To find a misplaced laptop in NYC?

November 12, 2008 11:05 PM

My roommate just left his laptop in a car (from a car service) that he flagged down (i.e. he doesn't know what service it was) in Greenpoint (NYC). Is he totally screwed?
posted by unknowncommand to Grab Bag (7 answers total)

unless the driver finds contact information on it and gets in touch with him or the police, then yes, obviously he's totally screwed.
posted by lia at 11:22 PM on November 12, 2008

Not necessarily. Brooklyn car services typically, as I understand it, stick to a certain area more often than not -- whenever I'd flag something down in Clinton Hill/Fort Greene, it was almost always one or two or three services. Granted, they may have been in route when they picked up your friend, but...

Call every single car service in the area you can get your hands on. Do it now. Furthermore, offer a reward. Make it very clear that the laptop has valuable (to him/her) information on it.

As an alternative, you could also try saying that it has confidential information on it and that a government agency will track it via internet/GPS if it isn't returned.

Best of luck!
posted by Damn That Television at 11:35 PM on November 12, 2008

Response by poster: Yep. That's my thinking. Just hoping for some AskMe magic.
posted by unknowncommand at 11:36 PM on November 12, 2008

I'd call the North Side and Java Car services.
posted by apetpsychic at 12:04 AM on November 13, 2008

How did he pay? If by credit/debit card, he could call the credit card company/bank to get the payment info, and then go from there.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:19 AM on November 13, 2008

if he paid cash, it's gone.
posted by matteo at 11:24 AM on November 13, 2008

Response by poster: His friends believe it was Northside. Does this help? I doubt it. Oh well.
posted by unknowncommand at 3:47 PM on November 13, 2008