Walking with expensive phones in Dublin

maeve99

Is it safe? Given the stories you hear about random people being beaten and attacked, I was wondering how safe it is to carry an expensive smartphone with you while walking through Dublin streets. My friend just got a Galaxy S21 which was €1,300. Nice phone but told him it's absolutely stupid to walk around with it given how many junkies are looking for the next thing to sell.

I remember losing a cheap €50 smartphone once on the Dublin Bus and it was returned. I'm not sure if my friend who be as lucky to have it returned to lost and found with his current phone but maybe I'm wrong.

Kermit.de.frog

Doesn't have to be junkies. Why would you be walking around any city with such an expensive phone to your ear? Seems a pretty stupid thing to do.

Beechwoodspark

theres People walking around dub who would “steal the sight out of yer eye” as the late and great much missed G Ryan of RTÉ would say ...

igCorcaigh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896077#Comment_117896077

Makes me wonder why anyone would pay so much for a phone, which can be easily lost (more likely for me!) or stolen.

Would insurance cover a theft scenario?

85603

well if he spent 1300 on it then he wants people to see his wonderfully expensive phone. so he'll probably be walking the length and breadth of every street making as many calls as possible. And in doing so he will not be safe. no.

unless he's a big bastard. maybe.

dotsman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896077#Comment_117896077

What's the point of having a phone, expensive or not, if you can't have it to your ear while on the go? If it is only cheap phones that should be used for "out and about", then what's the point of an expensive one?

Atlantic Dawn

Not safe anywhere in the city to use openly, day or night. Walk in to a shop if you need to use it.

Years ago before everyone had a mobile, my friend used to get the dart into work, and there was a guy she'd see often on it playing with his mobile texting or making calls on it. One day there was a medical emergency on the dart and they needed to ring for an ambulance. Turns out - it was a fake phone. It didn't work. It could have been like the phone Dougal bought on the Fr Ted episode Flight into Terror.

Long story short, there are some sad, pathetic losers out there. Some who want to be seen walking down grafton street with their new Samsung Z flip phone.

Tork

Is this a new twist on the old "Dublin is a sh*thole" trope?

xper

What stories do you hear OP? Thousands of people walk around Dublin streets with expensive phones each day and have done for years. Very few of them have ever been mugged. You're far more likely to damage or lose such a device through your own neglect and, if thats a concern, thats what insurance is for, as well as theft.

Perhaps dont go playing Angry Birds down an alley way off Abbey Street.

trashcan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896156#Comment_117896156

I’ve often used my phone while out an about with no problem. Sometimes I wonder if it’s an alternate Dublin I live in. Genuinely don’t recognise this City that you daren’t walk around. Not saying there aren’t issues, but I find it’s often way overstated on here.

Why are people so concerned with other people's lives? The world would be a better place if people just minded their own business..

D3V!L

Sure whats the point in having an expensive phone if no one can see it. I have a fairly decent Samsung, it stays in my pocket and if i need to have a phone call 🙄 then I use my earphones.

igCorcaigh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896211#Comment_117896211

Ah, but then we wouldn't have boards 😂

Beechwoodspark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896172#Comment_117896172

I work with someone similar. Always has the latest phone, makes sure everyone knows, flaunts it almost.

During a fire drill it Turns out their phone is a cheap Asian knockoff “shell” with no internal chips etc. No battery even. Got for a few yoyos on Ali express - customs don’t bother caring as it’s basically plastic and cheap glass

apparently a big thing among youth, you buy the shell version to appear to have the latest and considered a Billy big balls in the locality

Strumms

If I’d that phone I’d use it in public no problem but with a cover / case so that it would appear as just any generic mobile...

mistress_gi

I have a real story for you all!

I had a samsung s something in 2013 if i remember correctly. Was waiting for the bus in Dame street, and i was watching a move on my phone, from the corner of my eye i see a lad, i was taking my headphones off when he yanked the phone from my hands and bolted.

I don't know how but i ran after him (slowly because I'm a big girl) while screaming " stop that guy, he stole my phone" at the top of my lungs.

I stopped because i could never catch up and started crying (to this day i don't know why, it was just a phone at the end of the day)...

I called into a shop and begged them to let them use their phone and i called my then partner and he said forget it, just come home. I refused and was waiting on the guards (i think i called them too, it's a bit fuzzy at this stage).

I was waiting when a guy came back and told be he had chased the robber accross the river and he pointed them out to the guards, he told me to wait for the guards.

Guards came he took me to the station and i got my phone back.

On the way to the station the guard was giving me this lesson of how dangerous it is to have nice things out in public. I pointed out that i had bought that lhone and i wasn't the problem...

To this day i wish i got the name of the lad that gave chase i would have at least bought him a drink.

So yeah, in a couple of hours i saw some of the worst and best that Dublin had to offer 😁

ghoulfinger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896252#Comment_117896252

Sorry that this happened you, I was once pulled to the ground crossing the road in Dublin 1, nothing of great value stolen, but it was quite a negative experience nonetheless. I’m very glad someone really did come to the rescue to restore your faith in humanity.

I’m always a bit wary about taking my phone out in Dublin and I would never take it out in certain parts except to call emergency services and even then I would endeavour be as subtle as possible about it. It’s an up-to-date iPhone I have for its functionality, and certainly isn’t a stand-out item in appearance, and I keep it insured and tracked.

Contrary to some opinions expressed here, I would be minded that some parts of Dublin are definite no-go areas, or almost so, and increasingly have observed that an anti-social element has asserted itself. I’m a Dub born and bred.

L1011

Before IMEI blocking (and Apple's activation blocking) and phones generally having passcodes, a lot of phones were stolen by thieves on bikes - ring foreign premium rate numbers that they eventually get a kickback from and sell the phone.

Really died off quite quickly with blocking. Even expensive parts from stolen phones have their own serials blacklisted so they can't be sold to dodgy repair shops.

Parachutes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896156#Comment_117896156

It surely can’t be that bad. I’m a culchie who would only visit Dublin maybe 3 or 4 times a year but I hardly felt I couldn’t take my phone out of my pocket. There’s a difference from being street smart and simply being in fear.

Riesen_Meal

I have never had an issue walking around Dublin city centre with my usually expensive phone out, yet if I was in a city I didn't know really I would keep it out of sight I suppose...

Man Vs ManUre

The new iPhone 13 pro max with 1TB storage will cost you €1859, and if you choose apple care that will come to over €2K. You don’t wanna lose this one!!

Johnlynch1970

Like anything you need to be cafreful and vigilent

ZX7R

I wouldn't even know the difference between a €2000 Phone or a €200 Phone.

I'm probably in the minority.

dotsman

Have lived and worked in Dublin city center for 15 years. Have no problem using phone in public. Obviously, normal street smarts apply. It's a pretty low risk activity. In all my time, I only know of 1 person who had a phone stolen (about a decade ago, a female friend had the phone whipped out of her hand by a scummer on a bike on Baggot street during evening rush hour) and that's it.

Clareman

No-one bothers stealing a phone now cause the market for stolen phones has disappeared since IMEI blocking became a thing.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896144#Comment_117896144

It's just about applying common sense. You are more like to miss €1,000+ phone than a €200 one.

Go indoors briefly if you desperately need to use it. There are plenty of places more than likely you'd be fine outdoors using it.

But you wouldn't be walking around with +€1,000 phone to your ear on Talbot Street or Abbey Street for example. You'd instinctively know that wasn't the brightest thing to do presumably.

20/20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896128#Comment_117896128

I thought he was a drug abuser, a very well paid one.

And I am not sure about him been great or much missed.

ghoulfinger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896600#Comment_117896600

There still would be a small “market”. Scum who might try to flog it online to the reedy gullible who think they’ve got a bargain. You hear callers to Liveline claiming how they’ve been scammed in similar type fashion.

ghoulfinger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896616#Comment_117896616

I try to avoid likes of Talbot Street full stop.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896857#Comment_117896857

The supply of phones for those scams these days are ones reported stolen (but never were) to insurers and also phones bought on contract and defaulted on. Much easier than trying to mug someone - plenty of people with fancy phones are also going to have fancy gym membership and possibly a fancy drug problem and might be able to beat the shite out of you.

Might still happen the old fashioned way but it is basically unheard of now.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896228#Comment_117896228

How did that come to light during a fire drill. Anyway the story makes no sense. Buy a cheap knockoff if you want but why bring attention to it.

phones are no big risk. They aren’t that expensive except for a few models and it’s hard to tell what is expensive or not. And they can be disabled. Lock up your bike though.

Strumms

i much prefer if I’m walking in town that if I need to make or take a phone call I stand into a shop or shop doorway to do it... that way I’ve a better perspective of who is around and it’s more relaxing and safer... my phone is old enough it’s a Samsung about 3 years old but when i last looked a year ago some places were still selling it for over 360-420 euros... phone only...

it doesn’t look much as it’s in a fairly basic looking nondescript case a material case that set me back about 15 euros to protect the phone and also to look nondescript on purpose...I had a Galaxy note 5 nicked out of my Mater hospital ward when I went for physio a few years ago, I only had about it about 10 months... but no cameras in the ward... and the Garda in Mountjoy station was about as useful as a condom with air vents.... disinterested dot com so in town, in the park, wherever unless I have a good field of vision and fûck all people near me unless I’m quickly just whatsapping it’s in my pocket and zipped.

ghoulfinger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117897023#Comment_117897023

I’m not up to speed on all the scams 😱

pgj2015

A friend of mine had his expensive sunglasses whipped off his head in Dublin by a young scumbag on a bicycle.

riclad

Most people have cases on their phone so a 1000 euro phone looks the same as a 100 euro phone , i think people getting mugged is very rare, i read articles that say criminals find it easy to make money by online scams than committing crime in person. I find it strange when I see people walking with a phone in their back pocket. The point of a mobile phone is you can use it anywhere

I took out a new Galaxy S phone in a coffee shop a couple of years ago and all of sudden this guy walks up and started to pester me:

“can I use your phone? I need to call my bud for a lift.”

I just said. “sorry. It doesn’t work. That’s why I was playing around with the sim.”

”Ah I’m stuck bud. I’ll just me a minute.”

”Really. It doesn’t work. I’m bringing it back. It’s faulty” and I just put it away.

The cafe offered their landline to him and he wouldn’t use that…

Then he kept it up. A man offered to dial the call for him, on speaker. He gave them a number and a guy answered and they had no idea who he was.

Absolutely weird.

I’ve been pestered in Dublin in cafes a good few times. Strangest one was this guy and woman just blatantly asked me to buy them coffee and a cake. I felt sorry for him but I didn’t have any cash.

I was a very broke postgrad student at the time and I really had very little money and they kept on giving me a really serious story, but I literally didn’t have the funds.

It’s a strange city sometimes. I’m finding I’m just avoiding most of the city centre. I haven’t really been back into town much at all since COVID and honestly. The sad bit is I don’t miss it.

It’s a bad sign when you find a place depressing and a bit too edgy for comfort.

I mean I went down by that area just by Jervis. Some decent restaurants/cafes and when I got to Jervis St itself there was a guy threatening some other guy with a crowbar. This was at lunchtime ?! I’ve also had to call the Garda numerous times because of fights, people passed out on the ground and so on.

We’ve some serious social issues and societal issues and we aren’t doing much about them. It’s definitely getting worse and I think the COVID era has really highlighted just how rough it can get.

I hate saying it but it’s really not in good shape as a city. Partially social problems and partially economic ones, particularly housing. The drugs issue may also not be statistically worse than some places but it’s far more in your face in my opinion than in a lot of cities. We’ve never really dealt with it in any sensible way. Is just let turn into a bigger and bigger issue.

It’s nothing new to me either. I mean when I was a kid, we lived in pretty boring area of the south side suburbs … and ended up with dealers renting next door. So I had a childhood of regularly seeing next door getting raided, vicious domestic stuff going on heard though my bedroom walls from house next door, all sorts of crazy.

We had to sell the house and move.

I just think Dublin really needs to look at itself in a mirror sometimes. It’s got huge problems.

maeve99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117897897#Comment_117897897

Where in the South Side? I used to live near Dun Laoghaire/Monkstown and there were some pretty sketchy characters running around. There was even a grandmother shot there AFAIK.

Ireland is different from many countries in that "posh" areas are in close proximity to council estates or really bad areas. Not the case with America.

Pffft. It was way worse in the 1980s. Back then the only mobile phones available in the city were on carts dragged by horses and they were expensive --five thruppence an hour and twice that on Wednesdays. You had to go to a public phone box and call P&T and ask for a horse and cart to be brought to your location. The cart would have two seats and a mobile phone about the size of a sensible middle-class family's fridge atop which was an aerial about twenty five feet and six and a half inches high.

With typical waiting times of 90 minutes you had the freedom to experience the sights and sounds of the local area and reflect on your forthcoming telephone call. Anyway, it was not uncommon for criminal gangs to keep a watch on these locations and they would follow the horse and cart along for the duration of the call collecting as many droppings as they could. These would be taken to underground inner city factory complexes where 1/ they would be pushed into briquette moulds and sold on Henry Street as winter fuel. 2/ smaller pieces were wrapped in tin foil and sold to tourists, including Southsiders, as opium.

there was a guy in my class in school who got mugged at knifepoint circa early 2000's for his mobile phone while walking in town...

it was Nokia 3310 era, he handed over a Nokia 5110 and the guy laughed, handed it back and ran off

Ficheall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896616#Comment_117896616

Applying common sense and spending a grand on a telephone don't necessarily go hand in hand..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117898171#Comment_117898171

It’s not merely a telephone though. It’s a pocket computer, and for the vast majority of people it’s their main device for personal use of the internet, which is now all pervasive. Personally I didn’t spend a grand on mine, but I wouldn’t choose a very cheap one either. Why would you anyone choose a cheap computer for so many important functions, if they can afford a more expensive one?

A good example of the compromises that cheaper phones make, is not including a magnetometer, which means apps like Google Maps don’t work well for on foot navigation.

corner of hells

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117898209#Comment_117898209

How on earth did we manage before Google Earth and magnetometers ?

Doctor DooM

This thread is insane.

I've walked around Dublin for about 20 years with every generation of phone on a call, some expensive some not, and nothing has ever happened.

Dublin's the same as any other big city, keep an eye open and you'll be grand in general.

Wabbit Ears

Good friends with a stock manager at a major mobile telco and this came up in conversation a while back. As far as he's concerned its not a thing anymore. Theres tons of scams out there but just mugging phones isn't really a big one. Leaving it unattended in a bar or whatnot yea, it may get nicked but actual mugging or snatching.. Not a big concern.

jakiah

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117898281#Comment_117898281

Absolutely, thread is littered with paranoid freaks. How do these people get through their day riddled with such fear and loathing.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117898261#Comment_117898261

Google Maps, not Google Earth.

We managed without phones for a long time too (longer than we managed without maps and compasses, as it happens) but they proved so convenient they are now ubiquitous. Similarly, many if not most people find it very convenient to have a portable navigation device with them, especially one that has dozens of other features.

B.A._Baracus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896198#Comment_117896198

"Very few of them have been mugged " .... Says who, you?

I'm not ragging on you for the sake of ragging but there are 5 million people in Ireland all living different lives. You have no idea of how little theft or muggings happen. Fair enough if you were quoting some report from the Garda but you just said it as a matter of fact. Is that not living in a bubble?

But let's be realistic here people, phones get whipped all the time. Go on adverts and you'll see the alarm bell line of "doesn't come with charger" - of course not, you stole it lol.

If someone gets a 900 euro phone they've got more money than sense. Phone is meant to be something that can easily be replaced. It can be lost, broken or stolen and getting a new one isn't going to break the bank.

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117896172#Comment_117896172

Yeah urban myth

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117898752#Comment_117898752

Why would “doesn’t come with charger” ring an alarm bell? Someone might sell their old phone but keep the charger as a spare to use with their new phone.

B.A._Baracus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117898929#Comment_117898929

Because if someone steals a phone they can put it online (adverts, donedeal etc) for sale without a charger. They don't have the charger.

Look I get what you are saying. Someone might be selling an old phone etc. But hence the phrase alarm bell. To be suspicious. To be wary. Is this genuine or is this a stolen phone.

I came across this article https://www.thejournal.ie/stolen-phones-ireland-5193112-Sep2020/

It says since the start of 2019, there has been a reported 11,488 phones stolen with an average of 10% of people luckily enough to get them back. So out of the remaining 10,000 phones stolen how many do you reckon will be sold online without chargers. Hence alarm bells.