Monday, September 23, 2013

Adventures in Stolen iDevices

With such a great weekend with my cousin and his wife in town, I was feeling pretty good on a Monday morning. I started the day with a good physical therapy session for my strained sacroilic (SI) pain that I've been experiencing in my lower back for the past few months and even was able to get coffee on the way into the office. Meetings went well, and then lunch at Pappy's Smokehouse with my cousin on their way out of town. All in all, good stuff.

I was back in the office for an event debriefing and was feeling pretty good about the productivity level of the day. Had even texted with the husband and confirmed some fun house shopping items for the evening - namely, a programmable thermostat and light switch plates! Awesome stuff, really.

When I got back to my desk, I noticed that my iPhone 3 in its pink silicone case was missing. It wasn't plugged into the headphones that were still lying on the desk where I had dropped them an hour before, pausing my music and headed into my 2 pm meeting.

I thought that was strange and started looking around. It was then that I noticed my iPhone 5 in its green and white polka dot case wasn't on the stand where I had left it. So I called it from my office phone but it rang and rang and went to voicemail, without me hearing the familiar "In the big, blue world!" from Finding Nemo the Musical at Disney World.

Huh. Maybe I left it in my cousin's car? I found his number via Google contacts and gave him a call from the landline. He and his wife looked throughout the car and it wasn't there. I called the smokehouse and no one had a lost phone there either.

I started to panic a bit. I opened every drawer around and enlisted my intern for help. Was it in the board room where I just was? The coffee closet? My car? The downstairs bathroom for some reason? Did anyone turn it into the front desk? No, no, no, no, no.

It was when I was describing to a co-worker what to look for when I realized my iPad in its purple stand up case wasn't on the carnival tickets I had purchased for this weekend's event and dropped on my desk this morning.

Three iDevices were sitting on my desk and all three were GONE. I called my phone number again and now it went straight to voicemail. Someone had taken it and turned it off, tired of the ringing.

Losing your phone is awful. Having it stolen truly is a violation. I feel like my arm has been cut off. I've lost about 500 photos since the last time I backed up and I've been working all afternoon to change every password I can think of.

We suspended the number and went to the AT&T store this evening to get a replacement. The store manager was able to approve a new phone for me, even thought I have a year left from being eligible for an upgrade. I had to sign up for the Next program, but even thought it's more per month, I can get a new phone in 12 months and go back to the 2 year contract if we want. But I have *MY* phone number. That's what I was most worried about. I've had this number for over 10 years and so many friends, family and event planning vendors have that number! When the customer service lady on the phone said I couldn't get it back without the physical phone, I freaked. Thank goodness for the store rep who set me straight and got everything set up.

Now I have to go back it up and reinstall things... so how's your Monday going?

6 comments:

  1. Girl. I am so so sorry!! I can't even imagine what a violation that feels like, but what blows me away most is that all of your Apple products were stolen from your desk at work! Do you think someone came in off the street and took them, or was it a coworker? either way, what a huge loss.

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  2. I'm glad you were able to get a replacement. Any time you have something stolen from you it's such a violation. I once had my apartment broken into. They didn't take anything of great value, but was still unsettling.

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  3. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Don't Apple products have that lost finder thing on them so you can track stolen devices? What a shitty awful thing for someone to do. Some people need a punch in the teeth.

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  4. Oh my gosh how terrible! I'm so sorry you are having to go through that. Who on earth might have done it?!?!? People really suck sometimes.

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  5. Boo! That's awful that it happened at work. I leave my phone sitting out on my desk all the time. I need to be better about that. Could you use that "find my iPhone" app to see where it was? We use that when Mac hides our phones (not only GPS tracking, but an alarm sounds to find it in the house). Were they able to remotely wipe your phone of all your data?

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  6. BOOOOOOOO! Why are some people so mean? I'm so sorry to hear that this happened to you - that your space was violated and that your things were taken. All my devices "technically" belong to my company so they have tracking on them, but I would still HATE having to go through what you're dealing with. :( xoxo - Natalie

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