What to Do Before You Lose Your Phone

August 25, 2016

Earlier this year, I wrote about a cell phone case that can protect you from the potential harm of cell phone radiation and allows you to carry up to 3 cards in it. I mentioned one of the downsides as being “the risk of keeping your cards with your phone since if you lose it, you lose your cards too.” Well, after recently leaving my phone/credit cards on a bus, that risk isn’t just theoretical anymore. Here are some ways to protect yourself in case you lose your phone, your wallet, or both:

Make sure you have a password lock on your smartphone. Otherwise, anyone who gets your phone may have access to your personal information, including possibly financial accounts. I minimize the inconvenience of having to constantly unlock it by using a quick swipe pattern instead of a PIN or password.

Keep a backup phone. It can be an old phone that’s not worth much and should be able to be activated quickly without a contract. Ideally, it would be on a different network than your regular phone so you can also use it if you’re in an area where your the latter has poor service. Mine is on Ting, which charges by usage without a contract and uses the Sprint network.

Sign up for Google Voice. Google Voice is a free service that gives you a phone number that you can use to forward calls to other phones (plus Google voice chat) and a voicemail that’s converted into text and is accessible to read or listen to online. This way you can have your calls forwarded to any phone that’s accessible to you (like your backup phone) and have access to any text messages or voicemails you receive. You can then put your Google Voice number on your phone’s lock screen so someone can easily contact you if they find it. It’s also handy to be able to access messages while you’re on a plane or otherwise away from cell service and is quicker than porting your number when you get a new phone.

Use a phone tracking app. The iPhone has “Find My Phone” and Android phones have “Android Device Manager.” I used the Android app to verify that my phone was on the bus. I could also add a password or change my lock screen info, make the phone ring at maximum volume for 5 min, conserve battery power, and even erase all the contents of the phone.

Keep a spare credit card elsewhere. If you lose your credit card(s), you’ll want to cancel them so having another card you can use until you receive the new one(s) is very helpful. In particular, I use one of my spare cards for all auto-payments and never travel with it so if I lose my wallet, I don’t have to worry about updating all those auto-pays (and possibly missing one).

Fortunately, I was eventually able to get my phone back after contacting the bus company. The only cost was a nominal fee for a new debit card and about $20 for using my backup phone. Without taking those precautions, my financial information could have gotten into the wrong hands, or at least I would been without a phone or credit cards for a while. You may never have yours lost or stolen, but as they say, better safe than sorry!

Want more info on this or other financial topics? If you have a question, feel free to email me. You can also receive future blog posts by following me on Twitter and/or subscribing to my posts on the blog home page.