Help Emergency: lost my SGN abroad - what steps should I take immediately?

[theWUbear]

Thanks in advance for any and all input. I'm going to state the facts in bullet form

• My SGN had a pattern lock on it
• My SGN was NOT currently activated on a network, it had been disabled for four months as I have lived abroad
• I have no emergency find my android apps installed I imagine
• The phone clearly auto-accesses my facebook, gmail, gcalendar, and other information provided the pattern is displayed

How do I notify google that this device should no longer be connected with my google account? What other things should I do to protect myself? Any advice for places to purchase the verizon SGN off contract? I'm going to bite the bullet and purchase a new one - any advice about buying and transferring accounts to the new one would be helpful.

I've put myself in a bad situation and I greatly appreciate any of the advice you can give to help me out!
-theWUbear

 

[trophynuts]

by saying it has been disabled for four months You mean it is not on any carrier's account anywhere?

Honestly if you're going to buy a new phone retail i would look at the GS3.

 

[theWUbear]

by saying it has been disabled for four months You mean it is not on any carrier's account anywhere?

Honestly if you're going to buy a new phone retail i would look at the GS3.

Correct, I'm not on any carrier's account with this. It only works through wifi.

If someone was to break my pattern, they would theoretically have access to all my google accounts, etc.

I have changed my password, but that doesn't do anything right? Is there any way to tell google this phone isn't associated with my account anymore? Through account settings or google play or something?

 

[Paul1201]

The phone will only allow 5 attempts to enter the PIN then it will ask for your Google password. If the password is incorrect I think it will factory reset. I've never heard of a way to get around this.

 

[trophynuts]

changing the google password should work, even if they were to break your pattern unlock if they were to do anything using google apps it should prompt them to enter the new password which they won't know. I would change your Facebook Password as well. And any other social accts you had on the phone.

 

[heat57]

I am afraid you missed the boat. Most security apps that help you trace, locate, remotely wipe and lock down your device require prior installation before being fully functional. There was one I recall that could be installed remotely, but for this to work you would need a carrier signal (Wifi wouldn't do it). Then there are numerous other factors, which you have no control over - is the battery drained, is it on a Wifi network or not and so on. Best advice for you has already been given, CHANGE YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT PASSWORD - NOW!!! if you haven't already done so. One final thought, with your next device get your self an app that helps you find your phone and wipe it if need be. A lot of the good ones are available for FREE from Play Store.

 

[Deleted User]

I have changed my password, but that doesn't do anything right? Is there any way to tell google this phone isn't associated with my account anymore? Through account settings or google play or something?

By changing your password, you have basically disassociated your device from your Google account.

The only thing they would/will have access to is stuff that is cached offline. That kind of depends on how you had your phone set up - whether email was cached offline, how much of it, if you had text messages stored on your phone, etc. For instance, I have my Gmail set to cache 30 days of messages so if someone got my phone and I changed my password, they'd have 30 days worth of messages that they could access.

There's no way to wipe it remotely without having an app installed on it.

You can change your Facebook password as well, to do the same thing with Facebook. If you log into Facebook, and go to Account Settings > Security, there is a place where you can manually end remote sessions of Facebook. That will log out your remote Facebook accounts as well.