Phone stolen whilst on holiday.

[QCube]

Hello there.

I have a family member currently on holiday in Palma, Spain. Late last evening she had been pickpocketed and her phone, her hotel key and

 

[Unforgiven]

I can't speak to the travel insurance part. As far as the tracing of our phone, it would need to be connected to wifi and not factory reset for you to get a fix on it. Chances are if this is a common occurance, they may be smart enough to to a factory reset on it before letting it boot up, in which case you won't be able to track it at all. They still won't be able to activate it vodaphone (and may other carriers) as they have blacklisted it.

 

[QCube]

I can't speak to the travel insurance part. As far as the tracing of our phone, it would need to be connected to wifi and not factory reset for you to get a fix on it. Chances are if this is a common occurance, they may be smart enough to to a factory reset on it before letting it boot up, in which case you won't be able to track it at all. They still won't be able to activate it vodaphone (and may other carriers) as they have blacklisted it.

So GPS is out of the equation on this one? I'm hoping that all other carriers will blacklist it too as the police have the details of the phone and said they put some sort of block on the phone themselves too. I'm hoping the robbers are dumbasses and haven't got a clue what they're doing and get caught red handed but we can only wish.

 

[Unforgiven]

What they do is issue an IMEI / ENS block. These are unique numbers that identify each phone. Most carriers will share this information and not let the phone work on their network as it is usually for either lost phones or phones where the customer hasn't paid their bill to a carrier. Some 3rd world carriers will still activate them and there are illegal ways alter these identifiers.

As far as GPS, I guess it is possible if they connect it to WiFi without doing a factory reset and it can get a GPS signal. If you are able, I'd grab a screenshot and get it to the police ASAP as they may be prepping to reset it or be getting ready to move.

I'm going to do a little mod magic here and transfer the first post to your now registered account and move the thread to the Android Lounge where more members will see it and potentially offer ideas.

 

[QCube]

What they do is issue an IMEI / ENS block. These are unique numbers that identify each phone. Most carriers will share this information and not let the phone work on their network as it is usually for either lost phones or phones where the customer hasn't paid their bill to a carrier. Some 3rd world carriers will still activate them and there are illegal ways alter these identifiers.

As far as GPS, I guess it is possible if they connect it to WiFi without doing a factory reset and it can get a GPS signal. If you are able, I'd grab a screenshot and get it to the police ASAP as they may be prepping to reset it or be getting ready to move.

I'm going to do a little mod magic here and transfer the first post to your now registered account and move the thread to the Android Lounge where more members will see it and potentially offer ideas.

Yeah, I've given the IMEI number of the phone to the police in Palma and they've taken that on record. I see the use in IMEI more now too. I'm assuming these criminals don't really have a lot of logic as they usually tend to sell the mobile device for a extremely cheap price and to a stranger.

I'm refreshing the location page every 10-20 minutes or so in hope the device is switched on. If so, I'll be able to pull a location (or even last known location) where then I can get the street address and location and forward that to the police and family that are out there. I'm not quite sure what I will do if they turn it on however. Will it be classified as an emergency and would it be justifiable to ring the emergency services and get police straight away?

Thank you very much on the transfer of posts too. Any help that comes my way is putting me in a better position than what i'm in now and I appreciate your fast response a great amount.

 

[Unforgiven]

I doubt you should call the emergency line. If you have a contact number for the local police I would call that, or a non-emergency line, and leave the emergency number for folks that may need life or death assistance. They may send someone right away or may be aware of the location yet need to procure proper clearances (warrants) in order to move in. That all will vary from case to case or jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so I would be remiss to speak for the local authorities.

As far as your posts, if you have general android questions like this, you should, as a member, just post in the AL where a ton of smart people hang out. The Android Questions forum where you first posted this is for folks that are afraid of posting on a forum this large and may be intimidated. As you have found, it's a friendly place full of folks that like to help. No worries about posting in the wrong forum as one of us staffers are always around to move a thread to the best place where you will hopefully get answers.

 

[dan330]

sorry to hear about the problem your family member is having. that really sucks!
can ruin a vacation.

in order for you to get a GPS fix on the phone.
the phone must get a command from you to locate itself.
the phone must be turned on...
GPS radio turned on...able to find a few GPS satellites.
phone must send this information back via some internet connection.

since you killed the carrier connection.
I don't think you will get any feed back from the phone.
without the carrier connection...
the phone will not get the command to locate itself
and not be able to send any data back to you.

sorry again.
hope the insurance works out... for a replacement

 

[QCube]

I doubt you should call the emergency line. If you have a contact number for the local police I would call that, or a non-emergency line, and leave the emergency number for folks that may need life or death assistance. They may send someone right away or may be aware of the location yet need to procure proper clearances (warrants) in order to move in. That all will vary from case to case or jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so I would be remiss to speak for the local authorities.

As far as your posts, if you have general android questions like this, you should, as a member, just post in the AL where a ton of smart people hang out. The Android Questions forum where you first posted this is for folks that are afraid of posting on a forum this large and may be intimidated. As you have found, it's a friendly place full of folks that like to help. No worries about posting in the wrong forum as one of us staffers are always around to move a thread to the best place where you will hopefully get answers.

I understand, I do completely agree with you I suppose, Just thought that If we found the location of the phone and it was in the streets, It's pretty much my last and only chance of getting the phone back which I guess could see justifiable then.. but if it's in a local apartment or hotel, I guess the warrant is needed and hopefully the police there can get that within the hour (well they can do within the UK) so that the phone can't be dumped or destroyed whilst the police wait for a warrant. In all honesty the police there seem very understandable and realise the cost of losing a gadget this expensive and they aren't taking it lightly so hopefully they're able to work close with myself in the UK and my family out there to locate the phone.. In the mean time, all I can do is put an insurance claim in and hope that they will pay out for the cost of it. Otherwise I'm stuck in a 2 year contract that I will have to pay and I will also have to pay for a new phone.. It's unforunate because we've only had the phone for probably not even a month.

I hope you don't mind me saying this on your forums because you're all pretty amazing tech geeks here at your forums and I just have to say that these thieves are total scumbags. I do apologise for that, not disrespecting anyone specifically on the forums, just a rant to say that these robbers are and always will be a scumbag.

As for moving my thread and editing my user, I actually really appreciate the time you've taken out to just help out a guy like myself, I'm not known on the forums and you guys have a pretty increadible community around here. Can't thank you enough.

 

[Unforgiven]

I hope you don't mind me saying this on your forums because you're all pretty amazing tech geeks here at your forums and I just have to say that these thieves are total scumbags. I do apologise for that, not disrespecting anyone specifically on the forums, just a rant to say that these robbers are and always will be a scumbag.

I don't mind that at all. And we may be tech geeks, but we are also parents, grandparents, users, noobs, and everything in between. I also agree that thieves, whether pickpockets or folks stealing content via piracy, are scumbags. That's a couple of reasons why I volunteer my time to moderate here at AF. If you find someone advocating theft, being mean or disrespectful, or any other type of tom foolery just tap that little triangle on the bottom left of any post (

) and it wakes the entire moderating staff via electric shock creates a thread where it will be dealt with appropriately.

Honestly, I appreciate the sentiment.

 

[QCube]

I don't mind that at all. And we may be tech geeks, but we are also parents, grandparents, users, noobs, and everything in between. I also agree that thieves, whether pickpockets or folks stealing content via piracy, are scumbags. That's a couple of reasons why I volunteer my time to moderate here at AF. If you find someone advocating theft, being mean or disrespectful, or any other type of tom foolery just tap that little triangle on the bottom left of any post (

) and it wakes the entire moderating staff via electric shock creates a thread where it will be dealt with appropriately.

Honestly, I appreciate the sentiment.

I can completely understand the community you guys have! I'll probably spend a lot more time around here, community seems absolutely great. I couldn't agree more. I greatly appreciate your concern and I'll be sure to report any content that doesn't follow guidelines in place! Great sense of comedy too! :laugh: If you know any guys specifically that have had an issue like this before or know someone that could help, I've seen you've been around here for a couple years so if you could just send them my way, I'll be pretty much on full standby!

Thanks very much pal!