“Don't want no Samsung,” thieves say, while returning phones in odd new trend

Owning a Samsung in London won’t help you avoid getting mugged, but it may save you from having to buy a new smartphone.

Considering that we live in times when tracking a device is no longer rocket science, the logical outcome of this would be a decrease in smartphone theft. However, that’s not quite true, with more than 7 million phones being stolen or lost worldwide in 2024.

London, where £50 million (more than $65 million) worth of phones were stolen last year, according to the UK Parliament research and information service, can now be called the capital of stolen phones.

But while smartphone thefts don’t seem to be slowing down, criminals are becoming more selective when it comes to the smartphone brand they target.

Even thieves prefer Apple to Samsung

Getting robbed is a traumatic experience, whether it takes someone to attack you physically or cleverly distract you while taking your belongings. In this day and age, losing your phone also means losing your money, permits, tickets, memories, and other data.

But imagine going through all of this and then, within seconds, getting your smartphone back?

That’s what happened to several citizens who had their smartphones stolen in London, but got their devices back because they were Samsung smartphones and not iPhones.

This “phenomenon,” shared by London Centric, reveals how thieves are becoming picky about what they’re stealing.

In one situation, a person was mugged by eight people who, once sure that there was nothing left to take from the victim, started to run. Until one of them turned around and handed the Android smartphone taken just a few minutes before, saying, “Don’t want no Samsung.”

People who had their Android-powered devices taken from them reveal thieves using some “classic” stealing methods, such as snatching a device from a victim’s hand while driving an e-bike or a scooter, or approaching them for a friendly conversation, so they could grab the phone a moment later.

The only difference between these situations and a regular theft is that some victims with Android phones have received their devices back.

Why are smartphones worth stealing?

The reason for such selection could be related to the fact that the iPhone's resale value is higher in the secondhand market.

For example, while Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra can boast of hardware customization and more convenient repairability, one of the reasons why it’s worth owning an iPhone is its higher resale value, as revealed by the comparison test of Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra and Apple’s iPhone 16 by DHgate.

And an analysis by UpTrade, an online phone reseller from 2023, also revealed that Android-powered phones lose value faster than iOS-equipped iPhones due to a more consistent user experience. Users who prefer the Android operating system have more brands to choose from, rather than just Samsung, whereas iOS users are limited to Apple devices.

Considering that smartphones can be easily tracked and found nowadays, in theory, this should deter thieves from targeting smart devices.

However, new technologies can’t change the same old incentives, such as reselling smartphones for those who want one for less, or for those who need them for parts. More “advanced” thieves also do it to extract data and use it to commit other types of fraud.

Endless Android vs iOS debate

The situations where even thieves decide to leave Samsungs to their owners remind us of the eternal debate between iPhone and Samsung users, each being sure that their choice of smartphone is better than the other’s.

The discussion between the two camps reached a point where Android users considered switching to an iPhone due to the "sheer pressure and mockery,” as shared in a survey.

Meanwhile, some users might be tempted to switch from Android to Apple for social reasons, most often, a smartphone choice is determined by aspects such as price, specifications, and personal preferences.

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