When GPS is Not Your Friend: When It Directs Random People to Your House

Meet Wayne Dobson. He seems to live in some weird, Bermuda Triangle-esque area of Las Vegas. What’s so special about this area? It appears some Sprint telephone customers are having location-tracking problems for their phone devices. Instead of telling the customers where their phones actually are, they inexplicably direct people to Wayne Dobson’s Vegas home (via Digital Trends). This sounds like something Apple Maps would do to you.

You can see why this would be problematic. You’ve lost your phone. You’ve found out where it is located by using GPS tracking software, such as Find My Phone. You show up to Wayne Dobson’s house and he acts innocent – except, he isn’t acting.

Is this a new problem? Nope – it’s been happening for about two years. This sounds like an article that belongs on the Onion.

According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, Dobson has had several people show up at his place, yelling at him to return the phones he stole from them. “They’ve yelled, shown him evidence, called the police – sworn that their phone is in his house.”

Regarding one woman visitor, she reportedly said “I’ve got pictures of my grandchildren. I can’t replace them. I need them. All I want are my pictures.”

Last month, a group of four guys banged on his door at 2:30am demanding he return their phone. One time at 4am, someone was walking around the property with a flashlight.

Sure, this might sound scary to you, but to me it screams “business opportunity!” Sprint is looking into resolving the problem, but after two years, come on!