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Getting rather desperate- good friend is troubled and has disappeared. Drinking and it's winter, driving. Lots to worry about. I've been trying for hours to find a way to find them via phone location and it's all bogus- nothing works. I guess it's actually illegal to ping someone's phone via imei number; tried facebook and everything...any ideas from you tech folks would be greatly appreciated.

Getting rather desperate- good friend is troubled and has disappeared. Drinking and it's winter, driving. Lots to worry about. I've been trying for hours to find a way to find them via phone location and it's all bogus- nothing works. I guess it's actually illegal to ping someone's phone via imei number; tried facebook and everything...any ideas from you tech folks would be greatly appreciated.

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[–] • 1 pt (edited )

If you're legitimately concerned to the point that you get the cops involved, they very well may ping his cell and figure out his location.

This happened a couple of weeks ago: my fiancee's cousin married this shady dude a few months back. Anyhow, some shit happened and she (the cousin) got the cops involved to find him. She did this out of concern for the guy, to be clear. Not in the vein of she was "siccing the cops on him" or anything like that. Anyhow, the cops pinged his cell to get a location, and when a DPS trooper went to pull him over, the dude blew his own head off on the side of the road.

Larger point being, the cops can find your friend if he has his cell on him. The question is whether or not you really want them to.

I don't say that to blame my fiancee's cousin, to be clear. It wasn't her fault that the dude was shady, was doing shady shit, or that he killed himself. But at the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if she's somewhat blaming herself for all of it since the police interaction seemed to push him fully over the edge.

Point being, when someone is already mentally disturbed there's no telling what might give them that final push. On the other hand, getting the cops involved may very well save someone's life, too. It's a coin toss.