Moving the phone from the place it was left with consent of the owner is not theft.

And it's not that crazy to leave lost property with a nearby business (presumably a trusted one)- sure they could say no but then you could just find another way to return the device.

Also why would you not be able to track it any more if they left it at the pharmacy, it's not like the Find My Device feature only works in Waymos. I guess you just mean due to the sequencing of wiping before noticing the text message?

You're overthinking it; it'd just be "I found this phone". They don't need to give the backstory. Most businesses will hold onto valuable lost property for a while, on the assumption that a customer dropped something.

> I would say that moving the phone from the place I left it would promote it from "lost" to "stolen".

A really key element here is that they offered to help you out by leaving it there for you, so I don't see how "stolen" would come in to it...

Honestly I can't envision that conversation happening between two real people. What is much, much more likely to actually happen in my experience:

"I found this phone."

"Ok." takes it

You go in later "I lost my phone, do you have it here?" and they hand it to you. For particularly fastidious store clerks they may ask you to describe it before handing it over. And you likely have to wait while whoever you ask asks all the other employees if they found a phone.

It's not clear to me that letting the phone just sort of drift through the ether toward the Waymo Depot while who knows how many other passengers use the car is any better than putting the phone at some other fixed location behind at least some cursory level of security.

You mean the Waymo cars that are bristling with dozens of cameras and sensors? The Waymo service where I immediately contacted Support and informed them, so they could recall the vehicle or have it meet a worker who could search it? Dunno, dude.