Losing your cell phone is something that no one likes is clear, but having it stolen from us… It’s even worse. More than anything, because we know that yes or yes it is someone who will want to access it for one reason or another. Therefore, it is necessary to know how to act in such complex situations in which, above all, it is necessary to keep a cool head to make the correct decisions, also following a series of steps.
If you have reached this point, it is because your phone has been lost or stolen, so we will go straight to the question: what to do if our mobile phone is stolen or lost . It is clear that we are not only concerned with the fact of these two cases, but more than anything else our concern is also focused on all bank details, multimedia files … What we have been collecting. Fortunately, though, we can take action to fix this problem. We can even erase your data remotely.
Find the device
On Android phones, we will find an official Google tool to locate our device . And it is that, for something good, the transfer of our privacy had to serve, including our location through the mobile device.
Once we enter this screen, which we can access from another mobile or a computer , we must log in with the same account that we had on the lost or stolen terminal. Then, we must select the device in question and, if everything goes well, we can see on the map the location of the terminal or at least the last known location. It may even be this method for iPhone, as long as we have said account on the Apple device.
If not, we can always go to Apple’s own iCloud Find My iPhone tool. Once inside this website, we must put the Apple ID and password. Later, we will see the exact location of the device. Of course, for this we should have the location activated on the smartphone. Otherwise, it will be impossible to locate it. The same would happen in the case of Android.
Lock IMEI
With this way of blocking a device, we are able to prevent anyone from using any SIM card in the terminal. That is, basically we will ensure that no one can call, receive calls or messages. In addition, that we will also prevent them from using it to connect to the Internet through mobile data. On the other hand, if the person who has found the phone or has stolen it from us manages to unlock and reset it, they can use it through Wi-Fi. However, you will be using a phone that is not one hundred percent, since we will ensure that your connections such as mobile data or Wi-Fi cannot be used.
In summary, performing this method on any smartphone is able to cover a part of its connectivity. Of course, it will be necessary to know the IMEI number . If you don’t know what your phone number is, you can easily find it in the terminal box. In the event that we do not have the original box of the product, we can also resort to the purchase invoice, since in these cases the supplier himself places this identifier in the details of the invoice to avoid future warranty problems.
Although, we can also visit the Google website: Find my device . In it, we will only have to identify ourselves with the email that we use on the smartphone itself. Once inside, we will have to click on the mobile device that we want to find out its identifier and access its information. Afterwards, a window will be displayed in which it will appear when the terminal and its IMEI were registered.
If you don’t have the iPhone case either, you can find out the IMEI by accessing the Apple ID website . Then, enter your Apple ID information associated with the iPhone and log in. And finally, go to the Devices section and click on the iPhone and you will be able to see its serial number and IMEI code.
After this, we will be able to contact our operator in case we have bought it through one. Then, they will have to request that they carry out said blocking of the phone with the identifier. However, the process may take more or less depending on how important it is. Therefore, in this way we will be able to block the mobile with this digit so that no one else can use it for calls, messages or mobile data. But, remember that we will not be deleting everything we have in said terminal, since if they find out how to enter they will be able to access all of them.
Erase everything remotely
Fortunately, if we lose our mobile devices, today there is the most efficient way to completely eliminate everything we have stored in the terminal, but beware, if you have a smartphone with a MicroSD card, the truth is that you will not it will erase that data, so you will be more exposed. More than anything, because this tool can erase the information that we have been collecting in the internal memory of the mobile device.
In the case of Android, we must again enter the previous page of Find my device, as for Apple mobiles it will be Find my iPhone from iCloud. Once we log in to our respective website, we can find the option to Delete a device (on iOS) and Delete device data (for Android).
In both cases, they warn us that after proceeding to execute this action, we will never be able to locate it again . Basically, because all the information that has been stored on the mobile device will be deleted. Therefore, when clicking on one of these two buttons, we will have to confirm again that we want to carry out this action.
Therefore, we can also choose the option offered by Google and Apple to Lock the phone. In this way, it will be blocked in such a way that no one can use it in case it has been stolen from us or it is found where we had lost it. In addition, if we delete the device with the aforementioned method, this lock will be completely deactivated, so they could use the smartphone.
Cancel the SIM
In cases where we need to deactivate a SIM card , the only thing we have at our disposal is to call our operator and explain what has happened to us to proceed to request a new duplicate and that the previous one is no longer operational. Some operators even allow you to carry out these operations directly from their website, while in others you must call by phone.
And it is that, the fact that we do not go to deactivate the SIM of a disappeared mobile could cause us to receive more expenses in our bill. In addition, we will not be able to live with two SIM cards with the same phone number working at the same time, so the fact of having to block the previous one will be inevitable.
Change your passwords
We must not forget that our mobile is full of passwords, initiated sessions and applications. For this reason, we recommend changing all the sensitive passwords of emails, the bank and even streaming video services such as Spotify, Netflix, etc. Some of these keys are tremendously important, since, for example, with the password that we use from Google, you can see the passwords saved in Chrome.
Some of these services allow us to log out remotely, but the easiest way to ensure you is to change your password directly. When we modify it, all open sessions on the mobile device will be automatically closed. For this reason, it will be quite important to deactivate the SIM first, since more and more password recovery services use SMS verification.
Report to the police
The last step that we will have to do, but not least, will be to take the purchase invoice and file a complaint at a police station , either the National Police or the Civil Guard. They can even be put in the autonomous police forces.
In addition, you can avoid future fraudulent charges. And not only this, but the security forces will be able to investigate it for their part. It will also be important because with the complaint you can go to your operator to block your SIM and get a duplicate. Although not all operators will require this document to block the phone card.
And, if in your case you manage to recover the lost or stolen mobile, you will have to go to the police station again to withdraw the complaint. In addition, you can use it again in a normal way by removing its IMEI lock. To do this, we will have to proceed in the same way that it had been restricted. In other words, we will have to call the corresponding operator again.