If you have ever lost a phone too, you know losing phones could be one painful experience, and a much bigger loss than the monetary one, of course.
Suddenly you're disconnected from the world, social life is in a toss, nothing to feign busy-ness on, the depression, the withdrawal symtoms, it's a big big mess!
Years of contacts and phone numbers just get lost, needing you to pretty build up a contact list from scratch. Not to mention the 1000 SMS & whatsapp messages you had saved in your almost unlimited-storage phone just in case you needed to copy an old Diwali forward to send it again, this year.
But what's worse about losing a smartphone, which pretty much did everything : take awesome pictures, had the most advanced app for saving notes and organizing your music! Pictures! That hilarious" Child Bear available here" signboard you clicked on the way to work or just a random moment with your baby nephew! All gone :(
Well apart from the feeling of being disconnected which could be a good thing sometimes, knowing that your family was about to post a 'lost' ad about YOU, not the phone, in the papers is , not so much.
Though, like every loss, comes a learning and since I've been through a lot of those, naturally it's come with a lot of learning. While my phone may be gone forever, here are a few things that might help someone else when they have lost their phones or prevent it from getting lost to begin with!
1) If you have a smartphone, always have a security app installed- from the word go and don't wait for something to first happen to!
I had an avast back up installed. Not sure how good it was since I'm still waiting for a registered phone to receive an SMS the moment the new owner of my phone inserts his/her SIM in it.
2) Can't stress this enough: Make regular back ups of your data! Phone numbers, important messages, reminders, music , pictures! Upload the important pictures on FB instantly, if need be, naysayers be damed. 'Cos the world may crash but stuff posted online seems to stay for posterity!
3) It can also be taken as an exercise in filtering your social life. Post that customary Fb msg about "lost my phone. Pls inbox your numbers " .The people who do, were worth having in your contact list anyway.
If you thought that midnight chatting partner was your soulmate in life too, but with the phone gone, he's also vanished like acetone from an open bottle, you know where used acetone goes.
4) Keep your phone fully charged when stepping out of the house. What's worse than having a phone stolen? Having misplaced a phone but not being to track it 'cause it ran out of juice minutes after you lost it!
5) If you're a phone addict, chances are that you'll have the phone in your hand 24/7 anyway to really lose it, but Murphy works in strange ways. Sometimes those 5 minutes of leaving the phone unattended could be enough for a person with a bad intention to make his move.
6) Note down the IMEI number of the phone ( You can find it on the box or under the battery ) and somewhere and lodge an FIR at the nearest police station. I don't know how effective it but I have heard of a few rare cases wherein the police has been able to track down stolen phones from the IMEI number.
7) Always have a spare phone on you, however basic. Trust me you don't want to lose a phone when you're travelling and get stuck incommunicado mode when you needed to make those 100 important calls!
8) Check if you lost your phone at a place that could be under CCTV surveillance and if yes, make sure to have the store guys, run the CCTV footage in the control room, for you. No need to say how it'd help.
9) Umm, this may sound ridiculous but I have actually done it a few times. Send a msg to your own number ( just in case the thief hasn't switched SIMs yet) and send a senti msg about what this phone means to you and blah blah blah. Even criminals have a soft side somewhere and may be just maybe they may get moved enough to return the phone!
10) If you had whatsapp on your phone : whatsapp on your own number,either with the content above or asking the 'thief' to return the phone- No questions asked- in return for a certain sum. Usually whatsapp is installed on a phone and not attached to a SIM. So even if the phone has a new sim, chances are that the whatsapp ac is still there and in that case the thief will see your msg.
The reward you offer him may be worth more than the phone to him! Try your luck.
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