I've only found one while riding. I took it home and my wife tracked the owners address down, when we went to return it he was driving down the dirt road I'd found on while his wife walked alongside looking for it, He was happy to see it.

If he'd been rude I probably would of bounce tested it off the road. I don't respond well to rudeness.

The only phone I've ever found was an iPhone in a gutter during a rainstorm. Took it home and dried it out. Fiddled for awhile but the light wouldn't come on, so I took it to a well lit room and started going through the guy's contacts and arranged a pickup. His friend seemed nice.

Found a wallet in another rainstorm (sensing a theme?). Tried to find a phone number, with no success. Eventually turned in to the police, but just realized I could have rubberbanded the heck out of it with the DL on the outside and dropped it into a mailbox. Maybe next time.

If someone gets insistent on a reward, I just ask them to pay it forward; that seems to satisfy them.

You have far more faith in the honesty of people who work for the post office than I do.

Similar thing happened to me!!!! I actually found the man's wife's phone. He sounded POed that I picked it up. Like it would have been a lot easier if I had left it were they lost it. I should have left it and then it could have been run over or found by someone a lot less honest than me.

That's amazing. You have to wonder if he didn't trust his wife.

An eerie similarity here is in the fact that the phone I found seemingly slipped off a car roof . My take is that you usually diminish them more by persisting with kindness to the end, but I lift that when safety gets endangered and the cycle rider here got cut off at the start threatening his well-being.

I've found 2 so far. One was owned by a woman who'd lost her previous phone shortly before that and went from thinking I'd stolen her phone to being grateful to get it back. Extremely grateful. The second belonged to another bicyclist who'd lost his seat bag containing his phone. The was before smartphones and before I gave up on wearing contact lenses and I was barely able to read the display to start calling people. First person I reached was the owners son who thought I was up to no good (sensing a pattern here?). The owner pedaled up shortly after that and was grateful for the help, and I'm hoping I don't end up losing mine.

Never carry the phone with me. Figure there is always a way to get to where I am going if I have a major breakdown. Besides, with so many people carrying cell phones I figure if I have to I can use one of theirs, which I have done before.

How many phones did this guy have on his roof? Looks to me like two? One that fell off right away. another one the motorcyclist pulled off of the roof.

Most of the phones I find are in a thousand pieces.

I did find one a few years ago, and simply dialed "0". An operator picked up, and coordinated getting it back to the owner.

I lost a few phones in St. Louis Missouri. Actually, I think other people got their phones returned, but mine were all just GONE. I'm sure a couple were found.

I've found phones in stores a couple of times and turned them into customer service, but I always wonder if they just get tossed in a box, and ignored until the box is dumped out at the end of the year.

I found a set of car keys recently with a FOB from a local gym. I took the keys to the gym as they should have had the owner's contact info, but the employee again just wanted to toss it into lost and found.

Should of said you found it in your bed

The one that fell off the guy's roof was his wallet.

I probably do, as my MIL is a retired carrier. And even if the cash disappears, that's the least important thing in most wallets.

I've always used an otterbox symmetry case, and have once lost my phone off the roof of the car... it was saved! But even if I had lost the phone in that accident, I did not make the mistake to not have a backup as the OP mentioned about the phone's owner. So easy to backup the phone to google or anything...

I had another phone fall off through the floor of my hotrod ('41 international truck) and got split in half somehow. Old flip phone... Good stuff