My wife got mugged... laptop & cell phone stolen.

[Jaime Vallés]

Hello, all. Just wanted to check in with you all. My wife got mugged a couple of days ago, and the thieves stole her wallet, laptop and cell phone. She's fine, and the police have all the info they need, but it's unlikely that the stuff will turn up again.

Anyway, I wanted to check in with you all because you're tech-savvy people. She's already canceled her credit cards and changed her email password, but I wanted to see if there's anything else she should do to protect her identity. If you can think of any other precautions she should take, please post here.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jack Shanahan]

Im really sorry to hear this. Not cool. Did this happen in NYC? Perhaps notify the DMV if she has a license?

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

If you have a remote desktop capability I would try to get onto the computer and wipe the drive.

 

[Jaime Vallés]

Im really sorry to hear this. Not cool. Did this happen in NYC? Perhaps notify the DMV if she has a license?

Thanks, Jack. She is working in West Palm Beach right now. Only 3 more days until her flight back home.

 

[John Galeano]

Don't know if this would help but if she had an iPhone, its got gps and you can pin point the location of the phone and thief.

 

[Jaime Vallés]

If you have a remote desktop capability I would try to get onto the computer and wipe the drive.

It's a Macbook Air. Not sure how to do the remote desktop thing. Is that something I can start now? Or should I have set it up beforehand?

 

[Jaime Vallés]

Don't know if this would help but if she had an iPhone, its got gps and you can pin point the location of the phone and thief.

Not an iPhone. An HTC Evo 4G running Android 2.3. Any way to do that on android?

 

[Jeff Whitehurst]

Call the carrier and report the IMEI or ESN info from the stolen phone. They'll flag the phone as stolen and if anyone tries to activate it they'll confiscate it and possibly gain you some evidence.
Also, the carrier may be able to help recover contact info from the device. Be very grateful your wife is ok, it could have been different

 

[Jaime Vallés]

Well, I did some digging, and I found this:
https://market.android.com/details?...GwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5sb29rb3V0LmxhYnMucGxhbmIiXQ..

It can be installed on your phone AFTER you lost it, so hopefully this will work. My only fear is that the battery ran down (it's been a couple of days already). We'll see what happens.

 

[Jaime Vallés]

Call the carrier and report the IMEI or ESN info from the stolen phone. They'll flag the phone as stolen and if anyone tries to activate it they'll confiscate it and possibly gain you some evidence.
Also, the carrier may be able to help recover contact info from the device. Be very grateful your wife is ok, it could have been different

Indeed, things could have been MUCH worse. She's fine, just shaken up.

We're talking to Sprint now.

 

[Bob Rudis]

Sorry to here about this, but glad she's ok. I believe you can call the three big credit rating agencies: Equifax, Transunion and Experion and tell them to put a "fraud alert" on your accounts. This prevents the creation of instant credit. No credit accounts can be opened without a telephone call to you authorizing it. I did this a few years ago as a safety measure. It worked well. I got three of four letters explaining why we were turned down for accounts we never tried to open. Not sure if they still offer it or if it's still called a fraud alert. I read in the paper recently that the cops are using the "find my phone" feature on the iPhone to catch crooks. Good Luck.

 

[Brian Iannone]

I'm sorry to hear about what happened.

One possibility is that the phone carrier may be able to locate it for you. Someone I know had their iPhone stolen a few years ago, but AT&T was able to locate it using GPS. I'm not exactly sure if they do that for everyone, but it's worth calling and asking.