Phone thieves: BE CAREFUL with your phoneYou are EASY PREY if you have not yet specified a cell-phone password, proudly displaying your real name on the phone, and often leave the phone unattended on restaurant tables or carry it in an open bag through crowded streets.
When you store personal information on your phone--whether it is contact information or your own name--you make that data vulnerable. If you lose your phone or someone steals it, a prankster can entertain himself or herself by calling every single person in the phone's address book. If you've included your name on the display banner of the phone, then it's obvious exactly whose phone it is and whose name to use when placing calls. Your friends and business contacts might forgive such a blunder, but the charges to your bill are not so easily forgotten.
This is an extreme example, but even if the person who finds your phone is not interested in this kind of chicanery but rather in the phone's black-market value, you're still out a phone.
So what do you do?
There are other ways to thwart potential thieves and tricksters from using your phone for their calling pleasure.
Encrypt. Specify a PIN number or password for your phone. If you must write down your password, don't store it near your phone. Also, most mobile handsets have a unique serial number listed on the phone: find it and record it in a safe place.
Reinvent yourself. When programming a banner for your phone, choose a nickname rather than using your own name. That way, if someone gets hold of your phone, he or she won't know what name to use while impersonating you. Consider using nicknames for your contacts, as well.
Watch it. As with most portable electronic equipment, you should keep an eye on your phone at all times when you're in public. Try not to carry it loose in an open bag or put it down in places where you'll forget about it on your way out. When possible, keep it on your person. If your phone comes with a holster, think about fastening it securely to your hip. Even if your phone is PIN-protected, it's still a royal pain to replace a stolen phone.
Know the consequences. Ask your manufacturer or service provider how to prevent loss or theft, and what to do in case misfortune befalls you.
You may not be able to prevent loss or theft entirely, but with these steps, the fallout won't be so bad. Your friends and business associates will thank you
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