Stolen Note 3, what are thief's options?

Fatscally

Hi.
I had my Samsung Note 3 SM-N9005 stolen on the morning of the 26th of April 2014. It has Vodafone Protect installed on it. They did turn the phone on briefly and this did lead the Gardí to the thief but they didn't have enough to go on. And they didn't get the phone.

I have since left the phone in use and I'm paying for it still on Bill Pay. However I have not seen it appear again since on Vodafone Protect.
So I'm wondering, if he goes into a Chinese phone / tech shop in town will they be able to make it safe and useable for the thief or for resale?

Can the IMEI be dickied about or will that give me permanent control to have the phone killed?

Does blocking the IMEI just stop registering on the networks but leaves the phone as a tablet?

Any suggestions appreciated.

batistuta9

It only block registration on networks in ireland afaik

drunkmonkey

I hope you've disabled/replaced your sim straight away. If not do it now.

Most you can do is blacklist it, they'll still be able to sell/use it in some but very limited countries abroad or it'll just be used for parts, your right it still works as a tablet.

Bummer but nothing you can really do to get it back.

iPhone gets disabled so can't even be turned on.

Fatscally

No I haven't disabled the PIN or SIM. The idea is that I want them to use it. I have of course notified Vodafone and the assured me that I will not be charged for an extras over the plan.

It was Travellers that took it. We know because they turned the phone on for an hour on the morning they stole it and Vodafone protect led us to their halting site by the prison. Our mistake was the Gardí turned up 2 minutes later. I think they're clued in and spooked now but maybe with some patience they'll have another go and we'll track them on a map, use it and we'll see their numbers or sell it on and we'll track it back.

Mostly though I need to know what control I have. I thought I could kill the phone but that doesn't look the case now.

daytob

might be worth trying some of these
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2423375,00.asp

drunkmonkey

So your telling me if the travellers ring the UK all day today or chat lines from the Sunday world vodafone are not going to charge you, I hope you have that in writing.

Your at absolute nothing with travellers the Gardaí will do jack **** when it comes to them.

Forget about it, your at nothing unless you want to get an ak47 and take them on yourself.

Fatscally

Good man DM.
Thing is, they came into our home, took our car keys and the phone. We now have the car back and they still have the keys. I'm installing a tracker with remote immobilizer in the car because I'm am 100% this cocky little b* will come back for it.
Hopefully the phone will be shifted and putting it all together we'll snare the little sucmbag. Patience.

drunkmonkey

Done the same in our house last week, we had to get the car recoded about €300 but you can keep your keys. Cheeky bastards followed my mum in the door and took her bag from the table when she went down the hall my dad was even in the sitting room asleep.
I've had enough experiences with travellers to brand them all as robbing scumbags and I've given the Gardaí enough CCTV footage to know they'll do nothing, I don't blame them there not paid enough to go in and try and arrest a tinkers mother.
One of the little bastards was bragging on Facebook about all the **** he's doing so he can get back into jail to be with his buddies. It's a joke of a system, there's no justice. Minority group my arse, scumbags true and true, sterilise the lot of them.

Fatscally

I share your sentiments 100%. They're like rats living in their own filth but I don't want the Internet police to ban us for going off topic.

I just need to put that phone to the best possible use now that they have it so I need to be aware of what it's capable of.

By the way, we were done in Palmerstown. The detectives said there was a good bit of this going on atm.

The Corinthian

This forum is the Mobiles forum, so if this thread is about Travellers it's got no place here. Any further OT discussions and the thread gets locked.

_Whimsical_

Do you have dropbox or any cloud integration on your phone?
If your photos are synced with any account like dropbox any photo they take would be uploaded to your photos folder online and it might give you credible evidence for arrest.
I know someone who had their phone stolen and photos on dropbox led to the culprit.

vibe666

I'll never understand why people will pay hundreds of euro for a state of the art mobile phone and not spend the 5 minutes and less than €3 it costs for a decent tracker app like wheresmydroid.

even the free version would probably have prevented all your current problems and the €2.89 pro version would give you the power to get photographic evidence of the person using it.

Application Features
~ Find phone by making it ring/vibrate
~ Find phone using GPS location
~ GPS Flare - Location alert on low battery
~ Text your attention word
~ Passcode protection to prevent unauthorized app changes
~ Notification of changed SIM card or phone number
~ Stealth Mode hides incoming text with attention word
~ White/Black list to control who can use the app via text
~ No battery drain
Extra Features In Pro
~ Take pictures with the devices camera
~ Remotely lock device
~ Remotely wipe SD card
~ Remotely wipe phone data
~ Hide the app icon
~ Use a landline to activate the app
~ Customizable ringtone when lost

sorry, i know it's too late for you now, but anyone else with a note 3 or any other decent phone should have this installed from day one to guard against the loss or theft.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alienmanfc6.wheresmyandroid

scudzilla

vibe666 wrote: »

I'll never understand why people will pay hundreds of euro for a state of the art mobile phone and not spend the 5 minutes and less than €3 it costs for a decent tracker app like wheresmydroid.

even the free version would probably have prevented all your current problems and the €2.89 pro version would give you the power to get photographic evidence of the person using it.



sorry, i know it's too late for you now, but anyone else with a note 3 or any other decent phone should have this installed from day one to guard against the loss or theft.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alienmanfc6.wheresmyandroid

But whoever has stolen the tablet, if they do a factory data reset will it not wipe these apps off?

droidman123

scudzilla wrote: »

But whoever has stolen the tablet, if they do a factory data reset will it not wipe these apps off?

not with cerebus

scudzilla

droidman123 wrote: »

not with cerebus

But surely there's a way of getting rid of apps like that (and no, i didn't steal it!!!!)

droidman123

scudzilla wrote: »

But surely there's a way of getting rid of apps like that (and no, i didn't steal it!!!!)

no I,m nearly certain theres a setting in cerebus that can prevent anyone uninstalling it or factory wiping it.

edit, I think you have to be rooted to do this http://techpatrol.eu/track-phone-factory-reset/#.U2vS38pOXIU


what you can do if not rooted is just hide the app to prevent the thief from doing a factory reset in the first place.

seklly

I had my phone stolen in Poland a few years back and had the free Avast Anti-Theft app installed which is completely hidden. When rooted it's installed to the system partition so even when the thief factory reset it I was still able to track him via GPS, read his messages etc.

I got the accommodation agent I was dealing with to threaten him with the police (we had his address, name, phone number etc.!) and he promptly handed it back to her and it was posted back to me.

It's invaluable having one of these apps installed for the worst case scenarios, I hope you get a good outcome out of it OP.

vibe666

You're still going be a whole lot better off than if you didn't have anything on the phone to begin with.

The idea is that most people will probably try and fiddle with it first before they get to that point, whereby the app will have sent you their mugshots when they fail to log in and will alert you if they try and change the SIM and if you already know, you can remotely track it and control functions as needed.

It will also let you know where it is when your battery is about to run out (in case you just lost it) and allow you to remotely make the phone ring loudly even when it's on silent and send few other features.

scudzilla

But what if it's a tablet that doesn't have a sim?

vibe666

scudzilla wrote: »

But what if it's a tablet that doesn't have a sim?

then you're rather obviously fcuked unless they connect it to Wi-Fi before they wipe it.

We're talking about phones anyway, but if you but it on one device it works with all devices connected to that Google account, so you can have it on multiple phones, tablets etc. For the same price.

Either way, some chance is better than no chance of getting it back and there's a free version if you are especially stingy and don't think that spending under 3 quid is a worthy investment for a bit of added security for your several hundreds of euro worth of gadgets.

long_b

vibe666 wrote: »

then you're rather obviously fcuked unless they connect it to Wi-Fi before they wipe it.

We're talking about phones anyway, but if you but it on one device it works with all devices connected to that Google account, so you can have it on multiple phones, tablets etc. For the same price.

Either way, some chance is better than no chance of getting it back and there's a free version if you are especially stingy and don't think that spending under 3 quid is a worthy investment for a bit of added security for your several hundreds of euro worth of gadgets.

OK -.so you know where your phone is.

Are you willing to get beaten up to (possibly) get your phone back ?
Or do you think the Gardai will go into a halting site for a phone ?

vibe666

long_b wrote: »

OK -.so you know where your phone is.

Are you willing to get beaten up to (possibly) get your phone back ?
Or do you think the Gardai will go into a halting site for a phone ?

did you even read the OP? the gardai DID already go to the halting site based solely on a GPS location but didn't have anything to go on, which would have they a picture of the thieves face trying unlock it.

Nobody has stolen my phone, but IF they ever do, who's to say it's going to end up on a halting site?

Pretty much anywhere or anyone else and I'll grabbing a couple of mates if required and going collect it myself.

Nobody is forcing you to give yourself a chance to get your potentially stolen phone back so feel free to gamble on it never ever being lost OR stolen, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it if you don't.

Pat Mustard

I'm assuming that you didn't have Where's My Droid or any obvious phone tracker on your phone, because you'd have used it already.

Did you have Avast antivirus (or any antivirus app) on your phone, which might in any way allow you to activate a 'track phone' feature, which could reveal the phone location?

Fatscally wrote: »

Good man DM.
Thing is, they came into our home, took our car keys and the phone. We now have the car back and they still have the keys. I'm installing a tracker with remote immobilizer in the car because I'm am 100% this cocky little b* will come back for it.
Hopefully the phone will be shifted and putting it all together we'll snare the little sucmbag. Patience.

One thing that burglars share with predators and hunters, is that they develop hunting grounds with which they are familiar. They return to those hunting grounds.

With burglars, once they are familiar with a particular house, not only is there a higher chance that the burglars will return, the immediate neighbours may also become targets. If you alert your neighbours, not only will they be able to keep an eye out for burglars, they may be able to inform you of suspicious activity, which information might possibly be useful to you or Gardai.