Did I do the right thing? What next?

[ninety5eclipz]

Hello everyone. New to this forum. However, I have been a member on the iphone forums for a bit. Just want everyone's thoughts on a situation. Here's the deal. My neighbor recently purchased an ipad 2 from ebay. Received the item last night. They no nothing about apple products so I was called over to help. When I was given the ipad I noticed that it had not been reformatted. It did not have a passcode lock or an icloud account. Going through the device I noticed that accounts were still logged in to (facebook, email accounts a even a bank account, etc. Pictures and videos were still on there as well. My impression is that the ipad was stolen and sold to him through ebay. I checked the facebook account and email account. Name's were for the same individual. I had him check his ebay sale and the name did not match the person who's email account and facebook account were set up. My recommendation was to use either the facebook account or the email address and contact that person to find out if it was their item and in fact stolen. So a little history on my neighbors.......It's a family of 5, 3 generations. 2 grandchildren in their 30's, mother and father in their 60s and grandmother in her 80's. The grandchildren and father have had run ins with the law. (drugs, theft, etc). They are my neighbors and I have never had a problem with them but I do know their past. So the father says he purchased it and wants to keep it. Without them knowing it I wrote down the email account and the name of the facebook account. I reformatted the ipad and gave it to them with a fresh copy of ios 7.0.4. I felt horrible afterwards as I may have just deleted important information and photos that may have meant something to someone. But.......I feel that this was their decision and I had no legal right to make them try to contact the owner. But now I feel as though maybe I should have refused to help them. But....knowing their past I did not want them to have an item that had so much personal information of someone else. So, with the information that I wrote down, what should I do? Should I sent an anonymous email? Or just let it go knowing that my neighbors will not give it up?

 

[willerz2]

It's up to your judgment really. He may have bought a stolen one off of eBay, or it could have gone sideways. In one case, you're giving him the benefit of the doubt that it's a legitimate purchase on eBay that may have been stolen in the first place and he's current the third+ owner. On the other hand,it may have been a stolen device directly. Either ways you can't really gauge the legitimacy of the claim.

 

[ninety5eclipz]

Just seems fishy to me. Ad said it would be reformatted to new ios. It was running ios 6.1.4 with all this stuff on it when he rec'd it. Not really worried about the legitimacy of if it is stolen or not. Just if I did the right thing and should I have contacted the person who was logged into it?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[scifan57]

If the iPad was indeed a stolen iPad that was bought on eBay by your neighbours, then you did not do the right thing. If the iPad was stolen, it still legally belongs to the original owner, not the eBay seller and certainly not your neighbours.

While you are not responsible for what your neighbours do, it would have been best to ask your neighbours to check and make sure that the iPad was not stolen.

 

[ninety5eclipz]

If the iPad was indeed a stolen iPad that was bought on eBay by your neighbours, then you did not do the right thing. If the iPad was stolen, it still legally belongs to the original owner, not the eBay seller and certainly not your neighbours.

While you are not responsible for what your neighbours do, it would have been best to ask your neighbours to check and make sure that the iPad was not stolen.

I did ask them to check. They denied. And knowing them I did not want them to have access to the personal information that was on there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[scifan57]

In that case you've done all you can.

 

[Blue92]

I'd say you did what you could and kudos for deleting the personal data from the previous owner.

 

[leelai]

Sounds stolen to me.....just can't see someone leaving all that personal info on their iPad when selling it.

But what's done is done and that person is better off not having their info available for just anyone.

And now a dilemma for you.......you have their contact info, you made a note of it for a reason. Me, I will always turn things around and consider what I would like to happen if I or one of my family were involved.....

Those neighbours are a worry though!