Stolen Cell Phone

[Gorgondantess]

Scene: my college's library.
I'm sitting on a bench, talking with a friend. I realize my phone is running out of batteries, and there's an outlet next to the bench, and lucky me, I also happen to have my charger with me; I plug the phone in, and we keep talking.
Fastforward fifteen minutes. He has to go to a class to get something, so I decide to go there with him. Not two minutes later, I realize I'd forgotten my cell phone and run back to grab it, and, predictably, both it and the charger are quite gone.
I used my friend's cell phone, running around the school over the next 15 minutes calling it repeatedly and hoping either it was a good samaritan who decided to turn it in to the lost and found, or the theif was too stupid to silence it and I could hear who it was. No suck luck.

The best part? The phone was free. So I lose all the contacts on my cell phone, and the thief gets... maybe a few free calls. It's worth nothing to anyone but me, and is just a massive inconvenience.:smallannoyed:

[Cobalt]

Ah, god, I hate when this sort of thing happens. Friend of mine had his phone stolen from his bag when we left the room for a few laps around our school; nobody remembered to lock the door, and the entire room was practically cleared out of wallets, cell phones, iPods, etc. They found the guy/girl (they never told anyone who it actually was when they found them, and I never noticed anyone missing, so there you go) and everyone got their things back (or at least my friend did), but still. School is definitely not a good place to forget things you value.

It doesn't help that they'll never go in search of stolen phones again now; my school's decided that, since (in South Carolina) it's illegal for students to bring phones/mp3 players/whatever to school in the first place, they aren't going to go looking for your things if it gets stolen from now on.

Which reminds me to ask- does your college have police go look for electronics if they're stolen? I know it was free and all, but hey, if they do...

[AtlanteanTroll]

If you phone had GPS capabilities, you may be able to backwards track it. IDK. Sucks that it was stolen. At least it was free when you go it. Right?

[Douglas]

I'm pretty sure the phone company has the technical capability to locate your phone for you by triangulation with their cell towers. That's how they found some of the survivors in the World Trade Center, as I recall. How easily they can do that and whether they'd be willing to just because you request it is another matter, but it can't hurt to ask.

Then again, maybe that requires the phone to be currently in use.

[Gorgondantess]

I don't believe it has GPS capabilities- it's a fairly simple phone. Also, I'm pretty sure it requires the phone to be in use to triangulate it.
Anyways, It's honestly not valuable enough to do anything to track it down. I'm not going to get anyone else involved, just cancel that phone and get a new one.:smallsigh:

[Nomrom]

My friend got her phone stolen, so she had us all call it over and over again, just to bug the thief. Didn't accomplish anything of course, but it made us laugh.

[Keld Denar]

I dunno who your provider is, but I have Verizon and my entire contact list is backed up cloud-based. If I get a new phone, all I have to do is connect it and download whatever my most recent backup was. EZPK.

Otherwise, I've seen a lot of people simply make a facebook post that you lost your phone and that they should text you with their name. Assuming you didn't change numbers with the new phone, that should work for getting most of the relevant numbers back.

[Gorgondantess]

Well, the problem I thought I had was reversed.
AT&T burned me a new sim card; I got all my contacts and all that stuff back. Problem is, my previous phone I got at a discount under my deal; now I'd have to fork over $30 for a phone that would be considered decent at the turn of the century.:smallsigh:
(Thankfully, though, I just put the sim card in my old phone. It's still a really terrible phone. With battery problems. And speaker problems.)

[TSGames]

The best part? The phone was free. So I lose all the contacts on my cell phone, and the thief gets... maybe a few free calls. It's worth nothing to anyone but me, and is just a massive inconvenience.:smallannoyed:
That sucks, dude. Look on th bright side, at least you didn't have it synced up with you email, or have it remembering any passwords to online-banking.

I once had a calculator stolen from me in the school's library(when I was in high school). The worst part was that it was my best friend's calculator that I was borrowing. I had to explain the situation and buy him a new one(it was a TI-89silver, which was still not cheap back then). He was still not happy that he lost all his programs.

I know it sucks, but this too shall pass. At least you seem to be keeping pretty cool about it.

[Gorgondantess]

I once had a calculator stolen from me in the school's library(when I was in high school). The worst part was that it was my best friend's calculator that I was borrowing. I had to explain the situation and buy him a new one(it was a TI-89silver, which was still not cheap back then). He was still not happy that he lost all his programs.
Yeah, when you lose something of your own that's one thing... but losing something of your friend's is just awful.:smallfrown:


I know it sucks, but this too shall pass. At least you seem to be keeping pretty cool about it.
Eh, I was annoyed when it happened, but it's not the end of the world- just a phone, no? At least it wasn't my friend's phone.:smalltongue:

[Pocketa]

I dunno who your provider is, but I have Verizon and my entire contact list is backed up cloud-based. If I get a new phone, all I have to do is connect it and download whatever my most recent backup was. EZPK.

Otherwise, I've seen a lot of people simply make a facebook post that you lost your phone and that they should text you with their name. Assuming you didn't change numbers with the new phone, that should work for getting most of the relevant numbers back.

This.

Also, SIM cards. Can they be copied? If so, I'd use a spare SIM card as a backup. Verizon doesn't "do" SIM cards for the most part, so I remain ignorant.

[Jimorian]

Part of school life, unfortunately. :smallsigh:

In my video camera and editing class, we had to make Public Service Announcements. One classmate had a brilliant one about not leaving items unattended in the library, showing a thief snabbing somebody's laptop, then returning to his own table to find that somebody else had grabbed his backpack in the meantime. :smallamused:

[Pocketa]

Wouldn't happen to be this gem, would it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDLf2Yc2PJo

EDIT: sorry, last link should've been fine but was a virus.