Lost and Found

Two weeks ago I unfortunately lost my trusty old Nokia 7650 phone. It was a bit of a brick compared to the latest of mobile phones, but it was still pretty cool compared to the 5110 that I have had to go back to.

My 7650 had a zillion contacts in it, as well as some photos from 'Rocka 2004' (which by the way I neglected to upload to my computer the day before I lost it).

I then rang around to several taxi companies (as I had no idea which company it was that I hailed to Double Bay that fateful Sunday afternoon), but no-one handed any 7650 in. I reckoned though, that if the person had known who the phone belonged to, and just how important the contents of my phone are to ME!, then they would have handed it straight in.

Then I thought, maybe it was not left in the taxi afterall - where then would someone hand it in to? Yeah, I know.. everyone says the police station. But which one?.. there are at least a dozen between my place and DB, just 4 kms away.

Which then lead me to think about creating a cool lost property system that could handle things in a more efficient manner. Taxi Combined has this nice setup on the web (plus over the phone), but it really must be such a pain for them to have to fork out money to staff a Lost Property office when it doesn't even make them any money!!

Then, today I came across this really cool website. In fact I wish I could have thought of it before them. Well I did, but they obviously pulled their finger out and did something well before I lost my phone ;)

Anyway, it's called Postbak. Basically, Postbak sell these stickers (in retail stores) that have their phone number printed on them. You buy about six of them for about $7 each and stick them onto anything you feel is too valuable to lose; such as mobile phones, PDAs, laptops, keys, glasses, wallets etc. Then, in the event that you do lose it, hopefully someone nice comes along and finds it. They then ring the number on the sticker, and Postbak organises for a courier to come and pick the item up and deliver it to the person it belongs to. Such a neat idea!

Now, I know a lot of people would be wondering just how many people would bother ringing up - well, I would say a lot would, as people basically like to be honest and these days even the fanciest mobile phone is useless to the next person once it has been reported lost or stolen. But with Postbak, there is the added bonus that the owner might have posted a reward for the return of the item.

Now that WOULD be a bonus!

Keep on the look out for little red and black stripey stickers. It could be worth a few bob!