Thief's serial mistakes end with me getting phone back

I was in Guomao subway station listening to a Mariah Carey song on my iPhone when the music suddenly stopped.

My first thought was the phone had fallen but when I looked down all I saw was the dangling earphones socket - and I realized it had been stolen.

I looked around for the guy who had just run past me and made contact, but the thief had quickly disappeared.

"Calm down! Calm down," I told myself and borrowed a phone from a passer-by to call 110.

Eventually, someone answered.

"Hello, 110," the woman's voice said.

"My cellphone was stolen! I need police!" I responded.

"When and where?" Thinking it was not an emergency, her attitude changed and she appeared to have such a relaxed attitude about the crime that I wondered whether it was really the police I had reached.

I described the situation.

"Take your receipt to the police station near Dongdaqiao. Someone will deal with it," she said.

"What? Is there any chance that I will get it back?"

"Huh? Very slim."

Obviously, I was not carrying my phone receipt with me and the thought of getting it, taking it to the police station and going through the rigmarole for a "very slim" chance of getting it back made me give up.

I didn't cancel my phone number, but transferred all the incoming calls to my new cellphone. It was maybe 10 days later, when I received a call.

Claiming he was a staffer at Sanlitun Apple Store, the guy said: "Sir, your iPhone is ready. You can come here to fetch it."

"What? My iPhone has been stolen!"

"Are you the guy who sent it here to repair it? He asked me to change its back case. He was here 3 minutes ago and said he would be back soon."

I suddenly realized what had happened. The thief wanted to use Apple Store's free service facility to change my iPhone's back case, which had a series number on it.

Apple has a good service whereby if the owner registers his or her personal information, including name and telephone number, it is connected to the serial model number.

He sent it to the store, and waited there. While the phone was being worked on he went away for a while and the Apple assistant called me.

"Hold it! It's a stolen phone! That guy is a thief! I'm calling the police!" I shouted.

The assistant must have been astonished. It took me 3 minutes to explain the whole thing to him. As soon as he understood it, he turned to the store's manager.

The manager called me back quickly: "The thief is back now. He wants the phone. We can only say it is not ready yet. Please come here quickly, with the police. We have no right to hold a phone."

I called 110, took my receipt and rushed in a taxi to the Sanlitun Apple Store.

Two policemen arrived there about one hour later. Of course the thief had gone. Later, the manager and I spent two hours in the police station, explaining how the serial number system worked so that I could get the phone back.

I can't use it yet, of course, the phone is still in the station as the police think it may have clues leading to the capture of the thief.