Have you ever lost your phone? Do you know what to do in such a situation? I have never lost a phone but I have come close a few times. The anxiety attack that ensued was enough to make me decide to do something to minimize a possible loss. But what should you do to protect yourself? Here are a few tips to help make a potentially bad situation into something more manageable.
The first thing we need to discuss is the type of loss. If we are talking, losing your phone in the house versus losing it in a cab, there are different steps that you need to take. Obviously, losing your phone in a cab or leaving it in a restaurant is a more serious spot to be in and one that will require immediate attention. However, losing your phone in the laundry and destroying it could be almost as devastating in terms of the data loss. These are all first world problems I know, but we are an Android site and some of us keep all of our data on there. In either case, there are some steps you should take to help recover from the loss or recover your phone.
One of the most important steps if you lose your phone is not to panic. It is easier said than done, but a calm rational person is more likely
to take the correct steps in order to find their phone or at least stop any personal data from being stolen. You should retrace your steps either physically or mentally. Walk through in your mind the last time you had your phone. Do you remember what came next? If you can, go back to that spot and look around or call your phone. I left my brand new Galaxy Nexus on a chair in a busy Starbucks one night. I had put it down for a second and it slid back in the chair. I got up and left the store. When I got to the stop light a block from the store I realized that my precious phone was not with me. I thought for a few seconds about where I last had it (seemed like an eternity) and remembered sitting it on the chair. A quick U-turn or two later and I was back at the store. There in the chair sat my phone. I am not going to say I was calm but I didn't completely freak out either.
to take the correct steps in order to find their phone or at least stop any personal data from being stolen. You should retrace your steps either physically or mentally. Walk through in your mind the last time you had your phone. Do you remember what came next? If you can, go back to that spot and look around or call your phone. I left my brand new Galaxy Nexus on a chair in a busy Starbucks one night. I had put it down for a second and it slid back in the chair. I got up and left the store. When I got to the stop light a block from the store I realized that my precious phone was not with me. I thought for a few seconds about where I last had it (seemed like an eternity) and remembered sitting it on the chair. A quick U-turn or two later and I was back at the store. There in the chair sat my phone. I am not going to say I was calm but I didn't completely freak out either.
What if you really don't remember where you left your phone? Try calling it. If you lose it in the house listen for the ringing. Many people do not keep the ringer on and turn the phone to vibrate. Listen for the buzzing. I have found my phone when it fell out of my pocket in the car by calling it and hearing the low buzz. If the phone was found maybe it will be answered. You can hope that your phone was found by someone honest that will be helpful. Do not threaten the person holding your phone. They have the upper hand in the matter and if you want any hope at all of them returning it to you they shouldn't feel like they did anything wrong. You lost the phone! Talk calmly and thank them for finding it then try to get their name and location. This will help you to recover it. If they become uncooperative you may need to call the police and your cell phone carrier right away.
Now let's assume that you have lost your phone or had it stolen. All hope is still not lost but there are some important steps you need to take. You will want to change your passwords immediately. Yes, all of your passwords that are tied to apps on your phone should be changed. This is a pain but having someone posting as you on your Facebook page is bad enough but hacking your banking account and using your Amazon apps to buy expensive items could be far worse. Identity theft is no joke and your data on the phone could be used by someone else, costing you money. Warn your family and friends that your phone has been stolen. This will help if the person with the phone contacts them in finding out who may have it and some criminals are now even using phones to call contacts to try and rob them by faking emergencies. Changing your number sounds like a big hassle too but in the long run it will protect you, your family and friends.
After changing your passwords call your carrier and have them put a hold on the phone. Don't wait too long to do this or you could be held partially responsible for those 400 calls to Mumbai. Here are the customer service numbers you can call from another line.
- Verizon Wireless: (800) 922-0204
- AT&T: (800) 331-0500
- Sprint Nextel (888) 211-4727
- T-Mobile: (877) 453-1304
There are some precautions you should take right now to make this all easier. Write down your IMEI and ENS or serial number in a safe place right now. If you need to call the carrier this is useful information that they will likely ask for. Having it available will make the process easier. If you have a SIM card in your phone for AT&T or T-Mobile have that number on hand too. Another thing you can do is install some tracking software. There are several apps that do this. I personally use Where's My Droid and SeekDroid. Both are tracking apps but in my experience I have found Where's My Droid to be more useful for the situation where you have lost your phone in the house or car and are trying to make it ring so that you can locate it whereas, SeekDroid is more of a remote control/prevent the bad guys from stealing your data app. SeekDroid has a website you can go to from any computer and it will tell you all of the stats it can about your phone, including battery level and location. It can track your phone with GPS and remotely wipe your SD cards and app data. It will give you peace of mind knowing your information is safe. I personally use both apps. If I drop the phone in the couch I text my phone with Where's My Droid if I lost my phone I would track it with GPS in SeekDroid.
The last prevention step you should do before you lose your phone is to be sure to have an off-device backup. A Nandroid Backup (rooted devices) is a great way to backup your phone's data. However, if you lose your phone, that data backup will be on the SD card along with your phone and both are lost. It will not help you at all if the phone is destroyed or never recovered. Titanium Backup (also requires root) allow you to backup to a Dropbox account. I do a backup to Dropbox every once and a while just in case something happens to my phone. I know at the very least that I will be able to pull that backup down if I have to replace my phone. If you are cheap thrifty and do not want to pay for that type of software then hook up your data cable and backup your phone to a computer. This will give you a backup that is not on your device. Now I can't help you if you backup to your laptop and you lose both your laptop and your phone! Try and put the backup somewhere safe.
You should be checking your contacts to be sure they are synchronizing to your Google account in the cloud (www.google.com/contacts/) to ensure that you do not lose any of that data. Your emails will be stored in the cloud and should simply download again to another phone if you have to replace your device. If you have a backup of the SD card or keep your documents on Google Docs all of your data should be recoverable. But what if you (heaven forbid) do not own an Android device? There is hope for you too, or at least your data. Blackberry phones sync back to a BIS or BES server and will pull your data down to a new device. All of your data is synchronized wirelessly to the Blackberry server. I have recovered users data to a new phone when the old one took an unexpected swim. Windows phones sync data to servers, normally an Exchange server or your Windows Live account with your files going to Skydrive. iPhone users can sync contacts to iCloud or you can sync to iTunes. From what I read it isn't automatically going to iCloud throughout the day but only once a day. Your contacts and data will only sync to iTunes when you connect the phone to your computer. Better yet dump that puny screened brainwash machine and get a real phone (hey, we are an Android site after all!).
These are my suggestions for reducing the impact of a lost phone. Have you lost a phone? Any feedback would be appreciated. Let us know what you did to recover or lessons that you learned.
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