Forum topic: Heard about all these phone thefts?

With phone thefts frequently in the news and London numbers measured in the tens of thousands pa, you may well be careful and feel prepared should the worst happen to yours. I did, until recently.

 My son is 25, smart and 6’4”, not a straightforward target but pickpocketed on public transport he nevertheless was, losing £1200 worth of Apple phone.

 The first challenge was to get home. In his case from the West End and thanks to the goodwill of some bus drivers. Where might you be?

 Tracking his phone via a friend’s device it went to Walthamstow, and then to China via Hong Kong. He remotely deleted all his data. Is your data, photos, contacts, diary and such, regularly backed up?

 Before deleting the data his friend received two sophisticated – fraudulent - requests indicating the data was safe and if the password could simply be forwarded to seal the deal … The usual rule of never, ever giving passwords or (PINS) away, ever, applies.

 So far so good.

 Reporting the incident to the police, a crime reference number (CRN) was to be forwarded. Use that to notify the insurance company we thought.

 Arranged for a replacement SIM from the phone airtime provider too.

 Still, OK.

 And this is the stage where I suggest we all stand back and think, what would happen to me in similar circumstances? Because, being safety conscious he, rightly, has two step verification wherever possible.

 As an example, the crime reference number went to his Gmail account. Access to that required two steps, one of which was an OCR passcode from his phone. Maybe we thought use a previous phone from the drawer, but that can’t update that with the latest operating system, and Gmail also required a system at the bleeding edge, nor was the new SIM software compatible. Without  a newish phone, and say that requires an insurance claim, which however requires the CRN, which required access to G Mail, which … you get the idea.

 A similar situation applied with an investment account. Other examples too.

 And I’m sure with enough time and perhaps enough phone calls or such all could be worked through, but I was personally well short of acknowledging the road blocks and dead ends that exist in such circumstances. On the bright side he’s enjoying life not being screen dictated, although still missing access to many parts of life.

 My own plan is now to stand back and think what would happen were I to lose my phone in XXX and what do I need to do now to mitigate the worst effects. Maybe you do likewise.