‘She Facetimes Him to Confirm…:’ Mechanic Finds AirTag on Driver’s Car. So They Decide to Play a Prank on His Girlfriend

Most mechanics spend their days chasing down mystery noises. However, when one found a hidden AirTag in their buddy’s car, the problem was that the vehicle was already under surveillance.

A viral TikTok from the folks at Louie’s Liquor Mart (louisliquor626) in Azusa, California, sparked a humorous whodunit mystery that more than 1.8 million people have watched while they wait for a follow-up.

The video takes place inside a liquor store located east of Pasadena, where a customer, a mechanic named Brian, recounts to store employees a recent incident involving an Apple AirTag. Brian explains that while cleaning out his coworker’s car, they discovered an AirTag hidden inside. The car's owner was unaware of the device, and the group quickly suspected that it had been placed there by the man’s girlfriend without his consent.

Instead of confronting her directly, Brian offered to take the AirTag and drive around with it, knowing it would feed false location data to the suspicious girlfriend tracking it. The girlfriend later called her boyfriend, questioning whether he was really at his mother’s house as he claimed. To prove his location, he FaceTimed her, showing that he was exactly where he said he’d be, even though the AirTag showed otherwise.

Employee Offers More Details

During a phone call, a store employee who asked not to be named provided additional context to Motor1. He explained that Brian and the car’s owner, both mechanics, had been cleaning out the vehicle when the AirTag was discovered. The tracker wasn’t showing up on the owner’s iPhone, suggesting it may have been configured in a way that made it less detectable, or that not enough time had passed for Apple’s built-in alert system to notify him. Despite the lack of a notification, the device was actively reporting its location, which led the group to suspect it had been planted intentionally, likely by the car owner’s girlfriend.

The store employee confirmed that Brian was the one who decided to take the AirTag and drive around with it, effectively creating a decoy to confuse the suspected tracker, which led his friend’s girlfriend to call and express suspicion that he wasn’t where he claimed to be. She reportedly said she had a “funny feeling” he was somewhere else, presumably because the AirTag’s location didn’t match his statement. Store employees are still waiting to see how the situation resolves, and they expect to post a follow-up video once Brian returns to fill them in on the details.

How Do AirTags Work in Cars?

Apple’s AirTag, introduced in 2021, utilizes a combination of Bluetooth and Apple’s global Find My network to help people locate lost belongings via nearby iPhones and iPads. The tag doesn’t include its own GPS chip. Instead, it relies on passive signals from any Apple device that comes within range. The AirTag then relays its location to the owner’s iCloud account.

But this system has a dark side. When an AirTag is traveling with someone who isn’t its owner, Apple is supposed to send an alert to that person’s iPhone within 8 to 24 hours. Android users can also download an app to scan for unknown AirTags, though the process isn’t automatic.

The alerts aren’t immediate, and they aren’t foolproof. If you’re an iPhone user but your device is outdated or Bluetooth is disabled, the tag may go undetected. In cars, the problem gets murkier. If the AirTag is discreetly placed and the car is frequently surrounded by Apple devices such as those in other cars or even the driver’s smartwatch, it can report its location back to the owner for hours or even days without raising an alarm.

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That flexibility is part of why AirTags have become a significant privacy concern. On one hand, they’ve helped recover stolen vehicles and lost luggage. On the other hand, they’ve been misused for stalking, leading to lawsuits and public safety warnings from police departments and advocacy groups.

In this case, it appears the driver had no idea he was being tracked. The tag wasn’t showing up on his phone, and there were no alerts—just the cold, watchful eye of Bluetooth-based surveillance.

 

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