Returned Vita :)

[Nachimir]

So, I have a dilemma.

 

Me and some friends rented a van to go on holiday, and had to dismantle some wooden boxing to get to the aux input for the stereo. Inside, we found a PS Vita had been boxed in by whoever last put an aux cable in. I didn't have mine with me, so no charger, and it was dead. One of the people on holiday suggested just ebaying it, which I won't because that's a shitty thing to do. We decided I'd take it home after the holiday, charge it, then get the owners email address from the settings so we could try to return it.

 

Except, it has a passcode. There are ways to easily break that, but it seems not without wiping the Vita completely, defeating the whole point. I don't fancy sitting and trying out all 10,000 possible codes, especially with a long wait between every five attempts. I'd really like to return this to its owner, but I think the best thing I could do at the moment is return it to the van rental company. Which kind of sucks, because even though it's a small company, I suspect it means a slim chance of it getting back to the owner.

[tegan]

Wouldn't the rental place have a record of the person who rented the van before you did?

[Nachimir]

Sure, but extremely improbable they'd have any record of who's opened the stereo panel up to use the aux input. It could have been in there for many months, or just a few days. I think I'm just going to pass it to the company (Or, construct a ridiculous robot with ten relays and copper tape to brute force the combo. With the 5 attempt limit and 60 minute lockout it would only take… a maximum of 2000 hours to break in ¬¬).

[Justin Leego]

Would your robot be able to run for 84 days on a free source of solar, wind, hydro, kinectic or otherwise renewable energy?

Breaking the passcode is probably your best chance of contacting the owner. Unless there's some removable internal storage you can poke for information.

I don't know if the rental company would have the policy mechanisms required to proactively investigate who the owner might be. It's something you might want to find out before asking it to become custodian of the Vita.

[Griddlelol]

The company may have a record of people who have reported things missing though. It may be worth handing it over to them, although there's always the chance that they would just eBay it.

Did you try 1234? (:

[itsamoose]

You could try e-mailing sony with the serial number, they might have some way of tracking which PSN account(s) have been used on the device or be able to find out where it was purchased.

[Nachimir]

Unless there's some removable internal storage you can poke for information.

 

Bingo! Swapping the memory cards over prompted mine to tell me which PSN account it was associated with. No email, but I have the owners PSN name. Edit: and that led me to his website and Twitter. Thanks!

[syntheticgerbil]

They are going to be so happy! SO HAPPY!

[Nachimir]

He was! I posted it back to him yesterday.

[Ben X]

Hooray! Well done for being one of those theoretical "decent people" that I always hope have found whatever thing I've lost.

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah it's just a hunk of electronics, but this was a very heartwarming thread.

[Bjorn]

You should change the thread title to a smiley face!

[Nachimir]

Done! He has it, is very happy and paid me the postage. It'd apparently been boxed in up there for over a year! It was a band van, and they'd hired it to go on tour in 2013. The stereo was mounted on a shelf near the ceiling, and no one noticed the Vita sitting underneath until we unscrewed the panel.

 

The van was a very old, ex-police riot van, with wire mesh covers still on the lights, tinted windows and matt black bodywork. We got loads of weird looks on French motorways, because it absolutely looked like it was full of men with guns. When we collected it, the guy said "I was going to give you the nice one, but it caught fire". They are now my favourite van rental company.