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.

I don't have banking aps. All I know is the chap was using his phone, he was pushed to the ground and the phone stolen, within a very short space of time, they had changed his protocols and been able to get into his bank to get £23K. The bank were reluctant to clear the loan as he didn't have a police report. It was only when they told him all his protocols had been changed just before the loan was requested, they agreed it wasn't him.

Ditto although I was in Barcelona.

Just be sensible. Don't mindless scroll walking down the street.

The irony as landlines are sadly being phased out

Ok, you’re starting to sound a little silly now.

How do you know I’m not a Russian bot? Because I told you so….?

Believe me, I know my colleague well - we worked together for 7 years, I went to his wife’s funeral. He’s confessed far bigger fcuk ups to me than having lax security on his iPhone - one of them being standing outside a bar near Liverpool Street on a Thursday evening to make a call.

Oh did I mention his role is heavily focused on data security?

But yeah yeah, I’m sure he’d changed the pin unlock to 123456 and his banking password to “password” and then lied to us about it.

You know best.

You have been unlucky. I have lived in London for over 35 years and that’s not been the experience of my family and friends. Not even close. I can see why you are wary, given what you have experienced.
Sounds unpleasant. I live in London and work centrally and am careful but not overly so.

Guessing you don't live in London??

It's weirdly fascinating how the "items at risk of being stolen" change; and the inevitable Daily Fail article would give some advice on how to prevent it, which sometimes was actually so inconvenient that it simply wasn't worth it.

In the 90s, teenagers risked having their trainers stolen from their feet, if they were valuable. I heard of this happening before it happened in the book About A Boy.

Car stereos used to be another hot item, you rarely hear about this now. The solution? Ones that you could remove easily, and take with you. 😆😆😆 Who is going to carry their car stereo around at work with them all day, in case it gets stolen? (A later compromise was ones with a removable front panel.) Making it easy to remove means it's much more vulnerable if you do leave it in. Nowadays, they are actually quite difficult to remove from the car quickly, and that's as it should be.

Sat navs were often stolen, when they were novel gadgets in the early 00s, and still quite expensive. The advice was not only to hide them away, but to wipe off the tell-tale circle from the windscreen, which implied that you had one. Nowadays, cars contain valuable dashcams instead, which are usually left in.

And don't get me started on cars with keyless entry - I think that's one of the biggest invention blunders ever, and a massive backward step in car security. Because of this, you now "have to" use a Faraday pouch to outwit thieves, and to replace it regularly. Give me a traditional key to start the car with any day. (When my parents had car keys stolen in the 80s, they were amused that the garage managed to open the door locks with a paper clip, but it was much more difficult and expensive to unlock the steering wheel, and to bypass the ignition key.)

Please don't tell me my experiences are not normal.

You’re the one suggesting others experiences are not normal /unusual by saying they are “lucky” or “cautious” . And then implying many on this thread are agreeing with my experience because Mumsnet attracts certain type of people. So listen to your own advice.

I left London fairly recently (2 years ago) and my work is still there , so I go approx once a month and most of my UK based friends and some family live there. I have a wide social circle who live and work all over London (and I last lived in south London)

So your experience was certainly not similar to mine or my friends (as well as many on this thread)

I had my phone stolen out of my hand recently walking up the road in Covent Garden. I'd been using it, moved my hand downwards to put it back in my bag and it was slipped out of my hand. I walked 5 minutes to a coffee shop and went online on my laptop to find my phone was 5 streets away. It was in Dubai within a few days and China not long after.

I'm not a tourist. I lived in central London for many years and still work there.

I go to London for footy games where basically you are very restricted on size of bags. My phone is on a line connected to my pocket and my purse is chained to my pocket. Sounds extreme but its easy to lose phones and purses. I often use Google Maps and can pull the phone out without fear of it being nicked!

If we stop carrying valuable in plain sight, that would be enough

My bank has Face ID enabled, i have travelled all over the world to not had a problem fet

er, no. Just keep your phone safe. I’m not going to start wearing a stab vest in London either….

I have lived and worked in London for 24 years and had my phone stolen once - it was a fairly crap Nokia phone that was in an evening bag that was snatched from my hand in the street at 3am.

Generally I don't get my phone out in the street and keep it in a pocket in a zipped up cross body bag.

I thought a banking app would have a pass code. Mine certainly does though on the news they said that they cracked one guy's pass code which is scary. I have a pin on my phone plus also my sim card so if they take out the sim they need a code if they put it into another phone. I did this after watching one of those scam programmes on the TV.

I use my phone in London all the time, within reason. I try not to walk along with it as a map etc, but I don’t ever think I should leave it at home

And don't get me started on cars with keyless entry - I think that's one of the biggest invention blunders ever, and a massive backward step in car security.

It's completely idiotic. When we bought our last car we deliberately got the more basic model that didn't have this and then added on the features we wanted eg parking sensors.

I don’t know the stats but there was a story yesterday (possibly in the Standard) that a chap had his phone snatched on the tube. Someone managed to take £21000 even though he had the protections you mention. They also managed to take out a loan in his name.

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

I read that - it was especially odd that he said he'd been trying to take out a loan himself but it was always declined, yet the scammers took one out in minutes.

If the phone is unlocked as the man was probably using it, it is a lot easier to get past the other stuff, some people might put pin codes in notes on phone, and not protect them. A quick Google shows they can do this. Much harder though if phone is locked. Some might use the same code for bank as phone also email is often accessible on unlocked phone

This! Thieves want easy pickings. The amount of people I see walking down Oxford Street, texting away, oblivious to their surroundings... next minute, their phone is gone. There are small changes people can make to protect themselves and their property.

Also I don’t think your average phone thief has the technology to get into a phone that has a PIN code to commit fraud - they’d have to get past passcodes and Face ID.

Afaik they target phones that are in use and then keep them open. You need to add the layers of protection so they can't easily change the phone PIN, obviously, and then fingerprint or Face ID on email and messages , make sure messages don't show up as banners etc. 2FA on banking apps ideally should use a different device, rather than it all being via the one phone.

It always amazes me the hoops we jump through with banks and our own money but these scammers and thieves can just do everything unhindered with bank accounts. I had to ring my bank to explain I was giving DS 5k and went through a load of fraud questions but these people seem to have free rein with other peoples accounts

If you phone is locked and pinched then probably the only consequence is a probably a lot of inconvenience and an insurance claim, make sure stuff isn't on the Lock Screen though. An unlocked phone is much more serious, that seem to be what they are after.

I'm baffled by this, especially with reference to London. I drive, cycle and tube it round London all the time. I've always got my phone dangling off me, as have most of the other people I see about.

I've never felt threatened or had it nicked. When cycling it's on the bike in a holster.

This just seems like a very weird paranoia to me. I bet there are one or two places in London I know of where I'd be a little bit more cautious, but not the whole city. 🤣

It's a huge international city scanning 30 miles diameter. It's one of the most civilised, safest and richest places in the UK, and also the world. It's not dangerous or a minefield of criminals. On here it's hilarious to me that some people see it as "the big, bad city, full of thieves".