If you have never lost or had your smartphone stolen, you are probably the exception, rather than the rule. I have lost at least two phones, and it is such a helpless feeling which they now call mobophobia.
iPhone and iPad theft is big right now. There is a small criminal economy developing around stolen iPhones and iPads. Thefts are often violent, conducted by one or more perpetrators, and in broad daylight. So pay attention no matter where you are. Avoid using your smartphone when you are alone. A lot of thefts occur on buses, the theft happens so fast, and the thief is gone like a flash, and a lot of victims are helpless women.
Whatever you do, make sure you backup your contact list to your cellular service provider's servers. Put it on automatic update, so that everytime you add a new contact or change an existing contact, your contact list on the phone carrier's servers is automatically updated. Should you lose or have your smartphone stolen, you can quickly retrieve your contact list intact, and not be inconvenienced.
Never, ever save your user ID's and passwords, or vital I information like credit card numbers, social security numbers on your smartphone. If you do lose your smartphone, you could quickly become a victim of identify theft and the thief could take money out of your bank account or charge things to your credit cards.
According to BackgroundCheck.com, $2.7 billion worth of smartphones were lost in 2011. Checkout this very interesting infographic.
Courtesy of: Background Check Blog
Tips To Protect Yourself Before or After Your Cellphone is Lost or Stolen
A decade ago, losing your cell phone wasn't a huge deal. Sure, the loss of your text message history, contacts might be a painful blow, but you'd be able to get a replacement and move on quickly. Nowadays, our smartphones reveal much more; our phones are packed with our close friends, Facebook contacts, photos, location data, and tweets as well as access to personal banking, shopping and social networking tools.
Fortunately, security advancements have kept up with smartphone development, so remote locking, tracking and wiping is an easy-to-setup reality. These apps, many of which are free, only take a few minutes to install on everything from your iPhone to the latest Windows Phone device, so we urge you to take the time to install one. Taking just a few security precautions with your phone can turn the potential disaster of a phone accidentally left in a cab into a minor inconvenience.
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Here are a few tips on securing your cell phone and what to do if you lose it or have it stolen.
- Call Your Cell Phone - PCMag recommends using another phone to text your lost phone with a message offering a reward for the device, and you can always try calling it as well. If you don't have a phone handy, you can use a service like Skype, Google Voice or fonefindr.com to ping your phone. It can't hurt -- someone may have found your phone or maybe you'll find hear it ringing between the couch cushions.
- Notify Your Cellular Phone Carrier - After you've called or texted your phone, and retraced your steps, you'll want to call your cellular phone carrier immediately and tell them your phone has been lost or stolen. Ask them to suspend service (i.e. disable messaging and calls) on the device, because thieves could rack up thousands of dollars in international calls or app purchases. AT&T will even let you do this from your account on the Web.
- Password Protect Your Cell Phone - With all the messages, years of email, contacts, social networking accounts and other personal data stored on today's smartphones, we can't recommend password protecting your phone enough. Refer to your users manual for instructions on how to password protect your cell phone. A thief could still remove your password, and there's always the possibility you just lost the phone for good, the alternative (going password-free) leaves not only your cellphone account but your bank, social networking, and e-mail accounts completely open. If your phone was stolen and you haven't locked it down, immediately change the passwords to your online accounts and alert any banks or services that you enabled on the phone.
- Use Remote Security Apps - Many remote security apps are now available for smartphones and tablets, and they offer everything from near real-time GPS location tracking (often showing your phone's location on a map via a Web interface) and the ability to remote wipe your phone in case of theft to remote photo and data backup. There are many free options, and they take just a few minutes to install and set up. Here is a list of remote security apps:
- iPhone - Apple's Find My iPhone, GadgetTrak and iHound
- Android - Plan B, Android Lost, Mobile Defense, Prey Anti-Theft, GadgetTrak, Phone Found, Anti Theft, burglar alarm,lock, AntiDroid Theft, Android Anti Theft Security, GotYa! Lite : Face trap !, Android Theft Prevention Alert, Don’t Touch My Droid!, Anti Theft Installer, Seek My Android, and Wheres My Droid.
- BlackBerry - MobiStealth
- Save Your Phone's Unique ID Number - Take a note of your phone's ESN, IMEI or MEID number (often found behind the battery or on the back of the iPhone near the FCC ID). This number will come in handy when reporting a lost or stolen phone to the police or to your cellphone provider.
- Schedule Regular Backups - Regularly back up your smartphone to your computer or cellular carrier's servers (if that service is available), to ensure that you don't lose essential documents, purchases, apps, videos and photos that are stored on your phone. Even if you're forced to wipe your cellphone or if it's lost for good, you can often restore a factory fresh replacement to the last backup you've got, complete with apps, settings and documents. Depending on how much you use your phone, we recommend backing up between once a month and once a week. NOTE: Many cellular carriers install an app that will allow you to automatically upload your contacts, photos and other valuable data to their servers. Some of them may charge an extra charge for this service, but its well worth the cost. Check your phones settings or contact your cellular phone carrier for instructions.
- Other Preventive Measures - Don't lend your cellular phone to strangers unless there is an obvious emergency. Be aware of cell phone and tablet thieves. The theft of iPhones, iPads and Android phones are on the increase. Many involve muggings or "grab and run" tactics on subways and buses. Always be aware of your surroundings, and don't walk and text or use your phone when you are alone or in a crowd.
Cellular Phone Carriers Band Together To Counter Act Rise of Cell Phone Theft
The nation's major wireless providers have agreed to a deal with the U.S. government to build a central database of stolen cellphones—part of a broad effort to tame an explosion of thefts nationwide.
The database, which the wireless companies will build and maintain, will be designed to track phones that are reported as lost or stolen and deny them voice and data service. The idea is to reduce crime by making it difficult or impossible to actually use a stolen device, reducing resale value.
Currently, Verizon Communications Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. block phones that are reported stolen from being reactivated. AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA don't. All four have agreed to be part of the new database.
Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, which negotiated the database proposal said.
"New technologies create new risks. We wanted to find a way to reduce the value of stolen smartphones."
Cellphone theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the U.S., law-enforcement officials nationwide say. The deal between the FCC and the wireless carriers is partly the result of pressure from frustrated police chiefs. The Major Cities Chiefs Association, an affiliation of 70 police chiefs from large cities across the U.S. and Canada, published a resolution in February calling on the FCC to require telecom companies to implement technology to disable stolen devices.
Behind the increase in crime: A lucrative market for used phones. Thieves can sell pilfered devices to local merchants or street-corner middlemen—or hawk them on sites such as eBay.com, Amazon.com or Craigslist.org, where a used iPhone, for instance, can fetch several hundred dollars.
In New York there were more than 26,000 incidents of electronics theft in the first 10 months of 2011—81% involving mobile phones—according to an internal police-department document reported by the New York Daily News.
The report said electronics are now the most stolen type of property, surpassing cash. In Washington, D.C., cellphone-related robberies jumped 54% from 2007 to 2011 according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
Details of the national stolen-phone database have yet to be worked out, but a broad outline has been agreed to.
Wireless phones that have been reported stolen to the carrier will be listed in the database using unique serial numbers associated with mobile gadgets. The carriers will block listed phones from accessing carrier networks for voice and data service.
Courtesy an article dated April 12, 2012 appearing in the Background Check Blog, an article dated March 10, 2012 appearing in Business Insider and an article dated May 9, 2011 appearing in Huffington Post and an article dated April 9, 2012 appearing in The Wall Street Journal
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