You wake up in the middle of the night, go out and find your car is missing. There are no signs of any kind. Just an empty space where the vehicle should be parked. You call the police, but the chances of getting it back seem minimal. However, you remember something that could change everything: an AirTag.
This is a true story and this is what happened to Scotty Turner, a user from Chicago who shared his story on Reddit. A theft which, far from being a simple theft, became a story in which everything happens. He even feels a feeling of pity for the thief.
Evening car ride and first surprise
Scotty defines himself as an owl because he lives at night. Therefore, the fact that he left home at three in the morning to go for a drive was not at all strange. What was strange was that When I went down the street, the car wasn’t there.. Regardless, he wasn’t afraid.
He lives with another younger relative and claims that he too is a nocturnal animal. Scotty thought he had just borrowed his car “to go to McDonalds” or something. She called him to confirm it and then the big shock arrived: he hadn’t taken it.
Panic must have set in for Scotty at that point, and he says he did “whatever needed to be done in these cases.” In other words, call the police, report yourself, and report yourself to the insurance company. Then he said he could only feel sorry for himself and frustrated. His 2010 Subaru Forester was missing. Or rather, it had been stolen.
And here it is worth focusing on one thing that, although Scotty leaves this for the end of his story, is important at this point: I hadn’t locked the car by having confidence in living in a safe neighborhood. With this he tries to instruct others so that they do not make this mistake.
AirTags as an emergency mechanism
Faced with such fear, a fundamental point had not occurred to Scotty: I had an AirTag hidden in the car. He had forgotten that just a few months ago he had bought a four-pack of AirTags because of the “small possibility” of his car being stolen. And yes, it would be low, but the probability eventually became a real fact.
Apple Pack of 4 AirTags
*Some prices may have changed since the last review
Scotty marked the AirTag as lost and relied on the city’s extensive network of Apple devices. It is essential in the operation of these accessories, since they are not a GPS, but rather send their position to servers via devices such as iPhone, iPad and Mac that pass near them.
In the “Search” app on your iPhone, the last location marked for the AirTag was your home, a location that was marked at 10:17 p.m. In other words, the theft must have occurred in that 5 hour interval between this search and the time Scotty went out onto the street and checked that his car was missing.
Just ten minutes after marking the AirTag as lost, Scotty’s luck began to smile on him. The AirTag showed a new location. He was in the suburbs of the city and therefore immediately called the police to inform them of the information.
Now is the time to act
According to the “Search” app, the exact location of the AirTag was recorded in the parking lot of a Walmart, a well-known American supermarket chain. And because the police didn’t find himScotty assumed the thief had found the AirTag and decided to throw it away to avoid being tracked.
In any case, that didn’t stop him from deciding go himself and check if his car really wasn’t there
Thanks to the iPhone and the location function when the AirTag is nearby, he was able to notice that the accessory was lying on the ground under a car. It was raining and it was “gross,” so he didn’t bother bending down to pick it up. In the end, the AirTag was the least advantage compared to his car.
“If I had left 30 seconds earlier, I would not have gotten my car back”
Even though his car wasn’t there, Scotty didn’t want to leave that parking lot. He expected his stolen car to appear, but he was already bored of waiting. His idea was to inform the authorities that he was there and that, perhaps, thanks to the security cameras, they could see the thief’s face.
Scotty’s timing was most appropriate, as he was about to leave and drive through a traffic light. I saw his car appear. Not that he’s completely sure, but “90% sure.” And the best part was that it was coming towards him, so he could stop it.
However, Scotty was obviously afraid of such a situation. He wanted to get closer, but he didn’t know if the driver could confront him and even shoot him. So he decided to call the police for the third time in three hours to inform them of what had happened. A moment which is also reflected in a video shared by Scotty himself.
It didn’t take long for the officers to reach this location and they took the thief out of the car. He was, as Scotty describes it, “a pale, thin man” and “he looked dejected.” So much so that he admits to having started to feel sorry for him. He was homeless and, from what he would later discover in the vehicle, addicted to drugs. “He didn’t have an easy life,” Scotty acknowledges in an admirable attempt to forgive the man’s botched theft.
A car in deplorable condition and with surprises
Even though the car had only been in the thief’s possession for a few hours, it was enough for Scotty to discover an almost unrecognizable interior. It was full of cigarette butts and he claims that “it smelled of tobacco and weed”in reference to marijuana, of course.
He also states that several marks were found on the seats from cigarettes being lit there. The state he found it in was a disaster, but as he himself admits, he was at least able to get it back. Of course, the next day it had to be thoroughly cleaned and the bad odors removed.
*Some prices may have changed since the last review
What also emerges from this story is that inside the car were, in addition to “tons of garbage”, other stolen items such as bags filled with phones, tablets and watches. The police were responsible for them, so it’s possible that their original owners would eventually get them back if they filed a proper complaint.
In the end, it was “a crazy experience” as its own protagonist defines it. And with a clear lesson: It is important not to trust us and take precautions against theft. In this case, lock the car, but also use an AirTag. This accessory often surprises us with its enormous capacity to help find all types of stolen objects.
Cover image | Wikimedia Commons (1 and 2)
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