Behind the Scenes of Our Cellphone Test

Behind the Scenes of Our Cellphone Test
Reader’s Digest editor Liz Crompton and freelance writer Ian Harvey spent a couple of days in Toronto conducting the Canadian component of the Reader’s Digest global honesty test. The test involved leaving a phone not in plain sight but visible enough so a passerby could find it when it rang. One of them would “drop” the phone and walk away, then call the cell number while the other “observed” from nearby to see who picked up the phone and following them if necessary. If someone answered the phone, the dropper would say he’d misplaced it and ask the person who’d answered if they could please return it.

Here, Liz and Ian recall their wet, chilly experience in early April.

Ian: At first, the idea of leaving cell phones in various places seemed pretty crazy. We didn’t think we’d get many back. I mean, who wouldn’t want a brand new phone when it’s just lying there?

Liz: I got to Toronto on Sunday around noon, and we did a test run that afternoon to work out any bugs. And bugs there were! I had trouble with my cell – I was using one of the 30 units bought for the test—and could scarcely hear anything when someone picked up the “decoy.” One of the men who answered the phone offered useful suggestions when he overheard us talking about the problems we were having.

Ian: At first just leaving a phone somewhere was a challenge. More than a few times people chased after us yelling we’d left our phone behind. We got pretty crafty as time wore on; we even left it in an old horse trough on King Street East, which netted some great expressions from people walking by.

Liz: It was interesting to see people’s reactions as they walked by a ringing phone, checking their own phones to make sure it wasn’t theirs or just giving a puzzled glance at the orphaned cell as they passed.

Ian: Sometimes it took ages—up to an hour—for someone to answer. Dozens of people just walked past. We tried different ring tones to see which one got the most attention. After a string of failed attempts, we’d switch roles: The dropper would become the observer and vice versa. Sometimes it changed our luck.

Liz: We had some moments of levity. Though maybe incredulity is a better word for the incident at the Eaton Centre in which a young guy stole the phone from right in front of me—not three metres away—as I pretended to browse lady’s lingerie. (Good thing Ian wasn’t the observer. That might have raised suspicion.)

Ian: Then there was the fellow with his daughter, maybe two years old, in his arms. As I got up from that drop he just about leaped onto the bench to sit on the phone. It was a bit of a struggle for him to juggle his child and maneuver his leg over the phone, then slip it into his free hand. We followed them into the Disney store; every time I called, he’d disconnect until he finally figured out how to turn the phone off. All the while he was looking around, as if he was worried the owner of the phone was watching. We were! But we weren’t going to confront him.

Liz: In the end, though, I was pleasantly surprised by how many people did take the time to return a complete stranger’s “misplaced” phone—an awesome 28 out of 30! It reaffirmed my faith in the honesty of the city dweller. I was pretty excited, too—I thought Toronto might be No. 1 in the world test, and I bugged my coworkers at the international level for weeks to find out how “we” scored. I came pretty close to bribing one with a bottle of champagne, but they made me wait like everyone else. I think it was worth it.

To see how well Canada did, take a look at our results table. Here we’ve added the results for Montreal—tested by our French colleagues for their article in Sélection.