My own record of mobile phone loss was diabolical when I was living and working in London, some of which was through muggings. One particularly bizarre experience happened when I was briefly living in E17. I was on my way home after a few beers with the work crowd, it was dark, and I'd just got off the tube. As I was feeling a bit lazy I had my mobile in my hand with the intention of making a call to a local taxi firm. Suddenly I found myself surrounded by a gang of youths, ranging in age from 10 to 16 I'm guessing, demanding my mobile. Given their age, I didn't feel too terrified though I was conscious of the fact that even a 10 year old could carry a knife. Anyway, rather than just hand it over, I asked them what they were going to give me in return. This seemed to confuse the majority of them until one of the younger hoodies took a mobile out his pocket and said I could have his as he couldn't get it to work anyway. So we exchange phones and I avoided any embarrassing stories about how I got beaten up by a bunch of kids.
As they walked off with my phone it occurred to me that all my numbers were stored in the SIM and it'd be a real pain to replace them. I called after the kid who'd done the mugging / exchange and pointed this out to him. Within a few seconds he'd swapped SIM's for me and was off catching up with his gang. If it hadn't happened to me I wouldn't believe it.
After that I decided enough was enough. I wasn't going to invest in the latest piece of mobile phone kit any more. I was just going to buy a second hand mobile through Loot and if it was lost or stolen then no big deal. I ended up with an older model nokia but it did the job and the fact that it was a PAYG meant that I wasn't roped into any contract which suited me fine at the time.
I only had a problem when I wanted to top up in a hurry. As the phone was second hand neither the unit nor the SIM was officially registered in my name so I couldn't use my credit card to top up. I tried everything including writing to the network with my explanation that it was second hand and asked could I please register my details. Nothing in reply. This was me experiencing the backlash against mobile phone crime. How lucky can a guy get - catching it both ways !
Now that my circumstances have changed I've decided to upgrade to a pay monthly mobile that is actually registered in my name so I'm off to check out the latest mobile phones in the hope that my luck with them has improved !
About the author:
Andrew Regan is an online journalist who enjoys socialising at his local Edinburgh rugby club.