Strangers who swapped laptops by mistake use an ingenious way to find each other

Luggage mixups can be a real trouble. Especially, if it's something like your laptop that might have personal information, documents and important login credentials for work or school. So when two students called Sophie and Audrey got their laptops mixed up at an airport's security line, they had to come up with creative ideas to have their devices back, per PEOPLE. It all started when both the girls were traveling for their spring break and happened to be in the same JFK airport security line. Sophie McHugh was traveling from New York City to Barcelona, Spain.

"I was traveling from New York to Barcelona for spring break, then to Madrid and back to New York," she shared. Whereas, Audrey was coming back from Spain after traveling to Madrid with her friends. She had a layover at JFK before she went on to Charlotte. "I think we ended up switching at security. We have the same model Macbook with no stickers or case on it," Sophie said explaining how the unfortunate swap might have taken place. "I thought I grabbed my laptop, the one closest to the rest of my luggage. A lot of MacBooks look the same, though, and neither of us had stickers or a case on ours," Audrey added.

Audrey was the first one to know about the swap. When she reached home, she opened the laptop and realized that it had someone else's login. "I immediately realized I must've grabbed the wrong one in the security line," she recalled. The girl immediately sprung into action and tried to find her laptop's location. "The last location wasn't updating, so I called Apple and they helped me lock my computer so no one would be able to log into it," she explained. "I called the Madrid airport, thinking someone had turned it into lost and found. She was actually leaving New York for Spain as I was coming back, so my laptop flew back to Spain with her," Audrey revealed.

With the help of the "Sophie McHugh" name she saw on the laptop, Audrey tried to track the other girl down through social media. "My friends looked up her name on Instagram. My friends were DMing all different people with the name. It turns out one of my friends had a single mutual connection with one of the Sophies who came up on Instagram. I got her phone number through that mutual connection."

Next up, Audrey also uploaded a video on TikTok (@aud.rey1234) with the text overlay, "Sophie McHugh, I think we switched laptops at the Madrid airport! It would be so awesome to get mine back!" The audience on TikTok got to work and people hoped that the algorithm would work its magic. On the other hand, Sophie was completely clueless about what had gone down as she was enjoying her spring break and didn't open the laptop.

"I got a text on St. Patrick's Day from my friend Eve, saying her younger sister got a text from her old friend who knows Audrey. They asked if Eve's younger sister could reach out to me," she recounted. "I was so happy I didn't notice until the situation was basically resolved or else the first couple of days of my trip would've been ruined," Sophie expressed, feeling grateful for not knowing what had happened.  "I asked for a picture of the laptop so I could figure out if it was mine, and Eve sent me the TikTok. I went back to the hotel and saw I had Audrey's laptop," She continued. They connected and confirmed that they had each other's laptops.

"I texted Audrey and since I was going back to New York and she was at school, we figured it was best to mail and exchange them. We thought it would be safer for the laptop if I waited until I got to New York to ship hers back. I asked if she could mail mine so that it was there when I got home from my trip on the 24th because I had an exam on the 27th. The laptop got back to me on the 21st," Sophie revealed. Audrey also shared an update on TikTok to let people know that she had found her laptop. Sophie on the other hand, felt thankful that her laptop was swapped with a tech-savvy young person.

You can follow Audrey (@aud.rey1234) on TikTok for more lifestyle content.