Some people just don’t
know what to do when they find their cellular phone
missing. You may tend to think you misplaced it. One of
the first things you can do is call you cellular phone.
Why? If you lost it and someone answers who is honest,
they will tell you that they have it and will help you by
returning it. Expect to pay them a reward for their
trouble.
Make arrangements to pick
up your phone with that person. If no one answers within
the 2nd or 3rd call that you have
placed to the lost phone, one after the other, don’t
bother trying again. Assume the phone is either lost for
good or has been stolen.
Within the matter of 20
minutes of being unable to locate your phone, you should
call your cellular phone carrier and request that service
be suspended immediately because you have lost your
cellular phone. Write down whom you spoke with in
customer service and the time/date you called. Even if
you have made arrangements with a person to return your
phone, have the service deactivated anyhow. You don’t
know that the person you spoke with will really follow
through with the arrangements.
Selling time from a lost
or stolen cellular phone to passing people is a huge
black market service that is conducted at your expense.
Make sure to check your next phone bill for possible
charges to your phone in the time it was lost. These
criminals know that the time they have is short and will
sell the phone outright to anyone who expresses an
interest.
As long as your phone has
active service, anyone who has stolen a phone or found an
active cellular phone can use it. And you would be held
responsible for paying for those calls. So if you don’t
want to pay long distance and roaming charges, have the
service deactivated immediately. It would be a good idea
to keep you carrier’s customer service number readily
available.
What you can expect in
this unfortunate situation could be even more misery.
Unless you have some type of insurance, you are going to
have to buy another phone. When you activated the phone
with the carrier, they paid a portion of the cost for the
phone as a part of their promotional efforts.
You will be paying the
full retail price of the phone. Some carriers may have
used phones in stock that are slightly cheaper than a new
phone. If you want to save some money, you can also
locate a company that isn’t a carrier and specializes
in the sale of cellular phones without activation. They
will generally charge much less than a carrier for a
replacement phone.
To
buy a replacement phone, click here
Even if you find the phone
again, you shouldn’t let your guard down. The potential
for someone using your phone in a fraudulent manner is
still there. Again, you will want to monitor your phone
bill over the next six months looking for unusual call
activity on your monthly wireless phone bill; reporting
the frequent receipt of wrong number calls or hang-ups on
the phone, which may indicate someone else is using your
cellular phone number.
To prevent fraud from
happening, you will want to take care to remove obvious
evidence of owning a cellular phone. Antennas on the
vehicle, phones left lying in the car in plain sight,
etc. And always put away documents that were given to you
by the service provider. They usually contain the ESN
(Electronic Serial Number) which will allows someone to
clone your phone. Something else you may want to do is
use your keypad lock. If they can’t access your phone
pad, they can’t get your ESN or telephone number as
easily. Read your phone manual if you are not sure
whether you have this capability or not.
Be advised that a digital
TDMA phone was recently experimented upon to see whether
it could be cloned. The answer is yes, it is possible.
Not without some difficulty, but a determined criminal
wouldn’t let that stop them.
