JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Some Jacksonville moviegoers are warning others that someone used their lost and found phones to buy expensive electronics.
Police are investigating and haven’t announced any arrests, but the victims believe it was an inside job.
It started with a simple trip to the movies — a couple’s date night at the Cinemark XD on Atlantic Boulevard. Somehow the couple left one of their phones behind, and the problem is it didn’t have a passcode, so whoever got ahold of it was able to rack up big charges on their account.
As you can imagine, Christina Beasley Harris and her husband weren’t happy.
“By Monday morning, my checking account, one of our checking accounts, had already been compromised for $500 worth of AirPods sent to an address that was not associated with us,” Beasley Harris said.
The phone itself cost $1,100 — not to mention — it’s an Android, so those headphones wouldn’t even work with it.
And she’s not alone. She tracked down another man who says this happened to him at the same theater a day earlier – he too lost his phone and got mysterious charges.
“It has to be bigger than just myself and the other victim that I stumbled upon,” Beasley Harris said.
Beasley Harris and her husband were able to find the address where the AirPods were going and tracked down a 12-year-old boy. He agreed to return the phone and headphones, dropping off the phone and two of the items at a local fast-food restaurant and asking Beasley Harris to keep the police out of it.
She filed a report anyway, hoping to track down the adult or adults behind the scheme.
“I’m thinking about the people that are too embarrassed to continue on and follow through with, first of all, this phone has been stolen. And then their checking accounts have been compromised,” Beasley Harris said. “Some people just deal with it and be quiet and go on. I’m just not that person.”
The other man told News4JAX that he tracked down a separate juvenile.
Beasley Harris reached out to Cinemark’s manager, who said he was going to “get to the bottom of this,” adding, “There is certainly no place at our theater for something like this to occur.”
“Our typical procedure when a cell phone is found is that it is brought to the management office and held in safe keeping. We get several phones a week turned in like this, by our day and night staff,” he said in an email.
Beasley Harris and her husband have their phone back, and they’re working on getting their money back. But they’ve lost valuable pictures from family members — including precious memories of her 23-year-old son Nicholas, who was killed last year. That’s all the more reason for her to be angry at everyone behind this fraud.
“Well, for me, that’s very upsetting and disappointing,” Beasley Harris said. “And I’m going to tell you why — because we as adults, we’re supposed to lead these children to be productive citizens in society.”
The lesson from these victims — put a passcode on your phone and make sure it isn’t easy to figure out.
News4JAX reached out to the theater’s management and was told to call the corporate office. We’ve called and emailed, and we’re waiting for a response.