Lost/Stolen phone - disappeared from WindowsPhone.com?

[vc-10]

I lost my phone on Saturday night. Turns out that a night out with the rugby club is a good example of a time to take a spare 'going out' phone! Anyway, it ran out of battery I think, as the location on the 'Find My Phone' bit of windowsphone.com was showing my location at 8:20pm on Saturday evening, and wouldn't refresh.

Anyway- I've been repeatedly hitting refresh, in the hope that someone had charged it up. It didn't change, until I tried it just now having got back from uni. My phone, a 930, is no longer showing in my account. The only one that is showing is my old 800, which I sold about 2 years ago! I've changed my passwords. Any ideas? I'm guessing that it turns out that the phone was stolen, and has been wiped. Good job it's insured!

 

[gMaesterUK]

That's strange that it just disappeared, as I know my 520 that I sold ages ago still appeared on my account until I deleted it.
Did you try the Lock or Erase option?

G.

 

[Skamath]

very much likely that it was wiped clean but I dont think that the phone would vanish from your account as it is registered to you. you cant find your phone if the location is turned off. but other than that I find it strange that the phone vanished from your account without the other person having a password?

 

[vc-10]

Yeah- my old Lumia 800 is still listed, not used it for 2 years. I didn't do the erase bit, but I press the Lock button, and in the box where it asks what you want to have it display on the screen I gave my contact details. Possibly should have changed the password a bit earlier!

 

[gMaesterUK]

Not sure if MS have enabled the functionality that if a phone is locked or reported stolen it can't simply be wiped clean & re-registered with another user...

G.

 

[AndyCalling]

Not sure if MS have enabled the functionality that if a phone is locked or reported stolen it can't simply be wiped clean & re-registered with another user...

G.

Yea, the situation is that both Apple and Google have applied proper security lock down for phones recently. This has dropped phone theft dramatically, but as MS have not yet added this security lock down all phone thieves are currently targeting users of Windows Phone devices since they are the last weak option out there.

To avoid MS losing customers to villains, and to keep my life going, and as this is a serious and potentially fatal safety flaw with all WP devices, I'm hopeful they are rushing out a fix?

Until then, best advice is to leave any expensive WPs in the home or the office and only take a cheap backup phone out in public. Ideally a cheap Android device.

 

[vc-10]

Yeah, I'm currently using a knackered old HTC Desire with a smashed screen. Yay. Ridiculous that MS don't lock it down once stolen. Once reported stolen, the device shouldn't be able to function at all IMO.

I'm insured, but it's still really frustrating.

 

[Kevin Rush]

"Leave your phone at home?" That is the most stupid thing I've read. All phones, by every manufacturer, should be set by their owners to have a password on the lock screen. This is true for all phones. If stolen, erase it remotely. Your Microsoft phone can be restored ( your next phone, if necessary). You will then be more careful, just like with any phone.

Yes, you (everyone) needs to take some responsibility.

I would never bother with buying or using one of those other phones.

 

[Kacey Green]

If you changed your Microsoft account password your phone will need the new password to update its location etc.

 

[Richard Culverhouse]

"Leave your phone at home?" That is the most stupid thing I've read. All phones, by every manufacturer, should be set by their owners to have a password on the lock screen. This is true for all phones. If stolen, erase it remotely. Your Microsoft phone can be restored ( your next phone, if necessary). You will then be more careful, just like with any phone.

I'm often surprised how many people don't bother with a pin or password.

 

[vc-10]

If you changed your Microsoft account password your phone will need the new password to update its location etc.

I changed it after it disappeared. I didn't think that my account could have been compromised until it did- I had a PIN lock on the phone.

Re leaving the phone at home- I don't think anyone's suggesting never taking your shiny nice phone out the house, but instead, leaving it at home when you go on a very drunken bar crawl with a rugby club. I used to do that most of the time when going out on more, erm, risky nights out, but I lent the HTC to a friend who had smashed her phone completely, and so wiped it, and hadn't gotten round to setting it back up to my Google account. If I lost the HTC it would be fine- I'd just buy another POS phone off eBay as my spare, and get a new SIM card from the shop.

 

[AndyCalling]

Even with a pin, your phone can be reset and reused. A pin doesn't make your phone less desirable to thieves. It goes like this:

1) Spot WP user in the pub.
2) Follow WP user and once alone threaten or dish out sufficient violence to obtain phone.
3) Remove sim and insert into own phone.
4) No sim lock? Call ?100 per min number in Africa. If victim protests, another kick to the head usually quietens them down.
5) Locked sim? Oh well, leave with phone then reset at leisure and sell on.

Sim lock and pin are essential, but you still get mugged. A proper lock down preventing reuse plus sim lock is the only way. Just like the other companies provide.

By all means take your expensive phone to work or to other safe places, but until MS address this massive safety issue it is unwise to be seen using an expensive WP in public places right now as they are the target all the thieves are looking out for. That means you are the target.

Once MS catches up with everyone else it'll be much safer. Right now using a windows phone in a pub, club, coffee shop or out on vulnerable streets is like a girl going to a seedy area at night wearing hot pants and a bikini top. It is likely to draw unwanted attention.

Oh, and if you don't have a sim lock in place your pin won't help.

 

[vc-10]

How can it be removed from my account though without my MS password? That's crazy.

There's been no charges to my account for the last month, as I've got unlimited minutes and texts, so that's all OK.

​I do think that your scenario is a little bit OTT...

 

[gMaesterUK]

How can it be removed from my account though without my MS password? That's crazy.

To be honest, I would contact Microsoft about this, as you shouldn't be able to remove a phone from your list, unless that person had access to your MS account. So it's either a breach of your MS account or maybe a bug in the WindowsPhone.com website or system...

Either way MS should be able to tell, and fix it if it's an issue their end...

G.

 

[PepperdotNet]

[theory]If someone stole your phone, wiped it, and logged in with a different MS account, it would be on their list and off of yours.[/theory]

 

[gMaesterUK]

[theory]If someone stole your phone, wiped it, and logged in with a different MS account, it would be on their list and off of yours.[/theory]

I agree with your 'theory' however in practice this isn't and/or shouldn't be the case. I sold my 520 last year and it was re-registered near enough straight away, yet it still showed on my list alongside my 820 until I deleted it... Though of course it didn't show me the location of the 520!

G.

 

[vc-10]

Yup- my old 800 was sold to a friend, and I can't see it's location. I never got round to deleting it!

I've already contacted MS about this, and I'm going to see what they say. Although I've heard nothing since my 'Chat' with their service advisor last night, but I gave my email and hopefully they'll contact me soon. I'll post up what they say.

 

[AndyCalling]

How can it be removed from my account though without my MS password? That's crazy.

There's been no charges to my account for the last month, as I've got unlimited minutes and texts, so that's all OK.

​I do think that your scenario is a little bit OTT...

It really depends what area you are in. In many places mobile phone theft was getting to epidemic levels, which is why Apple/Google have kill switches for phones now. This means thieves are now specifically and very actively hunting for WP handsets. And we are not the largest group out there. And there are a lot of phone thieves at a loose end. If you feel that is an acceptable risk, you are free to roll the dice.

 

[vc-10]

I'm fairly certain it was an old-school pickpocket or a 'theft by finding' as the nice people at the Police put it- I was with a bunch of burly rugby players (and I'm quite big myself), we were all in rugby kit so it was obvious we were a group, and I was put in a taxi at some point as I was out of it, so not wandering around town by myself. Still nothing from MS, might message them again.

 

[vc-10]

Just got an email from Microsoft. Wonderfully non-committal, and they've given me 2100 MS points (works out as ?23.20, which is better than nothing but still a bit frustrating).

This is what they said:

From the information, I understand that your phone was lost/stolen and after some moment you were no longer able to see the phone on windowsphone.com. First of all I am sorry to hear that your phone got stolen. I have done some research and I am sending you this email to let you know that if it happened that your phone got lost, was registered on windowsphone.com and no longer showing there is not much possible to do. Note that we are unable to remove/delete a Microsoft account from device only the owner of the account can do that, so I will not be able to tell you how it was removed unless the account was compromise by someone else who had access to your account. If you believe your account was compromise (hacked) by someone else you can let me know and I will be happy to send the case to another department.

I responded with the following:

There should be no reason how someone could have gotten onto my account without the password. The phone just disappeared from the WindowsPhone.com website. Am I right in thinking that the phone cannot be removed from my account than from the website, clicking the 'Remove' option? Why does this not include sending me an email, like when I change my MS password? I'm really quite disappointed with this whole situation to be honest. Apart from using Gmail, I'm a pretty big user of MS stuff- I'm running the Windows 10 Tech Preview, I've got a Surface, and I've had Nokia Windows Phones since the 800 was launched. It's making me doubt the security of the whole system- it really needs to be fixed in Windows 10 (and TBH a patch for WP8.1 too).
Would there be a way of looking into the access to my MS account, and find out how the phone got deleted?


Haven't got a clue what's going to happen, but the whole lot still kinda stinks.