Melbourne university student told to pay taxi driver $100 after leaving iPhone in GM Cabs

A university student who left her iPhone in a taxi after a night out at the bar claims the driver demanded $100 to give it back or he would throw it off a bridge.

The 19-year-old Melbourne woman realized she didn’t have her phone after getting a lift home from GM Cabs about 3am last Sunday.

That set off an epic search to find her phone, which contained not only personal messages but also her ID and some important documents.

The next day, the university student, who did not want to be named, called the bars she had visited the night before. They didn’t have the phone.

Her last hope was the taxi company. But it didn’t answer her calls and messages.

The Melbourne woman, 19, realized she didn’t have her phone after getting a lift home from GM Cabs at around 3am last Sunday, September 17

Using Apple’s Find My iPhone feature, the university student tracked her phone – which she nicknamed ‘Bruh’ – to Melbourne’s CBD

Using Apple’s Find My iPhone feature, she tracked the phone – which she nicknamed ‘Bruh’ – to Melbourne’s CBD.

Her mother was able to send a message asking who was supposed to call while the taxi driver answered the phone.

“He (said he) wouldn’t deliver it and only needed $100 to deliver it to me,” she told the Herald Sun.

His reason was that he lived in Shepparton, which normally costs a rate of more than $300.

She alleged that the driver also demanded that she pay by bank transfer and not in cash.

But because the location data showed the phone was in central Melbourne and not 180km north of the Victorian country town, she declined.

The young woman asked her mother to call and the driver answered.

‘There he angrily threatened to throw him off a bridge. Ten minutes later, my iPhone location disappeared.”

With an estimated fifty bridges and roads crossing the Yarra River, the chances of it being found at all, let alone in working order, seemed slim.

Desperate, she tried again and asked a friend to call the driver.

When she finally got through, she offered to pay him to ship the device.

He would have refused.

The determined student then went to Bourke Street police station, where officers were unable to contact the driver.

Without access to her bank account and unable to afford food, she sat at home depressed and thought about the lost phone.

Two days later she received a call from another police station, 20km outside the CBD, saying they had her phone.

With an estimated fifty bridges and roads crossing the Yarra River, the chances of the student’s iPhone being found at all, let alone in working condition, seemed slim.

But when she finally picked up her phone, the screen was cracked and the display was grainy

However, when she picked it up the screen was broken and the screen was grainy.

However, the woman got lucky when a kind stranger lent her another phone until she could afford to have her screen repaired.

She claimed to have had no contact with the driver or GM Cabs.

Daily Mail Australia approached GM Cabs for comment.