Have Any Lost/Stolen Smart Phones Been Successfully Recovered?

[funlovinkid]

I just bought a new Samsung Galaxy S3 phone, and I'm reading up on all the features available from some of the available security applications, many of which include anti-theft capabilities. These applications even give you the ability to locate the phone after a new SIM has been installed by the thief. However, as I read, it occurs to me that this is a useless feature unless the local law enforcement organization is willing and able to track down a stolen phone and apprehend the thief. There are apparently some success stories about this in Western countries, but I have serious doubts about whether the Thai police force could possibly care less about this sort of thing. Does anyone out there have any experience with a lost or stolen smartphone being recovered by virtue of anti-theft software having already been installed, with or without the help of the Thai authorities? I have the sinking feeling the question is laughable, but I gotta ask anyway.

[bkkjames]

Drunkenly one friday night I left my then SOA blackberry in the taxi. Woke up with a hangover and that sinking feeling you are experiencing now.

Gave my number a call and driver answered. He returned my phone that night. It helped that I had a photo of my son as the screensaver I guess. Maybe he felt guilty..lol nah, just a nice guy. But I wouldnt get too excited if I were you. Afterall, mine was a bb and yours is much much nicer.

Good luck.

[Riggi]

No experience (thank goodness), but apps like Cerberus let you do things like wipe all your data, locate it, record audio through the mic, lock the device, get a list of recent calls and sms etc. all from a web interface.

You might not get your phone back, but you can at least protect your data

[edwinchester]

You do need the police to write a letter to your phone company to trace a smartphone and this can be a problem.

I had my smartphone stolen on new years eve when our house was burgled.

Wifey and I made a police report and I asked them to contact AIS to try and trace my phone.

Quite simply they have refused to do so. The reason being is the investigating officer is dealing drugs to the prime suspect.

Wifey tried to get AIS to track anyway but they will not without a police request.

Maybe the police will help elsewhere but who knows. After our experience I would never trust any of the police here.

Sent from my GT-I9003 using Thaivisa Connect App

[bendejo]

[funlovinkid]

Wow, interesting stuff. My primary purpose in posting this topic was to help me decide whether it's worthwhile to install anti-theft software (which requires root access in an Android device, which the Samsung Galaxy S3 is), in order to help me get my phone back if it ever disappeared. Unfortunately, it looks like Thai police participation in this effort might or might not occur, which the software requires in order to be effective. I think I'll just install it anyway and hope that if it ever disappears I'll get lucky with the police agreeing to help me (like the guy in the article posted above did).

[Totster]

Wow, interesting stuff. My primary purpose in posting this topic was to help me decide whether it's worthwhile to install anti-theft software (which requires root access in an Android device, which the Samsung Galaxy S3 is), in order to help me get my phone back if it ever disappeared. Unfortunately, it looks like Thai police participation in this effort might or might not occur, which the software requires in order to be effective. I think I'll just install it anyway and hope that if it ever disappears I'll get lucky with the police agreeing to help me (like the guy in the article posted above did).

Cerberus is quite handy, one of the things I like is that if someone gets the pin wrong to unlock the phone it takes a picture and emails it. You can also track the phone, sounds a loud alarm, send messages to the phone and see the call lists.

totster

[Douggie Style]

I use Prey for the laptop, seems it also covers smartphones. You can track the laptop and control it to some degree...

https://panel.preyproject.com/login

[lomatopo]

There have been one or two successful recovery tales documented here, maybe one involving an intrepid policeman tracking down an iphone using some off-the-shelf tools. I think I also recall a news story about some diplomat or VIP who, with police and service provider involvement located the stolen phone by IMEI, MAC address and location.

I guess I'd expect to recover a phone maybe 0.0001% of the time using these tracking methods?

Some people improve their odds by including information in/on the phone offering a 5,000 baht reward, no questions asked, along with contact details.

Edited October 28, 2012 by lomatopo

[Gary A]

The technology is there to retrieve stolen phones BUT you forget where we are. TIT. Even if the police were to show some effort, the hackers and shady dealers would soon learn how to bypass the location capabilities of the phone. If my phone is ever stolen, I'd just write it off, buy another and try to remember to be more careful. Professional thieves are not stupid enough to try to use a stolen phone as is.

[Chicog]

The technology is there to retrieve stolen phones BUT you forget where we are. TIT. Even if the police were to show some effort, the hackers and shady dealers would soon learn how to bypass the location capabilities of the phone. If my phone is ever stolen, I'd just write it off, buy another and try to remember to be more careful. Professional thieves are not stupid enough to try to use a stolen phone as is.

But most of the tealeaves in Thailand are far from professional. In fact they are mostly Darwinian, but as others say, the old bill have better things to do like skive off, rip off farang and dish out the weekly football coupons.

Added: I have anti-theft on one of my phones, and when I switched Sim cards, my "other" number (which I had set for that purpose) got SMS's telling me which number was now in the phone, as well as sending me extremely accurate co-ordinates as to where the phone was (with me sat in a restaurant). It was literally within 20 feet.

I could imagine someone dumb enough to not know how to wipe/rewrite the phone (or smart enough to know the old bill probably wouldn't do anything) would simply switch the SIM. In this scenario you could get close enough to be in earshot and then use a remote SMS command to blast a really loud alarm. This would be enough to identify who has it, but what if they bought it on the street, etc.? As if the Thai plod are going to take your side. By the time they'd "investigated", the phone would probably be in Burma getting wiped for sale in Pakistan or something.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Chicog

[bendejo]

Not every thief is a pro, and in the case of hi-tech items I would think most of the time the theives don't even know what they have. I would even expect most of these knuckleheads who steal phones wouldn't even have the sense to swap out the SIM card.

I've heard that in Ecuador it's open season on laptops: within hours of having your machine stolen there's a good chance the disk will be swapped out and be back on the market.

[bendejo]

oops!

Edited October 29, 2012 by bendejo

[kleenexboy]

http://www.samsungdive.com/DiveMain.do

Samsung offers basic protection for free on their website.

No need to mess with third party apps.

It can track, erase, sound alarm or lock the screen, all from the website!

Just register your device and that's it.

I've tried it (Sound alarm and lock screen) and it works here in Thailand.

Edited October 31, 2012 by kleenexboy

[Neeranam]

http://www.samsungdive.com/DiveMain.do

Samsung offers basic protection for free on their website.

No need to mess with third party apps.

It can track, erase, sound alarm or lock the screen, all from the website!

Just register your device and that's it.

I've tried it (Sound alarm and lock screen) and it works here in Thailand.

Thanks for that - I just bought a Samsung Galaxy Mega and don't want it stolen/lost.

[Neeranam]

http://www.samsungdive.com/DiveMain.do

Samsung offers basic protection for free on their website.

No need to mess with third party apps.

It can track, erase, sound alarm or lock the screen, all from the website!

Just register your device and that's it.

I've tried it (Sound alarm and lock screen) and it works here in Thailand.

One thing though - I tried to locate my mobile and that doesn't work

[Spoonman]

Drunkenly one friday night I left my then SOA blackberry in the taxi. Woke up with a hangover and that sinking feeling you are experiencing now.

Gave my number a call and driver answered. He returned my phone that night. It helped that I had a photo of my son as the screensaver I guess. Maybe he felt guilty..lol nah, just a nice guy. But I wouldnt get too excited if I were you. Afterall, mine was a bb and yours is much much nicer.

Good luck.

Similar sotry with my Nokia Lumia 920, had it for 3 days and went out on the turps......... woke the next morning at home with zero recollection of the prior evening only to discover my phone was no where to be found. Gave it a ring but it was turned off so I assumed the worse.

Called it a few more times during the day but to no avail.

Early evening the missus come running into my office to tell me the phone had just turned on (gotta love them ais alerts) and low and behold it rang the missus phone.......... was the reception lady at a short time hotel, she called to tell me the cleaner turned my phone in after I had left there and as it was such a new phone she kept it on herself until she returned to work hoping I would come to collect it.

Result I got the phone back, not a result the short time reception lady rang my missus !!!