The luck of the Irish

Did you read that news story a couple of weeks ago about the Irish guy from Sydney who left his digital camera in the back of a cab in New York?

I know – I thought it was the start of a bad Irish joke too. Especially when I read the guy’s name was Alan Murphy. But this one has a happy ending. The next passenger in the cab – an investment banker called Erika Gunderson - used clues gleaned from the pictures on the memory card to track down Mr Murphy and return his camera.
Of course, this story is not extraordinary to those of us who use Secure Sentinel. People are always returning our stuff. You might remember in the last newsletter I told you about Dr Jennifer Judd? Her laptop was returned to her before she had even realised she’d lost it.
It’s the labels you receive when you sign up to Secure Sentinel, you see. You stick them on your most valued possessions. Someone finds them, sees the labels and calls Secure Sentinel. Simple.
Compare that to the hoops Ms Gunderson had to go through. She and her partner trawled through the 350 pictures on the memory card looking for clues of the identities of the adults and children who featured in many of the shots. Most were shot in front of landmarks in Florida and New York. Intriguingly, they were wearing name-tags in one, but first names only. There were also two short videos on the camera from which the couple were able to deduce from the accents that the owner of the camera was Irish.
The breakthrough came when Ms Gunderson’s partner noticed the name of a bar in New York’s East Village in one of the images. It was on an awning in the background of a photo taken during what appeared to be a pub crawl on December 30. The bartender remembered the Irish group. One of them was a big tipper and worked in another Manhattan bar.
Then it all went a bit Six Degrees of Seperation. Mr Murphy wasn’t the big tipper. (He lives in Australia now, remember?) It was his friend’s sister. And she worked in another Manhattan bar. Phone calls were made, addresses exchanged and ten days after the camera was left on the back seat of a NYC yellow cab, it was DHLing its way back to Sydney.
Imagine how much easier it would have been if Ms Gunderson had turned over the camera and found a Secure Sentinel label stuck on the bottom. All she would have had to do was call a freecall number and quote the serial number of the lost item.
The world media would have been short of a human interest story for the day and Ms Gunderson and her partner would have missed out on a few free drinks at the other Manhattan bar. And Mr Murphy would have had his camera – and the precious photos on the memory card - returned much sooner.
Treasure hunts can be fun – but not if they involve a frustrating hunt for mobile phones, keys, cards or, worse still, your treasured memories! By placing identifying labels on valuables, you give good Samaritans the opportunity to do the right thing and return your valuables. For more information about Secure Sentinel tags and labels call 1800 022 043 or click here.