Thief Snatches Phone But Returns It After Realizing It Is Samsung, Not OnePlus

Taking to Twitter, a legal journalist shared his strange experience involving an honest thief. Debayan Roy shared the incident on the microblogging site. His phone got stolen by a man at a metro station in Noida, India. Before he could chase the man down, the thief returned to hand his device back. The startling incident of the picky thief got the attention of Twitter users who chimed in to add their opinion or share their similar stories.

The former intellectual property lawyer was leaving the Sector 52 metro station in Noida, Uttar Pradesh on Monday, April 5. He stood there using his phone to send a message, clueless that he was about to become a victim. While typing the message, the man had his phone snatched right out of the palms of his hands.

Dazed, the victim started running after the black-masked man who had snatched his Samsung Galaxy S10+. In a surprising turn of events, he found the thief walking back towards him. Too stunned to react he stood as the thief explained why he was returning his loot. He said that he thought the phone was an OnePlus 9 Pro, the latest release by the sought-after brand. After saying those words, the man tossed the phone on the ground and made his escape, India Today reported.

The insulted victim shared this story on Twitter. It is unclear if he reported the incident to the police.

Reactions to this strange tale of theft were varied.

One Twitter user seemed to believe that the tweet from the journalist was a publicity gimmick by OnePlus. Another commenter shared his disbelief of the incident by calling it a “made-up story”. One person even asked the victim if the incident really took place, to which he responded that it indeed had.

Some people showed concern for the victim following the stressful incident of having his device snatched.

Another user joked about how the thief must not have been able to buy the phone due to its unavailability. The flagship phone’s price starts from $872 (Rs. 64,999) and is sold only on Amazon as well as OnePlus stores. Amazon has flash sales during which the devices are available for sale. The stores also have long waitlists. This renders many brand loyalists desperate to get their hands on the latest released smartphones.