Blocking A Stolen Mobile Phone

macman

It puts a 4 digit PIN on the phone. In order to use it with the installed SIM, you need to enter the PIN on boot up.So it prevents someone using the phone to make calls on your account. It doesn't lock the phone itself, which can be used normally with an alternative (unlocked) SIM. So the handset itself still has value to a thief.
Carrying a phone that is not SIM locked is like leaving your credit card available for anyone to help themeself to.
No, there is no other way to prevent the potential charges if it's lost or stolen, nor do there need to be.

Kimberley

Thank you all. My daughter checked and yes the Sim has been blocked and the phone blacklisted. She didn't get insurance because many people told her it was a waste of money because 02 wanted £13 a month on top of her monthly contract for insurance. She will now take a cheap phone with her when she goes out to clubs in future.

ChiefGrasscutter

Cheap phone and PAYG sim with only a few £ on it: simple.

macman

Add it to your home contents insurance, always much cheaper.

Lifeforms

Basically the phone comes in two parts, the Sim, and the Phone itself.
Equally they are wads of cash, your sim for any usage from it, payg, or especially contracts, and the phone for the cost of resale.

The phone lock will lock the phone, depending on how it's used. The sim lock will lock the sim. Any time you turn on the phone, it will ask for a sim lock code. You then have to enter this to unlock the sim, thus even if your phone is stolen whilst you're unaware, they can't remove your sim and throw it in another phone, and rack up call charges. This does not affect calling in emergency ie 999 calls.

The best advice anyone should have is to set both the phone lock, and the sim lock too. (However this is not the subsidy lock (of sim locked name too); that's the one where the phone is locked to a specific network only. aka "my phone only works with Vodafone", or "my phone can only take EE sims", or "O2 locked my phone to their network, how do I unlock it?")

Set the phone lock to lock after say 5 mins (also known as auto-standby) Or to lock upon the lock screen. As in you press the standby button to lock the phone from being bum-dialed etc. It should lock after a set short time of non-use, so basically you have to input the code every time you want to use it. Pain right? But that saves your phone being accessed, along with all of it's data etc.

Set the sim lock too, thus your sim is protected, as well as useless upon being stolen. This would stop any gap between you being able to cancel the sim/block the phone, from point of theft/loss. These generally only kick in upon turning the phone off and on. not so annoying.

Naturally you need to use a proper pin code, and not rely on the usual, DOB, 1234, 4321, 0000, etc. Just like your bank pin, you learn it eventually, but it should be fairly hard to guess.
Additionally lock codes mean any notifications, such as the iphone ones for facebook, skype etc that show up on the lock screens will still be needed to open via that way too.

Mobile phone insurance is so hit and miss, one good place to check is with your bank. Many Banks offer account extras like mobile insurance for a small monthly fee. Some even offer it to customers, and their families, so as a mum or dad, it's worth checking if you can insure your kids (living at home) phones too. They seem to be fairly comprehensive, and also a lot cheaper than buying through the provider at the time of buying the phone/contract.
For example I pay £6.something a month for mine from Barclays. It gives me upto £1k phone protection, theft, water, loss, accidental and in addition upto £750 on gadgets (cameras, laptops, tablets etc). Do not assume it would be covered under your household contents, unless you check. But an extra premium of a few quid to your household insurance may add on gadget/valuable/mobile insurance, worth a check. Do check the terms of any insurance as the majority of things that happen quite often aren't covered. Dropping/accidental/dog ate it etc, water damage, real or sensor picked up, and theft from bags, anything left unattended. There are usually also requirements about storing it, in cars for example.

Most get ripped off with a few months free, or half price insurance from the mobile companies (or others like square trade) and find out they're worthless (google water damage insurance non-payout for apple products etc) or cover things like theft upon violence. Not all are like that, but they're damned expensive for what you get.

BigRonW

Some interesting misinformation is the above collection. If you really DON'T know, then PLEASE, don't try to look impressive by talking about stuff that you clearly really don't understand.

Every phone has a unique IMEI number. When you make a call, your phone transmits not only the phone number attached to your USIM, but also your IMEI number. Orange used to have a ramshackle piece of software called "Isaac" that kept a record of the IMEI component of every call you'd made. I'd be amazed if their rivals didn't have the same facility. It used to be that, if you reported your phone stolen, it would be blocked... but only on the network who'd supplied it. (So, a Virgin phone would only have been blocked on the Virgin Network) About ten years back, the various networks (led, if I recall correctly by T-Mobile) gave in to pressure and blocked stolen phones from other networks as well. They do so by identifying the IMEI number which is broadcast every time the phone is used.

Every town has at least one shop where you can get your phone "unlocked", usually for about a tenner. "Unlocked" meaning that if the phone was supplied by (for example) O2, then it'll usually refuse to work with any other network's SIMs; by "unlocking" the phone, you enable it to work with any and all SIMs - Orange, Virgin, Tesco, Vodaphone... The hardware required to "Unlock" (most makes of) phones isn't in fact very expensive - not much over a hundred quid - and the software to do the job is usually free. The software that's used to unlock phones is very often capable of also changing the IMEI number. A one-digit change is quite enough to unBlock the phone. Owning such software is of course totally illegal, and carries a stiff penalty - huge fines, as well as quite a long prison sentence. Yet - as I mentioned before - most towns have several shops where the ownership of such software is commonplace. They use it for LEGAL (unlocking) purposes, and not ILlegal (unBlocking) purposes. But, none-the-less... ownership of it is STILL illegal. It's like a machine gun. Just because you haven't shot anyone doesn't make it LEGAL to own one.

Lifeforms

I do however think that sometimes people are happy to know, and indeed carry on with their lives, that by blocking their phone (via the IMEI number) that it can't be used again. Unfortunately as the above poster has said, there are ways around it, either by using it somewhere different in the world (like shaun from Africa said) or by changing it as above by BigRonW.

The problem is passed on, and sometimes IMEI blocks are maliciously done, upgrade/new phone on contract, sold on ebay, contract defaulted, provider blocks IMEI and the new ebay owner is screwed over.

Just sometimes it's nice to live in the bubble where an IMEI block actually works how it is supposed to do so However which way there is around it, it should always be done upon a lost or stolen phone.

spannerzone

So after all the above informative information, you can basically put a bar on the SIM card to stop it being used for calls and also on put a bar on the phone to stop other SIM's being used in it.

shaun_from_Africa

BigRonW wrote: »

Some interesting misinformation is the above collection. If you really DON'T know, then PLEASE, don't try to look impressive by talking about stuff that you clearly really don't understand.

But, none-the-less... ownership of it is STILL illegal. It's like a machine gun. Just because you haven't shot anyone doesn't make it LEGAL to own one.

As the law currently stands in the UK, you are not committing any offence by simply owning reprogramming equipment.
This equipment and its use is covered by 2 legislative acts,
"Mobile Telephones (Re-programming) Act 2002"
and
Section 62 of the "Violent crime reduction act 2006"

It only becomes illegal if :
1/ You own it and intend to use it for illegal purposes.
2/ Sell, give or lend it to another person and you know or believe that they are going to use it for something illegal,
3/ Offer to use it to on equipment owned by another person,
so contrary to your quote above, owning the equipment is nothing at all like owning a machine gun.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/31/section/2

Possession or supply of anything for re-programming purposes

(1)A person commits an offence if

(a)he has in his custody or under his control anything which may be used for the purpose of changing or interfering with the operation of a unique device identifier, and

(b)he intends to use the thing unlawfully for that purpose or to allow it to be used unlawfully for that purpose.

(2)A person commits an offence if

(a)he supplies anything which may be used for the purpose of changing or interfering with the operation of a unique device identifier, and

(b)he knows or believes that the person to whom the thing is supplied intends to use it unlawfully for that purpose or to allow it to be used unlawfully for that purpose.

(3)A person commits an offence if

(a)he offers to supply anything which may be used for the purpose of changing or interfering with the operation of a unique device identifier, and

(b)he knows or believes that the person to whom the thing is offered intends if it is supplied to him to use it unlawfully for that purpose or to allow it to be used unlawfully for that purpose.

And the violent crime reduction act.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/38/part/3

Offering or agreeing to re-programme a mobile telephone

In section 1(1) of the Mobile Telephones (Re-programming) Act 2002 (c. 31) (offence of re-programming mobile telephone etc.), omit "or" at the end of paragraph (a) and after paragraph (b) insert:

(c)he offers or agrees to change, or interfere with the operation of, a unique device identifier, or

(d)he offers or agrees to arrange for another person to change, or interfere with the operation of, a unique device identifier.

Lifeforms

spannerzone wrote: »

So after all the above informative information, you can basically put a bar on the SIM card to stop it being used for calls and also on put a bar on the phone to stop other SIM's being used in it.

Basically yes! But you need to contact your provider ASAP after losing the phone. The sim pin lock, and phone pin lock should be used by everyone prior to it being stolen That at least stops it both phone and sim being used before you get a chance to report it.