No not mine, but my 14YO daughter (no not the one that ran up that £550 phone bill). She has been working really hard doing babysitting & odd jobs to save up & get an iPhone, she has had it all of a couple of weeks & went to London today to see a show for a friends birthday & has had it stolen from the side pocket of her small rucksack, absolutely gutted for her, but before you ask she normally is very aware to keep her phone out of sight so I’m sure she was careful as it was her new pride & joy & really the first big purchase she had paid for with her money.
So anyway to the point, I have reported it lost or stolen to the phone company & given them the IMEI number to block, so just what will the thief do with it? Presumably it’s pretty worthless except as an iPod touch or something else?

As I said I’m gutted for her, but I feel it would be wrong to run out & buy her another 🙁

Cheers.

I feel it would be wrong to run out & buy her another

tricky one. I insure my kids electrical stuff against theft and loss because I don;t want to face this dilemma.

If it were my daughter and genuinely thought she’d done all she could to secure it then I’d probably replace it, insurance or not. But I’m a known softie.

Can you use the find my iPhone app?

Edit – and no I’m not taking the mickey – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/find-my-iphone/id376101648?mt=8

It’ll get shipped abroad, where it’s not blocked.

Many many phones (especially iPhones) are stolen to order. She may well have been clocked earlier in the day/evening.

Is it covered by your house insurance?

Thanks chaps, will try the app but the phone is off.
Any idea what a thief would do with it?

Cheers.

Just get her a new one and say you secretly insure the phone or make up any stories that its covered in one of your whatever insurance you have. Her show of effort to get buy an iphone is enough. 😉 but then im a softie too 😀

As I said I’m gutted for her, but I feel it would be wrong to run out & buy her another

If she is sensible and you think she was looking after it properly then buy her another.

If you think she wasn’t then don’t.

The find hipbone app will display the location the phone was when it was last switched on.

http://ipod.about.com/od/usingios4/ht/Use-Find-My-Iphone-To-Locate-Lost-Or-Stolen-Iphone.htm

Any idea what a thief would do with it?

Sell it, probably.

Is there a PIN lock on it? Any cached passwords that could compromise email accounts / website logins / skype / MSN et al?

(Can’t you remote wipe iPhones from iTunes these days?)

When my girlfriend’s iPhone was stolen (similar situation with having coveted one for ages, then finally buying one and having it stolen within a few weeks), I rang Vodafone and told them they could block it from making calls with the IMEI number. The chap on the end of the phone wasn’t so sure he could until he checked with his higher ups.

Apart from that, I don’t have anything other to suggest than Find My iPhone.

Thanks chaps, will try the app but the phone is off.
Any idea what a thief would do with it?

Cheers.

As above, it’ll probably be sold abroad, there are ways that even a locked phone can be hacked, but it needs skillz.
That London is awash with pickpockets, and putting a phone into an outside rucksack pocket is asking for trouble, sadly.
As someone said, it’s entirely possible someone clocked her putting the phone into the pocket, and followed, waiting for an opportunity to bump against her and filch it.
I feel sad on her behalf, it’s a shitty thing to have happen.

No help to you Im afraid, but your OP has prompted me to upgrade my Where’s My Droid app to pro paid version to unlock the remote wipe, remote lock and remote camera activation features.

Cheers all, I have gone down the find my phone route, but obviously offline.
My daughter is balling her eyes out, I feel so sorry for her & also the friends she went to London with as it has obviously ruined the day & I know if it were me in that situation as a parent I would feel at least partly reasonable 🙁

Buy her another if it’s an iphone 4 or older 😉

Thieves. Shits.

Appropriate the phone from £550 bill daughter and pass onto the hard working 14 year old 😉
That there London. An expensive but valuable lesson learnt about the sort of toerags who are out there.
If I were you I’d replace it for her but get her to make a partial contribution when she can.Sort of like a crash replacement policy on a frame.
Other than reporting details to the phone company and police(they do sometimes turn up and you wouldn’t want the scrotes not getting prosecuted) I wouldn’t waste any time or energy on wondering what will happen to it,not worth it IMHO

If her phone was in a closed pocket, and you hadn’t told her all about the dangers of pickpockets in London, and where to keep stuff safe etc, then I would be replacing it for her personally (if I could afford to)

It would be entirely different if she was warned but ignored the advice obviously.

But the pickpockets are VERY good at what they do, and regularly get one over on people with a lot more age and experience behind them than your daughter has.

Given good advice or not; a 14 year old girl out with her mates with a new iPhone? It’ll have spent more time in her hand going “hey, look at this!” than it will locked away in her bag. Soft target for every scrote in a mile radius.

You can change the IMEI on a phone so blocking it is pretty useless. Had she updated the ios to the latest version? If not, then her passcode can be easily bypassed.

As already suggested, I’d be checking the Find my iPhone app reg and as soon as it gets turned on, remotely wipe it. Unfortunately I’d also be getting your daughter to change her passwords etc asap.

Cougar, that may well be, but I just don’t get what the point of steeling it is if it can only be sent abroad & by the time it gets there probably worth about £20 to the thief, risk to reward seems pointless!

It’ll be worth a lot more than £20, and it’s unlikely they’ll have just one by the end of the night.

Don’t get your hopes up about the Droid Apps either – the battery will be taken our asap, SIM removed, and re-flashed with another ROM with all data overwritten – before the phone has had a chance to “go online and phone home”

Clean sweep.

(They’re good at what they do – it’s big business)