A while back I went to a convenience store I frequent in the next town over. I realized I didn't have my phone as I was pulling out of the parking lot and turned right around. The clerks helped me look and one called my number on her cell phone to make sure it hadn't dropped in some odd place in my car or around the store. No dice. I KNEW I had my phone when I pulled into the store because I had been streaming a radio station when I got there and had turned it off before I went in.
I came home and found a program called "Plan B" in the Google store that I was able to initiate installing from the web page. Immediately I started receiving email updates with Google maps and saw my phone traveling around town, including a brief stop just a few blocks from my house. I went next door to use my friend's phone, I was going to call the police, but first I called my mom because she (a nurse) was expecting an update before dark on an elderly relative I had checked on to know if she needed to go do anything for and to let her know to call my friend if she needed to reach me. She told me that she had my phone and would be by shortly to bring it to me. :O
Turns out that the store owner reviewed their security cam tape after I left. I had sat my phone on a small shelf right below the counter as I pulled out my card and signed the receipt. The guy right behind me picked up the phone and stuck it in his pocket. They recognized him as a regular customer and the clerk who had called my number when I was there kept redialing and the guy finally answered it. She told him that they had him on tape taking the phone and he needed to bring it back. He did and told them some BS that he thought his friend had left it. They checked my contacts and found "Mom" and called her.
When I went by the store a couple days later and thanked them for helping me recover it, we joked about it being dumb to steal a
smartphone
. I never got a pic of the guy who took it, when I checked my phone's history the only activity he had done on it was answering the call from the store clerk. I've been quite diligent about knowing where my phone is since.
