Dear Alaska Airlines and Apple Computer…

Yes, I’m an idiot. I left a valuable piece of my property on your plane, Alaska. I know that you are not responsible for items left behind, it’s my fault, not yours.

However, that was the last flight of the day and the item in question was out of sight of other passengers, but my newspaper was sticking out, which meant that it was likely that the seat pocket would be examined in cleaning. It’s extremely likely that my property was picked up by one of your employees either after the flight or in the morning before the next one. I immediately registered with your web site for the item in question, identifying not only the flight, but the seat (thanks for not posting a phone number, but only an impersonal web page. It really shows how much you care). So, given that this kind of thing happens all the time, I did hope that there was a chance I would get it back. It was a long shot, to be sure, but not a non-zero one.

Now you Apple, thank you for creating the mechanism so that I could track my device, send a message to it, lock it and wipe it. In this case, I can’t locate it or send a message to it as it was on airplane mode. So, most likely, whoever has it has either wiped it, failed the login and had it wipe itself, or is trying to hack it (or fence it). Since, by your own definition, the device is now stolen property, maybe you could let me know when someone else tries to use it after it has been reset? No, of course, you can’t do that. Doing that would mean that you might be liable in all sorts of ways, right? There are so many ways that some mechanism could go wrong like that, that your corporate council decided it was best not to get involved. Even though you could actually immediately notify me the minute that the device registered to me with the unique ID you use to track your customer’s devices popped up again. This actually works out better for you, because now you’ll have sold me the same device twice.

So, yup, I can now troll the net looking for the device myself in a time-consuming, frustrating and fruitless attempt while constantly reminding myself of my own mistake. I wasn’t that fond of it in the first place, but I actually need it for a project, so I’m not left with much choice. I’ll need to file this as just another case of crappy customer service.

Thanks for nothing guys!