jasonmbrown222 wrote:
Semi Off-Topic:
I think you misunderstood. The Airtag has not been marked lost. It doesn't appear to be linked at all. I tried pairing it to my account and It says that it is paired to a different ID.
... and that is indicating that this AirTag is still associated with the owner's Apple ID. Only the owner can remove it so that it can be used by someone else.
This tells me two things. Apple has someway to determine who the owner of an Airtag based on serial numbers, and that If I gave apple the serial number they would also have access to the owners AppleID and Email.
Both of those are reasonable assumptions, but neither will be true. Whether or not, Apple "knows" who the owner is, they will never contact them about this, nor provide their contact information to anyone else. Apple only provides the owner to put them into "Lost Mode," and even then let the owner decide, whether or not, to include any contact information.
The Airtag is not registered as it is spamming my phone every few minutes with a pop up telling me its found an air tag and tries to get me to register it.
... and that is how they are designed to work. Again, it is still associated with the owner's Apple ID. You cannot associate it (register it) to your ID, until the owner removes it from theirs.
When I attempt to register it, It tells me that it is linked to another AppleID and tells me how to reset the AirTag. This doesnt seem to actually reset the device.
It does reset it, it just doesn't reset it back to the state where you can associate it with your ID.
The Airtag pings apple with the GPS coordinates
No, it doesn't. The AirTag has a built-in Bluetooth beacon which transmits every 3-5 mins to save its battery life. Any iPhone, within Bluetooth range with an active Internet connection, will relay its (the iPhone's location) to the Apple servers. The AirTag has no means to provide GPS information. Also the relayed information does NOT include any information about the identity of its owner.
Back On-Topic:
Anyway the answer you gave did not help me at all. The issue is I found an Airtag, It had no battery and was packed with mud, I cleaned it, replaced the battery, and finally tried to find out if it had been lost.
It is not paired to any device, it is only paired to an AppleID. I have no way to contact the Owner since they did not mark it as lost.
How do I contact the Owner?
Sorry, that Rudegar's answer didn't help you ... but, the answer is still the same. You will not be able to contact the owner, unless they provided that information. The bottom line? This AirTag is not yours! Just because you found it, doesn't change that fact.
