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THE owner of a stolen iPhone rattled the thief enough with texted threats that the ne'er-do-well sent back 11 pieces of paper with over 1,000 hand-written contact numbers from the phone's address book --- but not the phone itself, Xiaoxiang Morning Herald reported today.

The owner, who works in a bar in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, went to Yiyang City to be the best man in a friend's wedding on November 15. After drinking a lot at the wedding, he got in a car with three strangers to return to Changsha at 4:20pm.

He fell asleep and when the car arrived in Changsha about 6 pm, the driver woke him up. The man discovered that his iPhone4 was missing and suspected that it was stolen by the man sitting next to him, who had gotten off before they got to Changsha.

He tried calling his own phone, to no avail. Then he sent a short message with a colleague’s phone, saying, “I know you are the person sitting with me and I will find you. Have a look at my contact list and then you will know my job. Send back my mobile to the following address ... ”

There were more than 1,000 contact numbers in his phone with no backup which are very important to him. The man said he wanted to scare the thief, but he had no idea how effective the threats would be.

On November 19, he received a courier package with his phone’s SIM card -- which is a memory card -- and 11 pieces of paper with hand-written names and numbers from his mobile address book.

The owner said he didn’t call the police since he thought it unlikely to recover the phone itself, the report said.