Google has quietly added a new feature to the Android Device Manager that lets you impose a password-protected lock screen on your lost phone, with a big green dialer button on it saying “Please call me”.

Or actually, the message can say anything you like. You type the message into the device manager when you’re remotely locking your lost/borrowed/stolen phone, along with the number you would like the finder/borrower/thief to call. (Hint: don’t type in your mobile phone number, as I did when I was testing the new feature, as that would defeat the purpose.)

They won’t see the number, but when they press the green dialer button, your phone will call that number, and you can then beg the finder/partner/thief to return your phone. You could even talk money. If they sound nice (and obviously they must be nice, if they’ve gone to the trouble of pressing that button), you could be so bold as to ask them out for a coffee/date, under the pretext of “returning” your phone.

If you’re desperate enough to risk a few hundred dollars to get a date, you could even lose your phone on purpose, maybe by slipping it into the pocket of someone you were too shy to approach directly. The new feature is a neat solution to the problem honest phone finders have in trying to figure out who on the contacts list to call to return a lost phone. Obviously you can’t just call the owner, because you have their phone. And if they’ve remotely locked their phone, then you can’t even get into the contacts database to find someone to call in the first place.