Warren Coakley got his car stolen in front of his very eyes. He then called the police, emailed friends, started a thread on a message board, and posted a Facebook status update. How do you think he got his car back?

The 34-year-old man from Dublin was loading his 2005 Audi A4 with the necessary stuff to take his children to school a few days ago. He was also supposed to attend a job interview that very morning. As he stepped into the house one last time to grab his baby from his wife and put him in the car, someone jumped into the driver’s seat and stole the vehicle in front of his very eyes.

According to the Daily Edge, Coakley then started hunting down the vehicle the 21st-century-way: by going to each and every website he could think of and hoping friends and strangers would help him. The picture to the right is the one a friend of Coakley’s posted on Boards.ie, a very popular Internet forum outlet in Ireland, where he asked for help. He also wrote a long letter to Motorcheck, an Irish website that helps consumers make informed decisions when buying used cars. “Not only did I lose my car but I’ve had to have my house locks changed as well as the locks in my wife’s car,” he wrote. “Would you mind adding my car to your stolen car database? It may be offered for sale to someone using Motorcheck.ie.”

But the savvy Dublin dad did one last thing, which proved to be most successful: he wrote about the misfortune on Facebook.

The car had been taken on January 19—on January 24, a contact who had seen the status update found the car parked in Mulhuddart Woods, not far from where it had been stolen. Even the police were stunned he had been able to find the car all by himself.

Coakley told the Irish Sun that “people should never underestimate the power of Facebook.”

Have you successfully retrieved any lost or stolen items through the social network?