To think we will have to leave our phones at home

[Pippy2022]

Fraud and phone theft is becoming such a problem I think it will reach a point where it's safer to leave the smart phone at home, certainly when visiting a city like London.

Maybe smart phones will become such a risk - as in our lives are on them - we will stop using them and revert to bricks? Use tablets at home etc.

😂😂😂

Another born and bred Londoner. I always say I'd pity the fool who nabs my phone because it's on its last legs and the screen barely works as is. Good luck to them opening my banking app as I sure as hell can't 😂

Seriously though, as a Londoner, one who lives in the City, we have plenty of incidents here with phones being pinches that it would never occur to me to use my phone in the street or even have it in my hand. As a lone woman, I'm more aware than many of how to conduct myself in the street, so using my phone isn't even a consideration.

Not wrong. If my phone was stolen it would take me approximately 2 minutes- slightly longer if I wasn't with a friend or my husband which is quite rare- to have my phone wiped, so anyone without a fingerprint would not get a chance to go through the process of hacking into any of my apps.

Live in London and don't know anyone who has had their phone snatched - but I have witnessed it twice. Once someone on a moped grabbed someone's phone who was standing on a kerb at a bus stop, and once someone on a bike from someone speaking to someone on loud speaker holding the phone out in front of them.

Oh, and I use my bank card for contactless payment and public transport, not my phone (unless I've dashed out and forgotten my purse). And I have a wrist strap thing that when using it to waste time on the tube. I hate things hanging round my neck.

“No mine can’t. I have proper security in place.”

“Niall McNamee was scrolling through his phone on the London Underground when a thief on the platform snatched it from his hand just as the doors closed.
Two days later the 30-year-old discovered his bank accounts had been drained by about £21,000 - including a £7,000 loan taken out in his name.

"I've no idea how they'd got into either of my accounts," he added. "It's face ID and password protected. They managed to take out a loan, which is a laugh because I've been trying to get a loan for years and I'm not eligible for one - somehow they managed to."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8y70pvz92o.amp

That's slightly less easy to do than an opportunist grab though. I think someone will struggle to cut my lanyard (it's quite thick and rubberised) with it under my hair and collar of my coat. I suppose they could chop my head off and take it that way.

I’m sure you’re right, but equally I’m sure that a high percentage of genuinely stolen phones never get reported. Unless you’re able to claim on insurance there seems little point.

10 years living in London and now spending half of every month in London and I have never had my phone stolen (or anything else).

You are lucky then or cautious.

This is the most stupid, "I only get my news from a singular person on Tiktok" post I've ever seen.

Probably an American person who is coming to the UK and afraid of being stabbed and robbed in the hellscape that is London

We don't actually know that that's true though. He's hardly going to say "I was an idiot, my phone was unlocked and bank passcode was 12345" is he? And an aspiring popstar would certainly never dramatize events to get into the news either would he?
Bit like after a burglary nobody ever has any idea how they got in as they would never leave the kitchen window open.

And the more sophisticated thieves know how to get round all this security, certainly if a phone is snatched when you are using it (happened to my colleague near Liverpool St - within 2 minutes they locked him out of his phone and Apple account then locked him out of his email account and accessed his bank account). And according to at least 1 PP they can get round it even if phone is locked when stolen.

See my post above then about my 58 year old colleague who’s definitely not an aspiring pop star. He was using his phone (so unlocked) but he did have proper security on it, not 12345.

But maybe I’m just a Russian bot sitting here making stuff up for sh1ts and giggles eh?! 🤖 🙄

Again, how do you know he had proper security? Because he told you so....

I use face ID to get into my banking app, and I'm not stupid enough to log into the app in a public place.

Yes, people get their phones stolen anywhere. I'm not about to leave mine at home because the whole point in having one is to be able to communicate!! I was at a work meeting the other day, and had a bit of a drive. I realised when I got there that I'd left my phone at home, and I was anxious all the day home in case the car broke down and I'd no way of summoning help!

What did we used to do back in the day? I don't actually remember and I go way back before mobiles!

In the last year I've been in London, Paris, Rome and NYC and managed to keep my phone safe thankfully. I probably take more stringent precautions but it could just as easily happen in my hometown!

It’s being adviced to use a burner phone

The vast majority of people who live in London have never been mugged or pick pocketed. Yes some of it is common sense but for goodness sake this thread is so over the top it’s ridiculous.

When the thief stuffs your phone straight into a faraday bag as soon as they have lifted it and then plugs it in to their laptop at a later time with no signal availability they already have your data.

Your phone will not be wiped and they will circumvent your fingerprint, your sense of false security is why people get their devices and IDs stolen..

Yes, this works. I also have a decoy wallet with about £10 in it that I keep with me in case I am mugged or pickpocketed. I was pickpocketed in Rome on the train, and they must have been disappointed only to find a few euros and an expired coffee club card (no name just stamps). When I was a student in Rome, I kept my real money in my shoe or bra because the pickpocketing was so bad.

Except that the thief can put on aeroplane mode which will block the signal wiping your iPhone, unless you’ve been through some fairly non- obvious steps to change your settings. Although in fact I think that may only work for Find My iPhone, not for wiping it, so you may want to double check that.

Plus it took the thieves less than 2 minutes to lock my colleague out of his phone, so might be a good idea to practise a bit to make sure your time is eg sub 1 minute (bearing in mind if you’ve actually just been mugged you’ll probably be in shock and take a few seconds to compose yourself).

Or you could think about accepting the fact that your assumptions may be wrong and your phone really isn’t as safe as you believe. Which is exactly what I did after my colleague’s phone was nicked and I realised I’d been massively naive/ignorant.

Yes, I'm sure you are right, but to say, 'never' surely depends on how long you have lived in London, how privileged you are and were. If you grew up in the area of West London I did there was a high chance you would be mugged and a lot worse! It is wholly contextual and using such a broad geographical area for the statistic in here means that you wouldn't know where the risk is higher and the risk lower in 'London'.

I mean the OP's proposition is not workable for many of us. Two of the people I know who had phoned stolen whilst walking back from a meeting, had to take this phone calls. Lessons learned and headphones are now used but they aren't as clear.

Any evidence that this actually happens to Joe Blogs?

Don’t you have secondary password protection on your banking apps? I have to Face ID to get into mine even when the phone is unlocked.

It takes a fingerprint and occasionally a passcode to get into my banking app even when the phone is unlocked. And a fingerprint to get into Google wallet too.