Stolen phone tracking?

[troispony]

Is it possible to track a stolen phone after it has been deactivated? Or is it a lost cause?

My phone was 'misplaced' last month. I knew exactly where I left it and when I went to get it less than half an hour later, the room had already been cleaned up by a cleaning service and there was no phone. I assumed it would turn up so I told the management of the place where I lost it and waited. In the meantime I had an old phone that I activated b/c verizon told me to while
I waited for the droid to turn up.

I didn't file a report with them because I thought it was still around and would be found sooner or later (I know, dumb).

Well I was looking through my photobucket pictures yesterday, and lo and behold, the thief has been taking pictures nonstop and they are still being sent to photobucket, (so we are not dealing with a particularly smart phone thief).

I had installed Wheres My Droid but I doubt it would work when the phone # is no longer the same.

 

[Ra21V12eN]

I'm not aware of any way to do it unless you had previously installed the application.

I assume the person in question is the girl in the photos?

One particular way of getting around it would be to go back to the location where you know it was missing from and flash the photo around. Say something like... I met this person, but they didn't give me there name... can you help? I have something of there's... See if you can track them back that way. I'm sure that if you flash the photo around, someone will notice. Then once you've got the name, see if you can figure it out from there.

The other option would be to call your provider and have them blast the phone so that none of your details are in it and it gets deactivated.

I would also suggest that you call the police and file a police report. They may know who that is and can recover your equipment directly.

I'd still have your provider blast the phone so that it is wiped remotely...

My $0.02

 

[jabq]

If the GPS is on, and the geotagging or gps location stuff is on in photobucket, you might find some EXIF data in the details of some of the pics. It does not appear one of those options is on in the photos I sampled from photobucket, but that could be either photobucket settings or phone settings. One of those you can change, the other you can't... Search the help on photobucket to see how to change that and try it out.

Hope this helps and good luck!

 

[GrdLock]

Honestly dude, I don't know if you get on reddit... but I'd seriously consider posting this there if I were you. I see stuff like this get posted there all the time, and the entire community there is enormous, and they go freaking nuts over stuff like this, especially since the thief's pictures are automatically getting posted to your Photobucket account. I'd almost be willing to bet money that if the post made it popular over there, your phone would somehow get recovered.

Post it in the /r/askreddit subreddit.

"Some girl stole my phone, and her pictures she's taking are still auto uploading to my Photobucket account, can anyone help find my phone??"

A title like that will probably get some attention. If you're not familiar with reddit I'd be more than happy to post something for you to get some attention if you want me to.

 

[outkast25]

she took a picture of her kaslopus?!!?!?!?

 

[Kelmar]

Might I suggest contacting the local police with your concerns.

On a side note, I have removed the link to the person in questions Photobucket account as I fail to see what relevance this has to do with topic on hand (and could potentially drag an innocent person's name and reputation through the mud). Feel free to PM me if you feel differently.

 

[smacky]

Honestly dude, I don't know if you get on reddit... but I'd seriously consider posting this there if I were you. I see stuff like this get posted there all the time, and the entire community there is enormous, and they go freaking nuts over stuff like this, especially since the thief's pictures are automatically getting posted to your Photobucket account. I'd almost be willing to bet money that if the post made it popular over there, your phone would somehow get recovered.

Post it in the /r/askreddit subreddit.

"Some girl stole my phone, and her pictures she's taking are still auto uploading to my Photobucket account, can anyone help find my phone??"

A title like that will probably get some attention. If you're not familiar with reddit I'd be more than happy to post something for you to get some attention if you want me to.

^^ This

Go ahead and post the link to the Photobucket on Reddit when you explain your story. No one's going to delete it there. Some may see the pictures and recognize where they're from and help you out there.

There is an Android section too, but post this to the AskReddit. The Android section may give some insight about what exactly could be running on the phone that could locate it, but...

 

[troispony]

Thanks everyone! I just posted this on reddit, I hope it works.

Is there no way to use wheres my droid to locate it? It was installed prior to being stolen, so as far as I know, it is still on there.

 

[erisuser1]

Is there no way to use wheres my droid to locate it? It was installed prior to being stolen, so as far as I know, it is still on there.

Seems like you know by now that your phone is in mexico - and has been there for nearly a month. Even if you had exact GPS coordinates, what would you do about a phone in Mexico?

That doesn't sound like a vacation or a phone that is coming back.


What seems mystifying to me is how someone could be clever enough to reprogram the phone to a completely different carrier, and yet fail to perform a factory reset. Did you reset your Gmail and/or E-mail passwords? If not, they are reading your Gmails/Email, and can purchase apps on your dime.

I don't know what the truth of the matter is, but you ought to consider that the person using your phone (if that is really what is going on) may not be the person that kyped it in the first place - or even aware that it was stolen.

Beware of unintended consequences of posting too much information on the internet - especially when it is other people's information.