What do if I lose my phone?

sam9953

sam9953

Adept
HI guys, I just saw a friend of mine lose his galaxy s3 the other day and it started to make me wonder, what will I do if I ever lose my precious Xperia S?

Is there any service or any other method using which we can track our phone incase it is ever stolen or is ever lost?
 
I too think about this many a times. We take for granted that we will never lose the phone but that is untrue. Now your data is almost gone so forget about it.
First thing you can do is to setup some sort of passcode or pattern on your phone for unlocking. This might not allow the thief (or whoever got the phone) to enter into your device.
In case you have android device then there are many tracking apps available which you can use. I don't know the names so cannot help.
In iOS devices, you have Find my iPhone with which you can even remote wipe the data and even remote lock.
But the basic thing is that all these tracking stuff rely on internet so if the thief removes the SIM or turns off the internet then you are out of luck.
 
just out of curiosity.

what if the thief knows that that the android user has clockwork recovery.

all he has to do is go in recovery and install a rom right?

just a hypothetical case.

so all additional apps wont count right?
 
raksrules said:
I too think about this many a times. We take for granted that we will never lose the phone but that is untrue. Now your data is almost gone so forget about it.
First thing you can do is to setup some sort of passcode or pattern on your phone for unlocking. This might not allow the thief (or whoever got the phone) to enter into your device.
In case you have android device then there are many tracking apps available which you can use. I don't know the names so cannot help.
In iOS devices, you have Find my iPhone with which you can even remote wipe the data and even remote lock.
But the basic thing is that all these tracking stuff rely on internet so if the thief removes the SIM or turns off the internet then you are out of luck.
Click to expand...

I do own an android device (Xperia S). Yeah you got it right, I am asking for a method by which I can track my phone if it is stolen or if someone else has it. Can't it be tracked using the inbuilt GPS or something, does that have anything to do with the SIM?
 
Aman27deep said:
You are a man city fan, so you must surely be rich, so there's not a problem there! ;)

On topic - Use Wheres my Droid. Mate of mine has a success story with this app, so I'm sure it works!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alienmanfc6.wheresmyandroid
Click to expand...
Mate seriously, that was one of the best posts I have read in recent times, surely I am a true Man City fan but I am not Sheikh Mansour, infact I am more like a Blackpool FC owner, quite poor.

Staying on topic, can you please tell me how this app can help incase somebody steals my phone, switches the phone off, removes the SIM? Will it still be able to help me in tracking the theif?[DOUBLEPOST=1366305123][/DOUBLEPOST]
Superbad said:
just out of curiosity.

what if the thief knows that that the android user has clockwork recovery.

all he has to do is go in recovery and install a rom right?

just a hypothetical case.

so all additional apps wont count right?
Click to expand...
Wow, I seriously think you are going a bit too far, though this might be possible, but a very less chance, I believe.
 
Superbad said:
just out of curiosity.

what if the thief knows that that the android user has clockwork recovery.

all he has to do is go in recovery and install a rom right?

just a hypothetical case.

so all additional apps wont count right?
Click to expand...

I am yet to come across a thief educated in the workings of Android lol
most thieves would steal your bling and pawn it off to the nearest fence for a pittance

But yes what you say is possible
 
eeps.. definite ot bashing here... well luck had me so never lost my android.... but yeah.. where's my droid is a good free app.... you get an sms from the New inserted SIM sui that's a help.. plus you can message the phone to get gps positions and to sound alarms... there is also a feature to make the app hidden.. any other free good locating softwares anyone?
 
@sam9953

I feel there is almost no chance of getting the GPS positions without some sort of SIM or internet access. Because even if the phone has GPS and it collect the location, the only way the location would reach you from phone is either internet access (like find my iPhone works) or through SMS and some apps provide this feature.
 
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I feel all these apps fails once the thief switches off the phone, Just 2 days before Friend lost Lumia 720 in India's famous city Varanasi, all he could do was remote wipe and be happy :( but ofcourse we are talking about a Droid here so you can try these fantastic apps from AVG and Lookout
http://www.avg.com/in-en/antivirus-for-android
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lookout

Don't know how the whole tracking system works but I still feel once the phone goes off then it may not be able to be tracked and the first thing the thieves do is switch off the phone.
 
I am sure this might be possible (not applicable to removable battery phones) but there would be an app or something which would prevent the phone from being shutoff without a passcode ?
Although mine is no fool proof but i have an iPhone and it is jailbroken and as a first preventive measure i have a passcode setup. I have this app installed from cydia which will take the picture from front camera when wrong passcode is entered, start the EDGE/3G on my phone (if not already on) and email to picture to a predefined email address. The EDGE/3G then stays on and it cannot be turned off for a certain period of time (not sure how much).
Also when someone tries to turn off the phone in locked mode, the app does not allow the phone to be turned off and every power off attempt will mean more pictures captured and emailed. Now since there is no way the person can turn off internet without unlocking the phone, it may aid in tracking.
But as with all methods, if the SIM card is removed all this fails.
But yes it does have feature to send a SMS when a new non approved SIM card is entered and what i can do after that is that i can send remote commands as SMS to this new number (custom setup) and these commands will perform the actions which they have been told to (you defined this before only).
Like say i send a SMS as "locat10n' i will receive a SMS with the GPS co-ordinates of the phone.
Similarly if i send SMS as "takep1c' then it turns on EDGE/3G and emails me pic.
The good part is that even if the new SIM does not have internet plan and does have some balance the internet will work consuming his main balance.

I have deliberately choosen words with numbers above as the app is too sensitive that even if the word is there in any SMS that comes it performs the commands and before i had setup as "location" and when i had SMSed someone with text as "what is your location" the app interpreted it as command and i started receiving bulk emails with location every 10 minutes.
 
Mechanic said:
I am yet to come across a thief educated in the workings of Android lol
most thieves would steal your bling and pawn it off to the nearest fence for a pittance

But yes what you say is possible
Click to expand...

what the thief would do is try to get rid of the phone as soon as possible.(remove the sim and switch off)

that phone will then will be sold off to nearby seconds mobile shop,

and i am assuming they do know to play around with the recovery.
 
When One of my friend's cell was pick pocketed he tracked down his lost mobile through the IMEI number.........the person who was using his mobile brought the phone in the grey market and apparently he was using some other carrier.....so he called him to his new number and warned him of legal consequences....that poor guy had to travel some 100 miles to give it to my friend.....of course he was very lucky to get his cell back
 
^ that's why i said he was lucky......lol that guy was so worried that he handed over the cell the next day after my friend called.....
 
Well if I had bought a stolen cell phone then I too would travel 100 kms to hand it over. :p

I hate password protecting the phone but I realize I don't want my data to go into the wrong hands so I just added one now.

Really doubt these measures will work if the thief just wipes the phone and changes the SIM card.
 
you can use "androidlost" using this application you can remotely take and view photo from front and back camera, read call logs, get gps data, remotely turn on the wifi and data, sound an alarm etc etc. really helpful in times when your phone is lost or gets stolen. wont help if your phone gets factory reset though
 
Seems, like my thread has stirred quite a discussion.
So I believe the bottom line is that no matter what you do if the thief switches the phone off and removes the SIM, then no matter how much we try, we cannot locate the thieves location.
Am I right?
 
@sam9953, Yes you are right, there is no app which can completely stop the thieves but precautions taken can sometimes help so the discussions of all these apps may help someone to get back his phone after being stolen :)
 
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Saikiran said:
When One of my friend's cell was pick pocketed he tracked down his lost mobile through the IMEI number.........the person who was using his mobile brought the phone in the grey market and apparently he was using some other carrier.....so he called him to his new number and warned him of legal consequences....that poor guy had to travel some 100 miles to give it to my friend.....of course he was very lucky to get his cell back
Click to expand...
One of my friends also went through the same scenario... the new "owner" of his mobile(Samsung Wave II) was found to be staying in the same city and he had to take help from a police hawaaldaar to get his mobile back...

P.S.: he had to pay 2-3k to the hawaaldaar for helping him...lol
 
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