If
you’ve ever had your smartphone stolen, you know how aggravating and
embarrassing it can be. Not only does some thief now have possession of
your entire digital life, he or she also knows that you never got past
the third level of Candy Crush.
And while you undoubtedly feel violated and super pissed,
there are some important things you should and shouldn’t do when you
realize a thief has purloined your handset. Here’s where to start.
If you’ve got an iPhone
If
you’ve got an iPhone, now is the time to pat yourself on the back for
having the wherewithal to sign in to your iCloud account when you first
set up your handset. (You did sign up, didn’t you?) That’s because you
can now use Apple’s iCloud.com to remotely lock your handset to keep
thieves from accessing your private information or reset your phone.
To
use Find My iPhone, you’ll want to log in to your iCloud.com account
from another device, using your Apple ID and password. Click on Find My
iPhone, and select your stolen iPhone from the All Devices tab at the
top of the screen. From there, you’ll be able to remotely lock your
phone.
If,
under the circumstances, you’re pretty certain that you won’t ever see
your handset again, you might want to go ahead and just remotely erase
it, to be doubly sure your information is safe. To do so, select Erase
iPhone from the Find My iPhone device screen. The next time the thief
connects your handset to the Internet, your iPhone will receive the
erase message and automatically wipe itself.
Find
My iPhone also, obviously, lets you locate your device, though you’ll
have to make sure Location Services are always enabled. The feature is
meant for those times when you lose your phone in the back of a cab or
leave it somewhere in your house. If your phone was in fact stolen,
however, you shouldn’t try to track it down via the app in an attempt to
catch the person who stole your gadget.
Instead,
you should contact the police and show them your device’s current
location. They might be able to use that information to track down the
perp and recover your phone. There’s no reason to confront a potentially
violent thief over a phone. Leave that part to the professionals.
If you’ve got an Android phone
Android
smartphone owners can use Google’s Android Device Manager to locate,
lock, and erase their handsets. To use the site, you’ll first have to
link your Google account with your phone. If you originally set up your
phone using your Google account, then you’re already set. If not, you
can link your Android phone with your account by activating Google Now.
If you visit Google.com from your PC and type lost smartphone, smartphone lost, or smartphone stolen into the search bar, your search results will automatically include a map and the system will begin searching for your phone.
If
you have multiple phones, you can select the one that went missing from
the top right corner of the map. You can then send commands to your
phone such as Ring, Lock, Locate, or Erase by clicking the appropriate
button in the bottom left corner of the map. You’ll have to make sure
you leave your phone’s GPS on all the time, though, to track its
location.
The
same rules — about not trying to go all Charles Bronson on the thief
who stole your phone — apply here: If your phone was stolen, contact the
police and let them handle the situation.
Call your carrier
OK,
so your phone has been stolen, and the police can’t really do much to
get it back. That’s a serious bummer. But before you buy a new phone, or
take to the streets in your spandex unitard to bring justice to your
fair city, you should call your carrier to suspend your service.
Suspending
your service ensures that the person who stole your phone can’t run up
your bill or make any purchases from your device.
An ounce of prevention
Once
you’ve finished cursing the sky and the person who stole your
smartphone and moved on to a new handset, you’re going to want to take
some steps to make sure your new gadget doesn’t get pilfered like your
last one.
Your
first move is to make sure to set up a password lock for your phone.
This way, should your new handset be lost or stolen, you can ensure that
no one can access your information.
From
a simple crime-prevention standpoint, you should keep your smartphone
in sight at all times. Leaving your handset on a table at a restaurant
and walking away will just lead to trouble.
On
a similar note, if you’re riding public transportation or walking
around your city, you’ll want to try to keep from displaying your phone
so that thieves have fewer opportunities to snag it.
And
if you haven’t activated iCloud on your iPhone and registered your
Android phone with your Google account, for God’s sake, do it.
