Stolen Cell Phone... What to do?

Super Cameraman · Post by **Super Cameraman** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 4:38 pm

I'm not going to say how it got stolen, but I will say that my cell phone, my glasses, and one of my pair of jeans were stolen from my school today. That's all I'm saying about that. I'll admit, how it happened was pretty stupid, but that's behind us.

The jeans I'm not seriously concerned about. And I know that if I find who has the phone, I find the glasses. I know it all got stolen because when I called my phone for the 6th time, someone picked up and said "He's not here." and hung up. Hilarious right?

I'm probably going to cancel the service as soon as I can (or whatever you call it) but I know that I have a better chance of getting it back then if it were stolen in a city. A school has a certain number of people and guess what.... Security cameras!

What should I do? What would you do? I've left a few messages (there's no password to check voicemail on my phone for some reason) telling the thief to return it to the office by Friday or I'll take action. I told him that if he returns it, this never happened.

Was this a good idea? Obviously the smartest thing would be to just tell someone and look at the tapes and look for someone carrying a pair of jeans out of the school, but I'd rather do this without getting anyone in trouble. (I'm not exactly the "tough" type. Who knows what he'd do)

I'd heard of ways to track a cell phone. Are any of these real? He picked the phone up twice (just hung up the second time) so is there a way to track the approximate location? Can AT&T (my carrier) do that?

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 5:06 pm

Locker room and you left your locker unlocked?

I think pretty much every phone made in the last few years has a GPS system of some sort built in. You could call your service provider and see if they can track it.

Super Cameraman · Post by **Super Cameraman** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 5:12 pm

Not even the locker room. So incredibly stupid, I can't even think about it without laughing.
If you really want to know, I left my jeans in the lobby... I don't know what I was thinking.

EDIT: It's a RAZR V3. I'm not worried about where it is. I'm almost 100% positive that the guy goes to my school.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 5:26 pm

File a police report, or file a report with campus security. If the phone shows up they'll let you know. Also let your phone company know, they'll be able to track if it's being used and help the police find it.

Harshboy · Post by **Harshboy** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 5:40 pm

Yup, call up your cellular service provider and tell them it was stolen and you want them to log and track locations that it is being used from. They can relay that information to your local police and catch that little SOAB.

nightwheel · Post by **nightwheel** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 5:53 pm

I agree with Harshboy and Sparkfist. Call your cell phone provider. And they should be able to track your cell if it gets used

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 6:57 pm

I think a better bet is to go to your office and get them to look at security footage before it's erased.

I know at my old high school, it was erased monthly, although weekly isn't out of the question. Besides, it'll give the cameras a use; they're mostly a scare tactic, nobody ever watches them for anything useful.

Tibia · Post by **Tibia** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:15 pm

Cancel your service immediately. Don't wait. If you recover the phone, they'll reactivate it, usually without charging. Seriously, leaving it active was even dumber than letting it get stolen.

Super Cameraman · Post by **Super Cameraman** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:01 pm

Okay, the service has been suspended. The guy on the phone also said the thief didn't use any minutes. Weird.

nightwheel · Post by **nightwheel** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:14 pm

Super Cameraman wrote:Okay, the service has been suspended. The guy on the phone also said the thief didn't use any minutes. Weird.

Give them a bit. Also, what kind of Phone was it?

Super Cameraman · Post by **Super Cameraman** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:50 pm

nightwheel wrote:
Super Cameraman wrote:Okay, the service has been suspended. The guy on the phone also said the thief didn't use any minutes. Weird.
Give them a bit. Also, what kind of Phone was it?

A bit of what? It was (hopefully still is) a RAZR V3.

Is it me, or were the old RAZR's (back when Cingular was around) made of metal? The new one I have (had) is plastic.

Joes2Silly · Post by **Joes2Silly** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 9:06 pm

Throw a brick through everyone in your town/city/province/township 's windows until you find out who did it. Or you could just deactivate it, your choice

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 10:26 pm

What's your provider? If they are on the GSM network (AT&T, T-Mobile, and a few smaller ones) they may have swapped SIM cards. Or ebay. Or craigslist. Or pawnshops.

weaponepsilon · Post by **weaponepsilon** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 10:33 pm

well, what you could have done was have the company track the uses by calling it and hope the idiot actually answering. (which is what it sounded like) By him answering, he still logs onto the network and should be traceable. Could've even diced it up by calling it from assorted random numbers. Even had fun with it by telling the guy that he owes the mob for stealing a mob phone and he been marked.