Needless to say, after losing it in the cab, I never saw it again. Certainly no one tried to contact me about it nor reported it as being found in any manner. I was quite pissy at the time because I figured that the cabbie most likely just walked off with it. This was after I had tipped him quite extravagantly and despite the fact that he had taken the long way back from the airport to finagle a few extra dollars out of me. It had been a very long flight and was early morning by then and all I wanted to do was to get home and go to bed.
Why am I telling this story? Well it looks like there's currently a lot of net interest in someone else right now whose friend lost her Sidekick in a cab. The people who found it not only failed to return it but began using the phone and even used it to take pictures which of course was uploaded to the t-mobile database and viewable by the understandably pissed owner. A site, Stolen Sidekick was started to document the attempt to retreive the phone and it has become quite the internet saga.
Like any good net drama, this is part detective story as people tracked down things like pictures, myspace pages, and addresses, part angst with open publication of the conversations between the parties, and mostly a daily soap opera as people check in to see 'what happens next'. It's quite an interesting little tale, though frankly, I would have cut to the chase and just posted their damn home address and phone #. A nice thorough disclaimer would be enough to shield you and then the nutjobs and diehards could go to town.
It's too bad I was never able to track down which exact cabbie was driving the cab I lost my phone in. If he ended up taking and keeping it, I certainly hope that he's picked up some horrible fatal disease since then.