Think your phone is worthless to thieves? You couldn't be more wrong

If you think that phone thefts are a thing of the past, you're wrong.

One evening, I stumbled upon a Ukrainian TikTok creator who is now living in London. She shared her visit to one of the city's pizza places.

"Unfortunately, you're not gonna get cinematic shots of me eating this pizza. This is as much as I can offer you without risking getting my phone stolen. This is London," said the TikTokker.

While I'd heard about the rise of phone theft in the UK, I hadn't thought too much about it, attributing it to one of the big city's problems.

However, a few weeks after I saw the video, I met with a friend who told me that her phone had been stolen. At first, I got a bit confused since I was looking at her iPhone when she told me about this, also thinking that we live in a city almost 4 times smaller than London.

"I got it back," she said, then proceeded to tell me about the whole ordeal of getting her phone taken away and all of her efforts to get it back.

After hearing about the situation, two things stood out for me. First, knowing what to do next in a case like this is crucial. My friend was able to track her phone by using the "Find My" feature on her friend's phone and constantly playing a sound that would give out where the device might be.

Another thing that stuck out to me was after I found out how she got her phone back. Apparently, someone heard the sound, and after my friend tried to call her phone one more time, someone picked the device up and told her that they found it lying on the floor.

After she told me that they met up and a teenager gave her phone back, we started thinking about what might have happened and whether this person had taken the phone in the first place.

This is when it dawned on us that some people might be stealing smartphones not for data or money but simply for the joy of creating chaos.

Millions of smartphones stolen

The UK government revealed that theft cases have risen more than 150% over the last year, with around 78,000 people getting robbed in England and Wales. It's been reported that 74% of those people were robbed in London alone.

The reason for the robberies is the increased demand for used smartphones, "which are typically exported to regions where blacklisting and anti-theft measures are limited or non-existent, such as parts of Africa and Southeast Asia," shared Anastasia Poida from HeyLocate.mobi, a business that provides phone and number tracking services.

Meanwhile, around four million pre-paid phones in the US, valued at around $900 million, are trafficked yearly. The phones are usually sent to places without International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) databases, making it harder to make stolen phones unusable.

Why do smartphones get stolen?

We might think that traceable phones are useless to thieves and that the days when a stolen phone was something no one wanted are behind us. However, the situation is quite different, or it remains the same as 20 years ago when the use of cell phones was rising. Back then, devices were stolen to be re-sold or taken for parts.

Same incentives, different times

The main incentive remains the same to this day with the demand for smartphone parts and complete devices growing.

This is especially true when thieves have connections to global black markets, where "having a consistent supply of popular models, deceptive phone repair businesses can turn a substantial profit using stolen parts," states Seth Geftic from Huntress, a cybersecurity company based in the US.

But we're not entirely stuck in the past. While users now can lock their phones in case they get stolen or lost, "the thieves and hackers that are tech savvy know ways to make financial gains by stealing personal data, bank information or other personal details for identity theft," say Laura Frombach and Joy Farrow, co-authors of "Street Smart Safety for Women: Your Guide to Defensive Living."

Is it all for money?

After the story about my friend's stolen phone, we couldn't or didn't want to admit that the attempt to steal the device was to sell it or steal information. Looking at the situation and the fact that a younger male returned the phone also prompted us to think that someone did it out of peer pressure or just for the sake of it.

While Geftic agrees that some people still steal phones for the sake of it or so they could have the device for themselves, the number one motivation for such action remains financial.

Especially considering the consequences if the person gets caught. "I would say that stealing someone's phone for the thrill of it would be a juvenile situation or a dare, considering the prosecution they would be looking at," say Frombach and Farrow.

Knowing that a smartphone is locked or traceable doesn't really scare thieves.

"A lot of people who commit this kind of quick opportunistic theft are not necessarily thinking 'oh wait this model can't be reset without signing into a Google account.' It's just an expensive thing sitting there and they steal it." shared one user in a discussion on Reddit.

How to protect yourself from smartphone thieves?

While there can be numerous reasons why some people choose that route, one important thing to keep in mind is that it can still happen to anybody and to know what to do in case it does.

To protect your data in case your device falls into someone else's hands, it's advised to set up a strong lock code, fingerprint, or facial recognition, as well as two-factor authentication.

For the same reason, backing up your device regularly is beneficial.

It's smart to have Apple's Find My, Google's Find My Device, and Samsung's SmartThingsFind feature activated. These features allow a user to trace or at least lock/reset the phone. My friend probably wouldn't have regained her phone without it.

When out and about, be aware of your surroundings and what's going on behind you in case someone is trying to see your phone activity (you entering a passcode or any relevant information). It's also smart to check some routes in advance so you don't have to find yourself lost on the way home in unfamiliar places.