Losing a phone is not just a mere inconvenience, but it can be disastrous for your personal safety and finances. Sadly, even the best of us can lose sight of our precious devices from time to time. It is somewhat common to see adults asking the question, “What to do when your phone is stolen.” So, here are the guidelines of what to do if your phone is stolen and measures to avoid such outcomes in the future.
What do people do when they steal your phone?
Nowadays, losing a telephone means losing data, priceless photographs, and countless memories. Here are a few common scenarios why some people might want to steal your phone.
Reselling the phone:
The leading cause of phone theft is to sell the device. Thieves may either decide to sell the phone in its entirety, as the phone may contain some value by itself or they may decide to sell the various components of the phone individually. Sometimes they can try to unlock it to sell it for a better price on the black market.
Accessing personal information:
More heinous data criminals may attempt to gain access to data that you have stored in the phone. This could include email accounts, social media accounts, banking applications, and many others. They could fully assume your identity, open credit cards in your name, engage in unlawful activities in the ID of the owner or sell the data on the dark web.
Using your phone for fraud:
Occasionally, the thief may misuse the phone by calling friends, relatives, and associates, sending messages as well as making purchases out of associated applications that are connected to your accounts. They also are likely to use your phone to get access to two-factor authentication codes and compromise your other “work” accounts.
Installing malicious software:
Some of the thieves will be involved in installing malware on the user’s phone.
Once you’re somewhat sure of the intentions of the thief, you can take appropriate measures to either recover your device or minimize further complications.
Phone is stolen what to do: Immediate actions
As soon as you have become a victim of phone theft, do everything you can to track it down or deactivate it permanently. Here are some immediate actions you should take:
1. Call your phone
As an initial step, you should make a call to your phone from another phone. At times the person in possession of your phone may not be dishonest and wants to return the phone. If the other person answers, one could learn of their intentions depending on their response or lack of it.
2. Track your phone
Tracking features are now inherent components in most modern smartphones. The services for such tracking in iPhones are the “Find My iPhone”, for Android tracking, the “Find My Device” services will help locate the position of your phone on the map.
3. Lock your phone
If the use of the tracking feature does not help one locate the phone immediately then the best next option is to try to lock the phone. iOS and Android both enable you to lock the phone and set a message containing your contact information on the phone when it is locked.
4. Erase your data remotely
In case, you think that your phone will not be recovered or if you feel that your information stored in the phone is not safe, then you can wipe out all the data stored in the phone. This step makes it difficult for the thief to access your photos, contacts, and apps as well as other data you may have.
5. Always report the theft to your network provider
Dial your mobile service provider immediately and let him/her know about the theft. They can hold your service to bar the thief from making calls, sending messages, or using your data connection.
6. Inform contacts
Inform all the people that know you well that your phone was stolen. This is important because the thief may use your phone to carry out fraud by sending messages or making calls pretending to be you.
7. Check for unauthorized activity
Monitor your bank accounts, email, and any other sensitive accounts that you have been accessing on your phone. It would be best to call your bank and have them disable mobile banking from your account right away.
Further step: report the theft
You can’t miss reporting the theft to the local authorities and to the insurance firm to legitimize your claim for compensation. Moreover, there is a slim chance that the authorities will help you track down your mobile device.
Contact your carrier:
It is essential to call the carrier to report a theft. Besides the deactivation of your service, your carrier may include other services like tracking your device or may KYC you to issue a new SIM card for your phone. Otherwise, the renewal process can take a while if you don’t report the theft right away.
File a police report:
A police report must be made, especially if you seek to make an insurance claim. Just focus on giving as much information as you can to the police. This includes the make, model, and IMEI of the phone, and the last place where it was seen. Even though the police do not always take phone thieves seriously, it is helpful to have an official report for legal reasons and insurance claims.
Notify your insurance:
If your phone was covered by insurance from the carrier, a third party, or homeowner’s insurance, report the theft. The customer service operators will help you through the procedure of filing a compensation claim. They might also offer a new device, based on your insurance coverage. Still, you will more than likely need to produce the police report as part of the claims process.
Protect your personal information
Phone can have your emails, contacts, banking apps, and social media accounts among other things. This data must be protected as much as possible once your phone is stolen. Here are a few pointers to help you along the way.
Change passwords:
As much as you may be upset that your phone has been stolen, the moment you discover the loss, you should begin to change the passwords of all accounts that were accessible through the phone.
This comprises Email addresses, social sites, other online activities such as online banking, and any other platform that requires a secure username and password. It is wise to use a password generator and come up with different and hard-to-guess passwords for every account.
Monitor for suspicious activity:
Monitor your bank accounts and any other services for indications that your Identity has been compromised. Go to your bank and credit card companies to create an SMS alert for any activities carried out through your accounts.
Review account security settings:
Use this opportunity to lock your account’s security as tight as you can and make it nearly impossible for scammers to enter. Allow two-factor authentication (2FA) access only to raise the security bar on your accounts. 2FA often entails the use of a code received to the phone or email. This makes it far from possible for a thief who has your passwords to enter your accounts.
Inform relevant authorities:
Of course, if for some reason you are sure that the thief got hold of your identity documents or your banking data, then by all means you need to report this to the authorities or the bank. Ensure that there are appropriate measures in the way to safeguard your identity. From a more comprehensive perspective, you can place a freeze on your credit so that the thief cannot take out any funds in your name.
Preventative measures for the future
Losing your phone and the data inside it is something we don’t want to encounter. However, some measures can be taken to limit the occurrence. Moreover, you can even limit the loss of data and important information by using some suitable security apps. Here are a few things to keep in mind.
1. Enable phone tracking services
Ensure that your phone tracker tracking service is on at all times. There the native options available for both iPhone and Android if your phone is lost or stolen, and these help you find your phone when lost.
2. Regular backups
One of the best decisions that any phone user can ever make is to always make a backup of their phone. If your phone was stolen and you needed to delete all its data remotely. Then you’ll be pretty happy that you had made a backup the previous day. This can be done online through cloud storage, for instance, through iCloud or Google Drive, or offline through hard drives.
3. Install security apps
If you’re a parent, you’re bound to run into issues with your kid’s lost devices. However, when you’re using tools like FlashGet Kids. And you can remotely track all of your children’s devices from the FlashGet Kids parental control dashboard. The real-time location tracker offered within this app will ensure you don’t have to get your kids a new phone every month. Moreover, you can also set up a geofence to get alerts when the phone leaves the household.
4. Be cautious in public
Phone theft commonly happens in areas with excessive traffic and crowded places Just ensure that you are aware of where you put your phone and do not ever place it in your back pocket. It would even help if you could get a better phone case and tie up the case with your bag or with your bracelet. Anyhow, your main focus should be to either keep your phone in your hand or always in your sight.
5. Educate family Members
Most of the time, people don’t take data or phone theft seriously. So, if your kids or spouse can often be careless about their phone, just sit them down and have a talk with them about the dangers. Explain to them that they can lose all their data as well as credit when their phone is lost. Moreover, you need to teach your kids that they are responsible for their devices and you won’t be buying them new phones just because they lost their previous ones.
Conclusion
Losing your phone is one of the worst experiences. But you can still salvage this situation by either tracking your phone or locking it up completely. The first few hours are most crucial when it comes to recovering your phone. However, after the first few hours, you gotta just focus on minimizing the damage and making sure that your data is safe.
Also, to reduce the damage in the future, you gotta focus on preventative measures, which include enabling tracking services, regular backups, and the employment of security applications.
All in all, if your phone gets stolen, do not scramble or panic. The first action that must be taken is to try to safeguard your finances, inform the police, and then attempt to safeguard your private data. Moreover, if you’re a parent, it is your job to give a helping hand to your kids with security apps like FlashGet Kids. Otherwise, your child might become a victim to data theft.
