A woman in Singapore lost her iPhone 14 Pro Max after alighting from a private hire vehicle — and spent the next 10 hours with her colleagues trying to track it down via the Find My app.
The 27-year-old eventually retrieved her phone the next day from the police — after going on a wild goose chase and confronting the man she suspected of getting out of his Mercedes to pocket her device almost immediately after it fell on the road.
The woman's side of the story was documented in two separate videos on TikTok.
@vonsterbelle [CASE CRACKED] When wedding photographers turned into PI. I dropped my iPhone 14 Pro Max and my IC, within 1 minute, this guy from S400 Mercedes came out of his car to steal it. Tracked him down around Singapore for 10 hours and finally found him!!! He didn't even apologise to me. The phone is a gift from my dad for my birthday. #Singapore #crime #Singaporecrime #police #FBI ♬ original sound - Yvonne Isabelle Ling
@vonsterbelle Replacement fee: $1058.80 💸 who pay for this cost? Police said my phone is found but apple told me that my phone is as good as trash. #fyp #singapore #singaporecrime #pi #fbi ♬ original sound - Yvonne Isabelle Ling
What happened
Speaking to Mothership, the woman, Yvonne, said she had alighted from a private hire vehicle at around 12:20pm on Wednesday, Jul. 12 outside her office, Annabel Law Productions, along Devonshire Road in Orchard.
After she got off, and within one minute, she noticed her iPhone — which cost more than S$1,800 — was missing.
She then went back out to the road, which is a mere sidewalk away from the entrance of her office, to look for her phone and the vehicle she had just alighted from.
She found neither — only spotting a Mercedes leaving the area.
The entire sequence was captured on the office surveillance camera pointed at the road.
The iPhone was in a case and Yvonne had placed her NRIC with the device.
Called driver back
The immediate thought that crossed Yvonne's mind then was that she must have left her phone in the car she was in.
She then phoned the driver to get him to return.
She also told him he would be reimbursed S$200 for his efforts.
As heard in one of the TikTok videos, the driver said he would cancel the next trip he was assigned, and go back to Devonshire Road to assist Yvonne.
But when he got back, Yvonne searched the car and the phone was nowhere to be found.
After coming up empty, Yvonne could confirm that the iPhone was not misplaced or left behind.
It had been taken, less than a minute after it was dropped.
She was told by the private hire driver that he saw, in his rearview mirror, a man alight from a white Mercedes to pick up an object from the road.
Turned to Find My app
Turning to the Find My app, she and her colleagues were able to track the phone's location as it was still sending out information about its whereabouts.
They tried calling the phone repeatedly to no avail.
At 12:40pm, Yvonne called the police to inform them about what had happened.
By 1pm, the phone calls to the iPhone stopped going through and it appeared to have been switched off.
However, the women continued to watch the device move on the map as it periodically updated its location.
The Find My app works even if the iPhone is turned off.
This realisation that the phone was taken by another person quickly galvanised Yvonne's colleagues.
Yvonne said: "My colleague said, 'Ok, no need to work today. Let's all go find the phone'."
Yvonne, holding phone, with her colleagues
The approximate location of the device was updated about every 30 minutes and was seen sending out pings from the Tanglin area, and subsequently the vicinity of Sim Lim Square.
Yvonne added that the Find My app even managed to provide the approximate location of where the man stayed as they followed the location till 11pm that night.
What CCTV footage showed
According to the closed circuit television footage retrieved from the camera pointed at Devonshire Road, a white Mercedes was seen pulling away shortly after Yvonne and her colleagues entered the office premises.
Yvonne confirmed that a police report was made and she was assigned an investigating officer.
She was told to leave matters to the police.
Managed to get phone back
Eventually, Yvonne managed to get her phone back from the police the next day at around 3pm.
The police managed to locate the man who was holding on to the phone and got him to hand it over.
As seen at the start of her first TikTok on this incident, Yvonne confronted a man dressed in black outside Orchard Neighbourhood Police Centre.
A voice off-camera said: "Excuse me, excuse me? Are you the one who stole her phone? Are you the one who took the iPhone 14 Pro Max?"
The man replied before turning to walk away: "No."
In the second follow-up TikTok, the man could be heard explaining: "I didn't take your phone. It was found on the road."
Yvonne said she also got her NRIC back.
She added that the man who returned the phone did not admit that he took it and there was no apology as well
Phone damaged
Although the iPhone was still functioning when she got it back, it was badly damaged.
The second TikTok on the incident showed the phone's screen and back cracked.
Speaking to Mothership on the damaged phone, Yvonne explained why it was important for her to get it back.
"The phone was a gift from my father and it has a lot of sentimental value," she said.
The phone was brought to the Apple Store but the exterior was beyond repair.
Her colleague, who was also on the call, told Mothership: "It was the first time he be bought something for her."
She added: "We took matters into our own hands. We're proud of Yvonne for trying to get her phone back. We want people to know that it is against the law to pocket something that is not yours."
"May this be a good example to all to not take things that don’t belong to you. Its not the price of the phone, but the integrity that we uphold to ensure that Singapore is a safe country."
All media via Yvonne