the "the conscience of the [robbery] industry" and comparing him to Lei Feng, a member of the People's Liberation Army, widely held to be the model citizen the Chinese should aspire to.
themalaysianinsider.com
For many iPhones are valuable more for the data they hold than the handset itself
Image via bbcimg.co.ukOne user of Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, posted: "What a sympathetic and faithful thief, one who values professional ethics."
dailymail.co.uk