Lost and Found?

Durahl · 26 Apr 2017

Greetings!

I just got myself a Surface Book with Performance Base and while setting it up I was reminded about the case of an acquaintance who lost ( forgot ) her MacBook on the bus station when she ran for it.

The way Isee it any potential finder of a Surface device will basically be forever stuck at the Sign-In screen without any information available to them as to who it belongs to and how to contact them in order to return it.

So I was looking for maybe an App that could be displayed at the Sign-In screen which could be populated with contact information as to who to contact but couldn’t find anything like that.
I then considered changing the Sign-In background image adding my contactinformation to it but was then advised not to do that because of identity theft concerns.

What’severyone else take on this whole situation?

Just to make it clear though! I know about the Find my Device feature but it's not something I solemnly want to rely on.
My goal with this is to aid a person willing to return my device to me.

jimbo45 · 26 Apr 2017

Hi there

I think in these situations the "Old Tech" way is probably the best -- if the person who found it was honest enough a little walk to the nearest Police station should work.

With expensive equipment keep a copy of the serial number too -- this will help Police to verify the owner. I don't like the idea of giving away information of a private nature to unknown third parties --especially as you don't know who picked up the device.

For starters a thief might be prompted to think --this is expensive gear --wonder if there are "more good pickings around" !!!!

Pity though losing it while running fort a Bus --just think of how many TAXI RIDES you could have for the cost of a macbook even a cheap one (if there is such a thing).

Cheers
jimbo

Kari · 26 Apr 2017

Durahl said:

I then considered changing the Sign-In background image adding my contactinformation to it but was then advised not to do that because of identity theft concerns.

In my opinion there's no risk of identity theft involved if you create a dummy email and edit your preferred lock screen picture adding something like this to let's say top left corner:

If found please contact FoundYourTablet@AnyEmailProvider.com

When creating the dummy email account be sure not to add any personal information except another email or phone number required for two step authentication. No real name, address or such. To really make this anonymous, depending on your willingness to pay a bit for it, I would recommend getting a pre-paid mobile burner phone, the cheapest possible phone of course as it and its pre-paid number would only be used for two step authentication of the dummy email account.

Kari