Woman Claims Lost Phone at Police Station, Gets Slapped With Felony in Viral Clip

Losing your cell phone in the early 2000s, while inconvenient and frustrating, wasn't the end of the world. There were still payphones around and we, more or less, had other systems in place that would help make up for such an inconvenience. Plus, the limitations of mobile phones back then meant that if someone got a hold of your cell phone, the most they could do is rack up phone calls on your minutes and have access to your contacts.

Losing one today however can become downright catastrophic. We rely on our devices for work, navigation, appointment reminders, photography, video conference calls, purchases (both online and through brick-and-mortar NFC transactions), dating, transit schedules, social interactions...heck everything.

And although many devices pack software that can help you locate your phone when it goes missing, the chances of actually retrieving it are pretty slim.

Only 7 percent of all lost mobile devices are ever recovered, so when a TikToker by the name of Colleen (@collcro) discovered that a police station had her phone, she must've been all sorts of relieved.

That is until she actually arrived at the department's building and learned she was being hit with a felony charge.

She posted a vague video on TikTok from inside of a car while looking into the camera lens with a text overlay that reads: "Goes to the police station to retriever my lost phone," then followed it up with, "Gets arrested and charged with a felony."

Colleen remarked in the comments of her video that legally she couldn't get into the ins and outs of why she now has a felony, but there were several TikTokers who speculated as to how this could've happened.

It could've been that there was a warrant out for her arrest she wasn't aware of, or perhaps there was something incriminating in her phone or wallet that raised the eyebrows of police. However, that last theory is a bit touchy, that's because if her phone was secured with a password, it's not like cops can just go through it.

Some also theorized that maybe she had a cell phone wallet case with a fake I.D. in it and that's what got her in trouble. However, for police to go through one's cell phone or wallet, then they'll need a warrant to do so. So in either event, there probably already was a warrant out for Colleen's arrest prior to her picking up her smartphone from the cops.

"She probably didn’t even know bc it was for something like a ticket she was never informed of or forgot," another user penned.

As of this writing, Colleen has made her TikTok account private, perhaps further indicating that she was dealing with some legal issues she would much rather not get into or deal with on social media.

If you're ever in a situation where police officers are asking to look through your phone or have it in custody but you don't want them to have access to your private information, don't unlock the phone as that may be considered in some cases, implied permission that they can take a gander at its digital contents. (h/t Daily Dot)