What to Do if You’ve Lost Your Cell Phone or If Your Cell Phone is Stolen or Missing   - 17,940 Views, 27 Comments

Summary: Every day, dozens of people realize "Oh no, I've lost my cellphone!" A lost cellphone or a missing or stolen cellphone can be more than just an inconvience. Particularly these days, with email, text messages, and more on one's cell phone, losing a cell phone can be a big security issue.

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Every day, dozens of people realize “Oh no, I’ve lost my cell phone!” A lost cell phone or a missing or stolen cell phone can be more than just an inconvience. Particularly these days, with email, text messages, and more on one’s cell phone, losing a cell phone can be a big security issue.

Here is a list of things that you should do if you’ve lost your cell phone.

1. Calm down, take a deep breath, and take a few minutes to think about where you last remember having it. Retrace your steps. Often you will find your phone just by taking this time to relax and reflect.

2. Use another phone to call your cell phone so that you can hear it ring. If you don’t have another phone handy, ask a friend to make the call for you. It’s important to do this shortly after you realize that your cell phone is missing, before it runs out of battery.

3. If you don’t find your cell phone after calling it, contact every place you’ve been between the time you last had your cell phone and the time that you realized that your cell phone was lost. It doesn’t matter whether or not you actually used your cell phone there; it may have fallen out of your pocket, or you may have placed it on the table or counter during a meeting or a meal.

4. If you don’t locate your lost cell phone within a few hours, call your cell phone provider and have them turn off all services to your cell phone! This is the most critical step. Be sure to do this. Whether it was lost or stolen, if your cell phone falls into the hands of the wrong person a great deal of your information can be gleaned and used to steal your identity. In addition, it can be used to compromise your friends and colleagues, especially if you have email and text messages on your phone, but even if you don’t.

After having them turn off all your services, go into your carrier’s local store, pick up a new cell phone, and have everything restored to your new phone. Depending on what kind of cell phone you have, and who your carrier is, you may be able to have everything restored and back up and running within a matter of minutes. But even if not, the hassle of having to set up a new phone is nothing compared to the hassle of having someone pretend to be you and drain your bank accounts, harrass your friends, post your pictures on the Internet, and more.

By the way, there are now programs for some smart phones which will turn your ringer on remotely for you, so that you can try to find your cell phone by calling it even if it was set to mute when you lost it. They do this by having you text a PIN to your cell phone, which tells the phone to set the ringer to high. One such program for the Google G1 phone is PinTail.

What to Do if You’ve Lost Your Cell Phone or If Your Cell Phone is Stolen or Missing

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Previous Article « Facebook Censors Pictures of Breastfeeding Babies
Read Next Article » New Free Eco-Friendly EcoFont Cuts Toner Use by 20%, Saves Money and the Earth!

Read more:

»  What to Do if Your Cell Phone is Stolen: How to Track Your Stolen Cell Phone and How to Catch the Thief

»  New Service Causes Stolen Cell Phones to Scream and Become Disabled! Remote XT Renders Stolen Mobiles Completely Unusable

»  Is Your Cell Phone Transmitting Your Location? Cell Phone Tracking, Location Privacy and e911

»  All AT&T, Verizon, and Alltel Analog Cell Phones Will Stop Working after February

For additional similar stories check out our archives on Cell Phones

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27 Comments »

  1. BEFORE you lose your phone, register it on WimpIt dot com

    This is strictly a cell phone retrieval website, easy to use, and a great idea. I registered immediately when finding it. There’s much more info on the website.

    WIMP is an acronym - Where Is My Phone

    Comment by Cory Hoffart — 1/2/2009 @ 7:42 am

  2. WIMPit.com is an interesting idea to register your IMEI number, so that if someone finds your cell phone, they can go to WIMPit.com and look up your IMEI - but *who* would ever *think* to look at the IMEI, and then *how* would they know to go to WIMPit.com to find the owner?

    Comment by The Internet Patrol — 1/2/2009 @ 7:51 am

  3. i am soooooooooooooooo lost without my cell phone and im heart broken!!!:(

    Comment by niki — 2/19/2009 @ 7:33 am

  4. Hi i m very sade my Mobile N73 Music Edition lost..

    please help me IMEI 353546021310284

    please help me..

    Comment by Muhammad Tariq — 4/19/2009 @ 10:00 pm

  5. Please help me for traking my phone N73 Music Edition please help me IMEI 353546021310284 please..email tariq_repairman at hotmail.com

    Comment by Muhammad Tariq — 4/19/2009 @ 10:07 pm

  6. my n 71 has stolen i can i found it

    Comment by krishan — 4/24/2009 @ 9:28 am

  7. We bought our son a new iPhone for Christmas, and it was stolen while he was at school. I hope Karma hits whoever stole it.

    Comment by mom — 5/3/2009 @ 10:08 am

  8. i had lost my phone yesterday my imei no is 356900-01-144804-1 please lock my phone

    Comment by Dev Narayan — 5/11/2009 @ 9:36 pm

  9. dear sir/mam,
    my nokia mobile n73 has lost on 30/05/08 in mumbai. my mobile imei no is352916026118209. purchasing date is 02/04/08. i have also lost my luke mobile sim with mobile thats number is 9773513442 … i have also fir in police station. but no any information of my mobie plz help me… plz mail me on my email address nafees.bhai at gmail.com….

    Comment by ateek khan — 6/1/2009 @ 8:16 am

  10. pls am michael and my nokia 6630 was stolen .pls can u help destroy it. my imei number is 35567700316.thank u

    Comment by michael — 6/21/2009 @ 7:53 am

  11. my cellphone was stolen yesterday and i dont know the mobile imei no please help me

    Comment by ailene — 7/22/2009 @ 5:43 pm

  12. i lost my nokia n95 mobile plz make help for me i am very deppressed my mobile imei number:352026024720947

    Comment by g.praveen — 7/22/2009 @ 11:23 pm

  13. i lost my phone i want the phone numbers back my life is in that phone numbers please help me…..

    Comment by sandeep — 7/23/2009 @ 9:25 am

  14. i lost my Samsung A737 and I din’t remember where it is, none of my friends remember either. WHAT DO I DO?!?!?!?!?!?1?!?!??!?! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

    Comment by sadcherrios — 8/16/2009 @ 10:52 am

  15. i have lost my china cell phone i.e.,dual sim cell phone on thursday evening 20/08/09,but i dont’t know my IMEI number in that cell phone two numbers r working 9490969345 and another number is 9030531938.plz tell me how to find

    Comment by k.jaya prakash — 8/20/2009 @ 8:00 am

  16. My Samsung SGH-L760 IMEI:353329/02/2058628/8 was stolen yesterday, 25/08/2009. Please, help me destroy it.

    Comment by Matthew — 8/26/2009 @ 6:50 am

  17. i AM SROLEN MY MO NO 9896732416
    HOW CAN I FOUND IT

    Comment by mahesh — 9/2/2009 @ 6:36 am

  18. My mobile phone nokia N73 stolen 15th sep 09 , I want to track my mobile phone ,
    Imei is - 355718028409025
    if u have any information about it please send it to me ,
    my contact is 9507110212

    Comment by Imran — 9/16/2009 @ 1:37 am

  19. Please i wont to help me to track my Stolen Cell Phone
    Nokia 5130 Express Music 2
    IMEI: 354223030368237
    THANKS A LOT

    Comment by Gamal Eldein Fathi — 9/26/2009 @ 1:36 am

  20. i lost my cellphone last weekend and it was lying on the bed!! any good places where u might think it is ???? i need it or my dad wqill flip out!!!

    Comment by shauna — 9/27/2009 @ 5:59 am

  21. Hi i m very sade my Mobile N73 Music Edition lost..

    please help me IMEI 353548022236542

    please help me..

    Comment by Bikram Das — 10/15/2009 @ 9:01 pm

  22. i lost my cellphone lost date 5/10/2009.please help me.model n72 d-plum.iemi no 356295015941301.my contect no 9415481518 ,05122525882 address 21/24 newidgah colony kanpur

    Comment by zafar akhtar — 10/17/2009 @ 5:56 am

  23. my mobile was stolen with cell no. 9433119373 and handset imei 358973017999620(nokia N73).how can i get my mobile handset back?

    Comment by suraj kr singh — 10/20/2009 @ 7:42 am

  24. My bb storm IMEI no. 352109039074995 was stolen, let me know what you can do. I’d pay to have the phone thieves caught!!

    Comment by James — 10/26/2009 @ 9:12 am

  25. Hi This is Bharath from Hyderabad.Today morning(November 09,2009) i have lost my Nokia 2600 Handset mobile while travelling in Bus.My mobile was 09949027226.
    Can you please track the same and do the needful.Let me know if you have queries

    Thanks in advance

    Thanks and Regards,
    Bharath

    Comment by Bharath — 11/9/2009 @ 3:12 am

  26. Please help me to get my mobile
    Nokia 5130 Express Music
    IMEI: 356908031650439
    i love my mobile very much and request you to help me pls.

    Comment by Rathi — 11/10/2009 @ 9:50 pm

  27. Please help me to get my mobile
    Nokia 1209 Silver Grey
    IMEI: 356072033323873
    i love my mobile very much and request you to help me pls.

    Comment by Harishchandra Salvi — 11/20/2009 @ 9:46 am

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 This article first appeared on 12/31/2008
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