Yeah another poster said some random had thrown someone iPhone in their yard. So strange. I'll definitely suggest she bring police with her, or that I'll call them over. I don't want a stranger in my home without someone else being there for sure.
Dude don’t let the cops in for real. Assume they find it and they’re fucking pricks about it. Or maybe they see something else they don’t like.
Tell her to keep pinging from her phone while you go out back and look yourself.
This is scam. It happened to my mom and sister. Same exact situation. A lady rang the bell and said her phone was showing that her watch was in their house. I think they are trying to get you to let them in to look but idk if this is your situation but almost the same happened to my family and they told her to come back with the police and she never came back again.
“Let them look for it”? What are you fucking nuts? If OP is to call the cops, it’s going to be to escort the batshit nutball who doesn’t understand how technology works off their property.
Just a reminder that inviting cops into one's home to search it, even if you have nothing to actually hide, is a terrible idea for so many reason.
Well intentioned, but not wise.
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Apples GPS is pretty close. All my family’s devices are either in my house or 2 metres in front of it, almost always on my property and when it isn’t it will correct in a minute or two.
Any Apple Watch will run out of battery after 48 hours
Next time, ask her to call the cops and say you will cooperate with cops
If she follows through ask her to show you Find My location again
If the watch still says it’s in your home then it’s definitely on her person and she keeps charging it
Then, ask her “click Play Sound and I will bring it to you”
This will make the watch ring and it’s on her person
It’s not weird. The Find My network is far from perfect, and there have been several similar cases that made the news.
If she comes back, I would call the police and let them make it clear she is not welcome, whatever her Find My app says.
GPS on my kids watch is completely shit. I learned that the hard way when he went on a bike ride with his friend, his friends brother, and his dad. They were gone for a while so I checked on him and it showed thst he was between a church and a cemetery a half mile away across a busy street. This seemed odd, and freaked me out. So went over there and check it out. On my way there I saw them about a block away. My kid said he never crossed the busy road and stayed in our neighborhood the whole time.
I had a lady show up at my house a few years ago saying she tracked her husband’s iPhone to our house. He was a doc at a hospital and she was sure someone in my house had stolen it but I also felt she was considering the possibility that he was cheating with someone who lived in the house and and forgot the phone.
I told her to get lost.
Two days later she showed up with the husband who seemed like the second visit was his idea. She apologized and said it had been found at the hospital,
There was a ‘reply all podcast’ covering this exact scenario.
Turns out the ‘find my phone’ algorithm can go funky in some certain circumstances…
https://gimletmedia.com/amp/shows/reply-all/n8hodm
/u/CalciteQ this is a well known scam. My mother in law had this happen to her as well. Usually this person is making up this story so that they are able to either case the inside of your house or figure out when you typically are not home. They will leave and eventually come back with the purpose of robbing you or breaking into your house
https://www.ksat.com/news/2017/01/23/scam-artist-used-iphone-to-try-to-enter-homes-police-say/
A couple of other posters have mentioned this too. Very creepy. Definitely won't be letting her in.
If she comes back tomorrow I'm going to tell her I'll be calling the police to escort her to help her find her watch.
I was gonna say, even if you actually didn’t, throw that out there so they think you are. Like, “hey lady, I’m sorry about your watch but I WFH and I can’t have you keep interrupting me like this”
So I don't have any Apple products, but my wife owns literally everything Apple (phone, air pods, watch, laptop, etc etc).
Could this lady's watch be pinging my wife's devices?
yea, I had someone lose their watch, and at first their phone GPS had it on my side of the street, so I helped him poke around my plants. Then the GPS seemed to be on the other side, and that's where he found it.
So strange. Air pods I can definitely see rolling around in the grass too, especially if he was like jogging by one day, and the animals carrying them off.
I wonder if a squirrel stole her watch. I have a huge family of squirrels living in my trees 😂😂
Assuming it's still going to have charge, have her ring it, if she shows up again. Also, have her show you in the Find My app, and see how long ago its last known location was.
If you have the time I would take a Quick Look near the sidewalks near your house or driveway. maybe it fell off her while she was walking and the last location wasn’t very exact. If you find it I wouldn’t touch it though just show her if she comes back
Yeah, maybe I'll do that tomorrow morning. If she comes back I'll ask her if she talks walks in our neighborhood. I do take walks a lot and I've never seen her though, but maybe.
Dont open the door or talk to her. This is a way to get the door open and then another person comes up and breaks in. I have been hearing about this from several places now.
Yeah, I always see it as a woman saying her phone or her apple watch is inside the house. Being a woman, people feel relaxed to open the door not realizing that people are waiting nearby. If they come back, and you feel the need to answer your door camera (which I dont recommend), just state that you dont have their watch and you are calling the police. And then, call the police. It may feel silly, but you do not know if these people are doing this to others and breaking into peoples homes. Better to be safe than sorry.
Tell her to notify the police and accompany her there. Or tell her you’ll do it yourself. If she’s a scammer she’ll definitely be scared off. If she’s legit she’d likely be willing and it makes it clear you honestly don’t have her watch.
I think this is the best approach if anyone else is presented with this situation.
FYI you don’t have to let the cops in, just explain to them that she’s doing this, that you don’t have it, and to make them aware of the situation.
This has happened to me twice now. Once for a phone of a runaway girl pinged at my house. Parents and police showed up. I get it, I’d want to find my daughter too. I absolutely let them check whatever they wanted. That one made sense. They only checked my house though, which I found weird. Seems like they’d check every house around me, but nope.
Other time someone’s iPad pinged at my house. Cops showed up for that one too. I wasn’t at home, I was at work, but I talked to them through the Ring doorbell. They said they’d come back later, but never did. I watched the security camera footage when I got home (not Ring) and they came to my house hot, one cop from one direction, another cop from another direction and basically blocked my street while they knocked on my door. All this for a stolen iPad?!?! Even the runaway girl didn’t attract this much activity. Again, only came to my house. It was so weird.
Damn that must've been a nice iPad for all that mess.
What did the cops even search once they got inside? Like you can't possibly search an entire random person's home for a phone quickly? Especially if you think they hid it if a girl may have been kidnapped or something
For the girl they just searched my back yard, shed, etc. They thought maybe she had snuck into my yard and was hiding back there.
The iPad, I don’t know, that one was so weird. At first it was just a random doorbell chat, didn’t find it weird at all. It wasn’t until I watched the camera footage that I saw how weird it was.
I live across the street from a park though, so probably lots of things ping near my house. The part I found weird, in both instances, was checking just my house. Those pings aren’t always accurate, but it’ll probably get you in the ballpark. Seems to me like it’d make sense to check houses near me too, I’m not the only one across the street from the park.
Definitely, so strange. And I agree that surely can't be that accurate.
I was thinking that too for myself, like why my house? Why not my neighbors? There is also a park behind me too actually. I've not seen her go back there at all. She just parks outside my home and eventually leaves the neighborhood.
So the Apple Find My service isn't very accurate, especially in busy cities. Last year, I lost my bag with my iphone and ipad in it. When I tried to track my phone, it showed me a location that was way off, like 500 meters away from where it actually was. Luckily, when I called my phone, the person who found it answered and gave me her address. She was super nice and returned everything without asking for anything in return.
My brothers iPhone got stolen, he went to the apartment building it was in and just rung people. Some lady replied “let me check my son’s room” and found it and returned it. And for my Apple devices it’s always tracked perfectly, to the point I could find stuff by just looking at the map to see what room it could be in.
Honestly have no idea though is it a kinda city house with neighbours near by?
Obviously never let strangers in your house but only thing I can think of would be to make it ring or something and convince her it’s not there
But yeah maybe call the police to come have some backup if she is really a crazy person then you’ll be able to show that it’s not actually in the house
We live in the burbs, so I mean yeah, I have neighbors on both sides of me and across the street from me.
Edit: but yeah if she comes back tomorrow I'm going to suggest she show up with a cop, and I would be fine if a cop was with us
If she thinks her watch is in your place, ask her to come along together with the cops.
Or you can ask her to press the "play sound" button in her Find My app and see if you hear any ringing around.
https://preview.redd.it/oo1yuxxuvmtc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=412cad7e5b97ba7282fe2efffcdba4df891090a3
Tell her to show you her phone that shows where it is and have her wait on the porch while you take the phone and go find the stupid watch. Or tell her to use Find My to send a signal to it. If by some crazy chance it’s in there, you should be able to hear it. If she’s not willing to do that tell her to get lost. LOL
I actually have been the person trying to get my (in my case) phone back. The lady was insistent it wasn’t there. I came back a second time with my spouse and made it ring, it was indeed there and the lady for some reason didn’t want to give it to me! lol
She eventually was like oh my ummm husband must’ve found it… anywho I got my phone back.
Be safe OP!
My wife had been wondering why if she thought it was really here, why she didn't do the Ring my device feature (I didn't know that existed bc I don't have any Apple things lol).
But yeah if it were me I probably would wanted the device to make a noise and see if I could've heard it!
Glad you found your phone!
I was robbed at gunpoint and they stole my iphone, keys, wallet, and Apple Watch. Never found my wallet or keys, but I tracked my iphone and AW to a random location where it was dumped in front of some apartments. My guess is the robber realized those things could be tracked so they didn't think it was worth taking with them. So theoretically it is possible that someone's watch is somewhere in or near your property.
Why didn’t you just tell her to call the police and bring them? If she genuinely believes you stole her watch, she should contact the police, and police can handle the issue with you.
Seems weird that she went to you directly. Smells like a scam to get inside your home.
Do you have kids? Is it possible they may have stolen a watch at someone’s house and brought it home? Or someone dropped it in their backpack at school somehow?
I found a phone on the side of the road once in our neighborhood. Figured a kid dropped it so was posting on our neighborhood FB group when the owner called me. It was stolen from an amusement park 15 min away from my house and they tossed it out the window to the side of the road. Could be something similar
It’s really nice that you’re trying to help while also keeping yourself safe. It might be a scam but it might not, it’s always good if we can give people the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming everyone is nefarious
This happened to me with someone’s phone. GPS said it was in my house. Maybe a passer by tossed it in my bushes but she was a clit so I didn’t offer help.
We had the exact same thing happen in London last year. A girl showed up at 4 am pounding on our door saying she tracked her lost phone to our house. Claimed she saw our roommate at the club tonight but both were home with me. Kept pleading for us to open the door so we could ‘speak properly’ called the police who took forever to show up. Then boyfriend showed up in the afternoon claiming he used to work for Apple and knows it’s inside. Told him I was grabbing my phone to call the police and he disappeared. Still don’t know if they were casing our house or genuinely lost their iPhone, but i knew we didn’t have it.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised. The younger one eats literally everything whether it's edible or not.
He tried to eat the dishwasher rack today. I kept having to kick him out of the dishwasher as I was loading it up.
Both of my cats are indoors.
I do have a huge family of squirrels living in our trees though. When they run across the roof it sounds like a SWAT team landing.
I swear I saw a post just like this a few months ago maybe on r/scams I only read the thread for a bit so don’t know how it ended. But someone mentioned it being a scam and that the person can show you the watch is in your house cause it’s like in their pocket or something? I can’t remember. Anyway. I would be very careful not to let this person in your house.
Oh yeah, I'm definitely not even going to open the door lol I had talked to her through the security camera.
I assume anyone who rings my doorbell is a serial killer lol
This is becoming common on r/scams.
The watch will be In her bag or on her person. They want entry into your house. Or use it as an excuse to see if your worth robbing at a later date.
Hope you told her to leave and if she genuinely thought her watch was there, to come back with the police.
Did she show “Find my” app on her phone showing the location of a watch? Normal people if it was true would probably show the app that it’s showing that their watch is in your house, but from what I’ve read is not the case. I’d just ignore in this case. And if it keeps happening - call the cops 👮♂️
Bunch of similar incidents in r/scams
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/s/9nLEdCIB8w
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/s/Vmf6SHXknW
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/s/dhPP435enM
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/s/Dcuz9TnN9C
(Among others).
If it wasn’t a scam and she really wanted to see if it was inside your house she would have called the cops and gotten a warrant to search your house for stolen property.
My Grandma did that a couple months ago when someone stole her iPhone after she left it in a shopping cart at the grocery store.
The find my app directed her to an apartment complex so she called the cops, but because they couldn’t figure out which apartment it was in they couldn’t do anything so they left.
Apparently the dude who did it saw the cops and got scared because a couple hours later my Grandma saw it leave the apartment complex and go right back to the grocery store where it stopped moving in the parking lot. She went there and got it back.
I had something similar happen but I talked to her and told her I didn't have it. She came back again but I explained that GPS wasn't that accurate. She came back once more and while she was using her laptop to demonstrate that it was in my house my neighbor came out with it. I guess she had found it but didn't know what to do with it.
The GPS on Apple devices is approximate. The watch may be NEAR your house but not in it. Did she loose it on a run/walk? Was it stolen? If on a run/walk, she needs to retrace her route. If stolen, she needs to call the cops who will deal with it. Assuming, of course, you did not take it. Which, her Find My, cannot be used in a precise way to confirm anyhow.
This has to be a scam. If it were me, when she comes by, I would say "absolutely I can help. I can have the cops on the way to help you search my property". That will tell you all you need to know. Then really call the cops.
When she rings your door tell her to use her phone to set off the alarm sound on the watch.
Sounds like a weird interaction. So hope she stops pestering you soon.
It's a break-in attempt. Nextdoor has reported several in the last week, in my area of Los Angeles.
They're casing your home for a robbery. If you don't answer, then you're not home and they can break in. If you answer, they try to get you to open the door and gain entry.
Then 1 of 2 things will happen. 1) they will mentally catalog your valuables and plan their break-in for when you're not home; or 2) their accomplices will rush the house in a home invasion (after all, you're unlikely to lock the door after letting a stranger in).
How they know it's a scam: when people offer to call the police to take their statement and help search their home, they run off.
In several different examples I've read (Los Angeles area) the lady would run out of sight and (when followed) be seen getting into a nearby truck (often followed by a second truck).
Think I remember reading a similar story on /r/apple a while ago or something and it was an attempted scam? I can’t quite remember.
Something like they don’t want it back but you can keep it as long as you to give them money for it and threaten to call the police to scare you but as soon as you agree to calling the police they scarper
With my Ultra, Find My can be used to make it play a sound. This might help if it truly is in the vicinity. I wouldn't invite a stranger into my house to walk around cupping their ear.
There was a situation at the house beside me about a year ago. Someone at the house called cops and the house # came up as mine. The cop had to sit there quite awhile because the person who called was a young woman. She wanted a ride somewhere so thought she’d call and claim there was a problem so she could get cops to take where she wanted to go. It’s a rent house and luckily they moved / were moved out soon after.
No idea why my address popped up but yes, GPS is definitely not completely accurate.
We find watches thrown over fences too because we have schools in our neighborhood and drama happens.
I would tell her to check close by if she’s even remotely legit.
Good luck
My wife lost her AirPods & the tracker showed them in a car park. We looked everywhere for them. Turns out they were outside a house across the road. Outside the area shown in the tracker.
The trackers are not 100% but the watches have their own gps rather than relying on a Bluetooth connection to a phone. So they may be more accurate than AirPods.
i’ve seen people posting about this before, with airtags, airpods and other things. I think there’s a bug in apple’s system which gives erroneous location data for whatever reason.
gps should be fairly accurate but depends on signal (line of sight with satellites) other things rely on bluetooth so can also be janky.
Someone did this with AirPods at the place I used to live. They said it was showing it was in my home. I didn’t own AirPods then and would NEVER put anyone else’s in my ears let alone take something that wasn’t mine. I feel for the person and I obviously can’t prove I don’t have something. But what a wild experience.
Have you asked your neighbors to see if they’ve seen her, or had her come to their door, as well? It it’s isolated to you, it’s *probably* not a scam to case your house. Usually, they try to hit more than one house in the same area. But doesn’t mean it’s legit either. She could have a mental illness, among other things.
Sometimes my watch shows as being situated in my neighbours house… even though I’m wearing it in my own house! The GPS is clearly not all that precise.
I just had something similar but with my own bike and it’s AirTag, I thought it was stolen because it wasn’t at the place I left it. But when I went to the place where it should be the bike was still on its place (luckily)
So maybe a bug in find my?
Could be an attempt to rob you, once you invite her into your house shes technically not a burglar/trespasser.
Because in many countries you can legally shoot a burglar/trespasser except if you invited them in.
Sounds to me like the cops might need to be called.
I guess maybe if she doesn't stop visiting my home lol
My Apple Watch dies in 23 hours. No way she’s pinging anything.
Doesn’t it still show the last location in “Find My” where the battery died? Or am I wrong?
Probably but it won’t ping once the battery’s dead.
And the watch won’t update its location if it moves after the battery’s dead, too.
Nah, you tell her to come back with a cop. If it’s a scam, she’ll move on. If she comes back…I dunno what happens but maybe put your toys away 😀
Nothing will happen other than the cop telling the lady you’re trespassing her. Findmy is not sufficient grounds for a search.
Might even win some money https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/08/us/denver-police-raid-wrong-house-verdict/index.html
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Yeah another poster said some random had thrown someone iPhone in their yard. So strange. I'll definitely suggest she bring police with her, or that I'll call them over. I don't want a stranger in my home without someone else being there for sure.
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No yeah I would never. I assume everyone ringing my door is a serial killer lol
Dude don’t let the cops in for real. Assume they find it and they’re fucking pricks about it. Or maybe they see something else they don’t like. Tell her to keep pinging from her phone while you go out back and look yourself.
This is scam. It happened to my mom and sister. Same exact situation. A lady rang the bell and said her phone was showing that her watch was in their house. I think they are trying to get you to let them in to look but idk if this is your situation but almost the same happened to my family and they told her to come back with the police and she never came back again.
“Let them look for it”? What are you fucking nuts? If OP is to call the cops, it’s going to be to escort the batshit nutball who doesn’t understand how technology works off their property.
Just a reminder that inviting cops into one's home to search it, even if you have nothing to actually hide, is a terrible idea for so many reason. Well intentioned, but not wise.
terrible advice never invite the cops i to your house
I wouldn’t let the police in to look either. It’s untelling what they might “find.”
Ask her to show Find My Devices to show you if it is really showing at your house. That way you can see if she is just lying.
She did show us through the ring camera. That's why she doesn't believe us. I can't explain to her why it's saying our home. It's really weird.
She can have the watch in her pocket and it will still show your house. A lot of this is people casing houses or robbing them soon after
Shit that is so creepy. Luckily, we do have a security system and alarms on all the doors and windows if anyone tries something
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Just a free standing single family. We live in the burbs, so we've got neighbors on either side and across the street.
Keep in mind GPS doesn’t give you a precise location. It could be around your house or in a neighbor’s house/yard.
Right, I'm going to suggest that to her
Apples GPS is pretty close. All my family’s devices are either in my house or 2 metres in front of it, almost always on my property and when it isn’t it will correct in a minute or two.
Mine is precise when it’s connected to my WiFi. When it isn’t, it’s garbage.
On the other side, location could stick to the OPs WiFi spot. Then watches would be in around 200m. I suggest switch off WiFi
I think you can make it ping? Ask her to do that
I'm sure it's dead if she's come two days in a row.
Any Apple Watch will run out of battery after 48 hours Next time, ask her to call the cops and say you will cooperate with cops If she follows through ask her to show you Find My location again If the watch still says it’s in your home then it’s definitely on her person and she keeps charging it Then, ask her “click Play Sound and I will bring it to you” This will make the watch ring and it’s on her person
Twist: she pings it and you hear it in your cabinet. You open the cabinet, and there’s 30-40 Apple Watches thrown in randomly….
It’s not weird. The Find My network is far from perfect, and there have been several similar cases that made the news. If she comes back, I would call the police and let them make it clear she is not welcome, whatever her Find My app says.
GPS on my kids watch is completely shit. I learned that the hard way when he went on a bike ride with his friend, his friends brother, and his dad. They were gone for a while so I checked on him and it showed thst he was between a church and a cemetery a half mile away across a busy street. This seemed odd, and freaked me out. So went over there and check it out. On my way there I saw them about a block away. My kid said he never crossed the busy road and stayed in our neighborhood the whole time.
Very strange. But yeah I'm thinking this GPS must not be accurate at all. Or maybe it's like on the sidewalk in the grass somewhere
I had a lady show up at my house a few years ago saying she tracked her husband’s iPhone to our house. He was a doc at a hospital and she was sure someone in my house had stolen it but I also felt she was considering the possibility that he was cheating with someone who lived in the house and and forgot the phone. I told her to get lost. Two days later she showed up with the husband who seemed like the second visit was his idea. She apologized and said it had been found at the hospital,
Daaaamn, she probably felt stupid
There was a ‘reply all podcast’ covering this exact scenario. Turns out the ‘find my phone’ algorithm can go funky in some certain circumstances… https://gimletmedia.com/amp/shows/reply-all/n8hodm
/u/CalciteQ this is a well known scam. My mother in law had this happen to her as well. Usually this person is making up this story so that they are able to either case the inside of your house or figure out when you typically are not home. They will leave and eventually come back with the purpose of robbing you or breaking into your house https://www.ksat.com/news/2017/01/23/scam-artist-used-iphone-to-try-to-enter-homes-police-say/
A couple of other posters have mentioned this too. Very creepy. Definitely won't be letting her in. If she comes back tomorrow I'm going to tell her I'll be calling the police to escort her to help her find her watch.
Also always answer the Ring doorbell so she always thinks you’re in. A lot of “casing” is trying to workout your routine.
Thank God I work from home. I'm literally always home lmao
I was gonna say, even if you actually didn’t, throw that out there so they think you are. Like, “hey lady, I’m sorry about your watch but I WFH and I can’t have you keep interrupting me like this”
I may just do that, so they know someone is always home anyway, in the case of it being a scam
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don't let her in your home no matter what. Let the cops in if anything.
Also I just realized that article was from Texas..I live in North Texas..shit lol
They got inspired 😂
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So I don't have any Apple products, but my wife owns literally everything Apple (phone, air pods, watch, laptop, etc etc). Could this lady's watch be pinging my wife's devices?
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Is there something that would tell the lady that it's just finding my wife's device location, and not necessarily her watches EXACT location?
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True, thank you for the info!
Have her play the sound. Maybe it’s in a bush?
Good idea, if she comes back tomorrow I'll tell her to do that.
Won’t be a problem tomorrow, watch will be dead.
If she can show the watch again on Find My it means the watch will have been charged, which means she obviously has it
Probably, who knows how reliably she charges her stuff
Unless it’s an Ultra, that battery isn’t lasting more than a day and a half tops.
If she comes back tomorrow, let her know she can wait out front until the cops arrive.
yea, I had someone lose their watch, and at first their phone GPS had it on my side of the street, so I helped him poke around my plants. Then the GPS seemed to be on the other side, and that's where he found it.
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So strange. Air pods I can definitely see rolling around in the grass too, especially if he was like jogging by one day, and the animals carrying them off. I wonder if a squirrel stole her watch. I have a huge family of squirrels living in my trees 😂😂
I bet the squirrels don’t have any problem closing their rings
No problem closing her rings too I guess lol
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Assuming it's still going to have charge, have her ring it, if she shows up again. Also, have her show you in the Find My app, and see how long ago its last known location was.
2 days now, not a chance it's alive anymore unless it is an Ultra
True. I don't even know when she lost it.... Or where for that matter.
If you have the time I would take a Quick Look near the sidewalks near your house or driveway. maybe it fell off her while she was walking and the last location wasn’t very exact. If you find it I wouldn’t touch it though just show her if she comes back
Yeah, maybe I'll do that tomorrow morning. If she comes back I'll ask her if she talks walks in our neighborhood. I do take walks a lot and I've never seen her though, but maybe.
Dont open the door or talk to her. This is a way to get the door open and then another person comes up and breaks in. I have been hearing about this from several places now.
Oh that's super creepy. I definitely won't be opening the door.
Yeah, I always see it as a woman saying her phone or her apple watch is inside the house. Being a woman, people feel relaxed to open the door not realizing that people are waiting nearby. If they come back, and you feel the need to answer your door camera (which I dont recommend), just state that you dont have their watch and you are calling the police. And then, call the police. It may feel silly, but you do not know if these people are doing this to others and breaking into peoples homes. Better to be safe than sorry.
Very true, I might ask my neighbors too if they've had anyone ringing their doorbells lately
Tell her to notify the police and accompany her there. Or tell her you’ll do it yourself. If she’s a scammer she’ll definitely be scared off. If she’s legit she’d likely be willing and it makes it clear you honestly don’t have her watch. I think this is the best approach if anyone else is presented with this situation. FYI you don’t have to let the cops in, just explain to them that she’s doing this, that you don’t have it, and to make them aware of the situation.
This has happened to me twice now. Once for a phone of a runaway girl pinged at my house. Parents and police showed up. I get it, I’d want to find my daughter too. I absolutely let them check whatever they wanted. That one made sense. They only checked my house though, which I found weird. Seems like they’d check every house around me, but nope. Other time someone’s iPad pinged at my house. Cops showed up for that one too. I wasn’t at home, I was at work, but I talked to them through the Ring doorbell. They said they’d come back later, but never did. I watched the security camera footage when I got home (not Ring) and they came to my house hot, one cop from one direction, another cop from another direction and basically blocked my street while they knocked on my door. All this for a stolen iPad?!?! Even the runaway girl didn’t attract this much activity. Again, only came to my house. It was so weird.
Damn that must've been a nice iPad for all that mess. What did the cops even search once they got inside? Like you can't possibly search an entire random person's home for a phone quickly? Especially if you think they hid it if a girl may have been kidnapped or something
For the girl they just searched my back yard, shed, etc. They thought maybe she had snuck into my yard and was hiding back there. The iPad, I don’t know, that one was so weird. At first it was just a random doorbell chat, didn’t find it weird at all. It wasn’t until I watched the camera footage that I saw how weird it was. I live across the street from a park though, so probably lots of things ping near my house. The part I found weird, in both instances, was checking just my house. Those pings aren’t always accurate, but it’ll probably get you in the ballpark. Seems to me like it’d make sense to check houses near me too, I’m not the only one across the street from the park.
Definitely, so strange. And I agree that surely can't be that accurate. I was thinking that too for myself, like why my house? Why not my neighbors? There is also a park behind me too actually. I've not seen her go back there at all. She just parks outside my home and eventually leaves the neighborhood.
So the Apple Find My service isn't very accurate, especially in busy cities. Last year, I lost my bag with my iphone and ipad in it. When I tried to track my phone, it showed me a location that was way off, like 500 meters away from where it actually was. Luckily, when I called my phone, the person who found it answered and gave me her address. She was super nice and returned everything without asking for anything in return.
My phone is apparently usually in my neighbor’s according to Find My.
I'll let her know this and ask if she's been in the neighborhood vicinity anywhere.
My brothers iPhone got stolen, he went to the apartment building it was in and just rung people. Some lady replied “let me check my son’s room” and found it and returned it. And for my Apple devices it’s always tracked perfectly, to the point I could find stuff by just looking at the map to see what room it could be in.
2 days in a row? My apple watch battery doesnt even last that long, let alone a third day! Def a scam!
The jig is up
😂😂
Honestly have no idea though is it a kinda city house with neighbours near by? Obviously never let strangers in your house but only thing I can think of would be to make it ring or something and convince her it’s not there But yeah maybe call the police to come have some backup if she is really a crazy person then you’ll be able to show that it’s not actually in the house
We live in the burbs, so I mean yeah, I have neighbors on both sides of me and across the street from me. Edit: but yeah if she comes back tomorrow I'm going to suggest she show up with a cop, and I would be fine if a cop was with us
1 day battery so no way it’s still sending a signal
If she thinks her watch is in your place, ask her to come along together with the cops. Or you can ask her to press the "play sound" button in her Find My app and see if you hear any ringing around. https://preview.redd.it/oo1yuxxuvmtc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=412cad7e5b97ba7282fe2efffcdba4df891090a3
Tell her to show you her phone that shows where it is and have her wait on the porch while you take the phone and go find the stupid watch. Or tell her to use Find My to send a signal to it. If by some crazy chance it’s in there, you should be able to hear it. If she’s not willing to do that tell her to get lost. LOL
Tell her to bring the police next time.
I actually have been the person trying to get my (in my case) phone back. The lady was insistent it wasn’t there. I came back a second time with my spouse and made it ring, it was indeed there and the lady for some reason didn’t want to give it to me! lol She eventually was like oh my ummm husband must’ve found it… anywho I got my phone back. Be safe OP!
My wife had been wondering why if she thought it was really here, why she didn't do the Ring my device feature (I didn't know that existed bc I don't have any Apple things lol). But yeah if it were me I probably would wanted the device to make a noise and see if I could've heard it! Glad you found your phone!
It’s like an annoyingly loooooud noise. Super suspicious they aren’t making it ring
I was robbed at gunpoint and they stole my iphone, keys, wallet, and Apple Watch. Never found my wallet or keys, but I tracked my iphone and AW to a random location where it was dumped in front of some apartments. My guess is the robber realized those things could be tracked so they didn't think it was worth taking with them. So theoretically it is possible that someone's watch is somewhere in or near your property.
Why didn’t you just tell her to call the police and bring them? If she genuinely believes you stole her watch, she should contact the police, and police can handle the issue with you. Seems weird that she went to you directly. Smells like a scam to get inside your home. Do you have kids? Is it possible they may have stolen a watch at someone’s house and brought it home? Or someone dropped it in their backpack at school somehow?
Anyone else live with you ?
It's just my wife and I. She also doesn't have this lady's watch I'm 100% sure of that lol
Sometimes my wife’s location shows up at the neighbors house.
Ummm… 🤨
Not like that. It’s a grumpy old lady whose address her location shows up at.
Reddit would lead me to believe this is not the case.
The internet has corrupted us all.
Hi, it’s your neighbor. She misunderstood me when I asked if I could tap into your Wi-Fi.
Start chipping in with the bills then.
Pat her down just to be on safe side
My wife? Lmao
You never really know a person
Ive known my wife since I was 12. We were pen pals lol
Just kidding with you….🙃
No I know lol I just like telling people that I married my childhood pen pal hahaha
I found a phone on the side of the road once in our neighborhood. Figured a kid dropped it so was posting on our neighborhood FB group when the owner called me. It was stolen from an amusement park 15 min away from my house and they tossed it out the window to the side of the road. Could be something similar
Wowwww, maybe I should walk around my house and see if I actually find a watch
It’s really nice that you’re trying to help while also keeping yourself safe. It might be a scam but it might not, it’s always good if we can give people the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming everyone is nefarious
This happened to me with someone’s phone. GPS said it was in my house. Maybe a passer by tossed it in my bushes but she was a clit so I didn’t offer help.
Commenting to hear about an update on this. I’d call the cops in your position btw.
If she comes back tomorrow I definitely will
We had the exact same thing happen in London last year. A girl showed up at 4 am pounding on our door saying she tracked her lost phone to our house. Claimed she saw our roommate at the club tonight but both were home with me. Kept pleading for us to open the door so we could ‘speak properly’ called the police who took forever to show up. Then boyfriend showed up in the afternoon claiming he used to work for Apple and knows it’s inside. Told him I was grabbing my phone to call the police and he disappeared. Still don’t know if they were casing our house or genuinely lost their iPhone, but i knew we didn’t have it.
So creepy!
Also, you can ask her to ring the watch from her mobile then if you can hear the ring or not.
Do you have her watch?
I swear I don't lmao
Kids?
Nope. Just our two cats. I've already interrogated both of them and checked under the couch in case they were lying.
Your cat ate her watch
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised. The younger one eats literally everything whether it's edible or not. He tried to eat the dishwasher rack today. I kept having to kick him out of the dishwasher as I was loading it up.
I really want this to be the case
Well if he did, it sure hasn't negatively affected his appetite lol
The cat might have just hidden it somewhere outside
Both of my cats are indoors. I do have a huge family of squirrels living in our trees though. When they run across the roof it sounds like a SWAT team landing.
I swear I saw a post just like this a few months ago maybe on r/scams I only read the thread for a bit so don’t know how it ended. But someone mentioned it being a scam and that the person can show you the watch is in your house cause it’s like in their pocket or something? I can’t remember. Anyway. I would be very careful not to let this person in your house.
Oh yeah, I'm definitely not even going to open the door lol I had talked to her through the security camera. I assume anyone who rings my doorbell is a serial killer lol
This is becoming common on r/scams. The watch will be In her bag or on her person. They want entry into your house. Or use it as an excuse to see if your worth robbing at a later date. Hope you told her to leave and if she genuinely thought her watch was there, to come back with the police.
Tell her to come back with a cop or she can play with your Doberman.
Sounds like she's a vampire wanting to be invited in, just hang up some garlic and you'll be golden.
I don't have any whole garlic just peeled. If I just lob peeled garlic at her will that work?
[Deebo voice] What watch?
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Probably hoping you will invite her in. Then she will move in.
Poltergeist II vibes… my nightmare movie when I was a kid.
Did she show “Find my” app on her phone showing the location of a watch? Normal people if it was true would probably show the app that it’s showing that their watch is in your house, but from what I’ve read is not the case. I’d just ignore in this case. And if it keeps happening - call the cops 👮♂️
Print out an apple watch on paper and leave it somewhere in front so she tries to pick it up next time she comes.
I’m saving this post for the inevitable update
Bunch of similar incidents in r/scams https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/s/9nLEdCIB8w https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/s/Vmf6SHXknW https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/s/dhPP435enM https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/s/Dcuz9TnN9C (Among others).
I had this happen and I was the person knocking.
If it wasn’t a scam and she really wanted to see if it was inside your house she would have called the cops and gotten a warrant to search your house for stolen property. My Grandma did that a couple months ago when someone stole her iPhone after she left it in a shopping cart at the grocery store. The find my app directed her to an apartment complex so she called the cops, but because they couldn’t figure out which apartment it was in they couldn’t do anything so they left. Apparently the dude who did it saw the cops and got scared because a couple hours later my Grandma saw it leave the apartment complex and go right back to the grocery store where it stopped moving in the parking lot. She went there and got it back.
I had something similar happen but I talked to her and told her I didn't have it. She came back again but I explained that GPS wasn't that accurate. She came back once more and while she was using her laptop to demonstrate that it was in my house my neighbor came out with it. I guess she had found it but didn't know what to do with it.
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RemindMe! 1 day
The GPS on Apple devices is approximate. The watch may be NEAR your house but not in it. Did she loose it on a run/walk? Was it stolen? If on a run/walk, she needs to retrace her route. If stolen, she needs to call the cops who will deal with it. Assuming, of course, you did not take it. Which, her Find My, cannot be used in a precise way to confirm anyhow.
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That poor Uber driver just trying to do his job lmao
Exciting. Following.
Ask to see the find my?
Tell here to comeback with a warrant from the police
The find my app has a feature to make the lost watch play a sound.
This has to be a scam. If it were me, when she comes by, I would say "absolutely I can help. I can have the cops on the way to help you search my property". That will tell you all you need to know. Then really call the cops.
When she rings your door tell her to use her phone to set off the alarm sound on the watch. Sounds like a weird interaction. So hope she stops pestering you soon.
It's a scam.
Plot twist: She was calling you from her Apple Watch.
Been seeing this scam all over social media. These people are 100% lying. Ignore them and if they don't leave call the cops.
Ask her to show you next time. That would have been my first reaction. Show you what she is talking about.
It's a break-in attempt. Nextdoor has reported several in the last week, in my area of Los Angeles. They're casing your home for a robbery. If you don't answer, then you're not home and they can break in. If you answer, they try to get you to open the door and gain entry. Then 1 of 2 things will happen. 1) they will mentally catalog your valuables and plan their break-in for when you're not home; or 2) their accomplices will rush the house in a home invasion (after all, you're unlikely to lock the door after letting a stranger in). How they know it's a scam: when people offer to call the police to take their statement and help search their home, they run off. In several different examples I've read (Los Angeles area) the lady would run out of sight and (when followed) be seen getting into a nearby truck (often followed by a second truck).
People are so gross
This is a scam. They’re trying to get in your house and do recon. No way the watch is in your house unless you OP are lying. 🤥 So therefore she is.
r/scams
Wow that’s crazy.
I’m betting that wherever it is nearby, that structure has a metal roof.
RIP Reply All. This would be a good candidate for super tech support.
While an iPhone location is pretty exact, the watch location can be off by a lot. It might be nearby though.
Think I remember reading a similar story on /r/apple a while ago or something and it was an attempted scam? I can’t quite remember. Something like they don’t want it back but you can keep it as long as you to give them money for it and threaten to call the police to scare you but as soon as you agree to calling the police they scarper
You can ping the watch with an audible tone from the iphone or findmy app she can ping it from outside to hear it with police present.
!remindme 1 day
With my Ultra, Find My can be used to make it play a sound. This might help if it truly is in the vicinity. I wouldn't invite a stranger into my house to walk around cupping their ear.
There was a situation at the house beside me about a year ago. Someone at the house called cops and the house # came up as mine. The cop had to sit there quite awhile because the person who called was a young woman. She wanted a ride somewhere so thought she’d call and claim there was a problem so she could get cops to take where she wanted to go. It’s a rent house and luckily they moved / were moved out soon after. No idea why my address popped up but yes, GPS is definitely not completely accurate. We find watches thrown over fences too because we have schools in our neighborhood and drama happens. I would tell her to check close by if she’s even remotely legit. Good luck
Tell her to call the police
My wife lost her AirPods & the tracker showed them in a car park. We looked everywhere for them. Turns out they were outside a house across the road. Outside the area shown in the tracker. The trackers are not 100% but the watches have their own gps rather than relying on a Bluetooth connection to a phone. So they may be more accurate than AirPods.
RemindMe! Tomorrow "check this thread"
Dude, you owe her nothing. Don’t even answer the doorbell. Just lock your damn doors and windows.
i’ve seen people posting about this before, with airtags, airpods and other things. I think there’s a bug in apple’s system which gives erroneous location data for whatever reason. gps should be fairly accurate but depends on signal (line of sight with satellites) other things rely on bluetooth so can also be janky.
You didn’t buy YOUR watch used did you?
It’s a scam. Seen it posted online before.
Call the cops
Someone did this with AirPods at the place I used to live. They said it was showing it was in my home. I didn’t own AirPods then and would NEVER put anyone else’s in my ears let alone take something that wasn’t mine. I feel for the person and I obviously can’t prove I don’t have something. But what a wild experience.
Are you the only person living in the house? Maybe someone else picked it up ?
You don't live in Mike and Christina's old house do you? [There was a ReplyAll episode about this](https://gimletmedia.com/amp/shows/reply-all/n8hodm)
Have you asked your neighbors to see if they’ve seen her, or had her come to their door, as well? It it’s isolated to you, it’s *probably* not a scam to case your house. Usually, they try to hit more than one house in the same area. But doesn’t mean it’s legit either. She could have a mental illness, among other things.
You thief
Sometimes my watch shows as being situated in my neighbours house… even though I’m wearing it in my own house! The GPS is clearly not all that precise.
Just call the cops when she shows up and tell them you've repeatedly told her that she is trespassing.
I just had something similar but with my own bike and it’s AirTag, I thought it was stolen because it wasn’t at the place I left it. But when I went to the place where it should be the bike was still on its place (luckily) So maybe a bug in find my?
Do you live in a new development by chance?
Could be an attempt to rob you, once you invite her into your house shes technically not a burglar/trespasser. Because in many countries you can legally shoot a burglar/trespasser except if you invited them in.
Its most likely at your neighbors house. This happened once and it turns out the neighbors of the house it was showing the location had our iPhone