If you are an iPhone user that has unfortunately had an item stolen, it appears that there is an iOS app that can help you retrieve your stolen item, if you find out just who the thief was, and that iOS app is called Burner — Disposable Phone Numbers, and is a privacy layer for your iOS smartphone that provides alias phone numbers when required, and is ideal for when you need to contact someone without them knowing who you really are.

We say that the Burner app for the iPhone could help you get your stolen gear back because of a report over on Digital Trends, who report that 28 year old graduate student and iPhone user, Jake Gillum of Portland, Oregon, used the iOS app to create a sting to retrieve his stolen $2500 2009 Fuji Team road bike, which he found posted for sale on the Seattle section of Craighlist.

Jake then proceeded to use the Burner iOS app on his iPhone to create a disposable phone number and contact the bicycle thief, and set up a meet at a Seattle shopping centre. Jake told Digital Trends that he was going to purchase a prepaid handset and register it with a Seattle zip code, but before doing so, a friend told him about the Burner iOS app.

With the Burner — Disposable Phone Numbers app, the user can choose any area code, so Jake picked Seattle’s 206 code, and the application assigned the rest of the numbers, and then all his texts and calls appeared to come from Seattle.

Although Jake did find one problem with the Burner app, he saved the crook’s number as ‘bike thief’ and after which when he and his friends were testing the app, all phone number that called Jake came up as ‘bike thief.’

For those that would like to see Jake confront the bike thief thanks to the Burner iOS app, we have a video of the confrontation for your viewing consideration below, but be warned the footage does contain swearing.

However if you are not offended by occasional profanity don’t forget to hit that play button and check out the action, and if you feel you could make use of the Burner — Disposable Phone Numbers app you can download it to your iPhone from iTunes at a cost of $1.99.