Lost

My iPhone:

A.) Either got stolen out of my purse.
Or
B.) Fell out of my purse and someone found a new iPhone 4s.

I was at Target yesterday shopping for Easter stuff for my nieces and nephew. I called my sister while in the cosmetics section, as I was looking for lip gloss and nail polishes for my nieces, I hung up the phone and put back in my purse which was in the cart. I walked over to the dollar spot to look for a few more little things for the kids Easter baskets. I go over to the cash register, about to pay when I notice my phone is not in my purse, I look in my purse, which is rather roomy so it can possibly get lost in there, and in the basket/cart to see if it by chance fell in there but it was nowhere to be found. I panicked! The cashier offered to let me use her phone to call it, we called it, and it rang, I ran over to the dollar spot to see if it was there, but it wasn’t. I went back to the cashier, she said let me call it again while I ran over to the cosmetics section, when she called it this time it went straight to voicemail, which meant someone had it and had turned it off because I alerted them when I called it. The cashier ran over to the lost and found for me to see if someone had turned it in, but had no luck, 2 other Target associates came over to help me look in both places, they checked the cameras, but no luck either. A girl came up and asked if I wanted to use her iPhone for the find my iPhone app, I logged in, phone was offline since it was powered off, I selected play a sound and erase iPhone, at that moment I figured whoever found it or stole it was not planning to turn it in to lost and found. I left Target without making a purchase as I was too distraught that my phone was gone. When I got home, I jumped on my iPad, checked the find my iPhone app and the phone was still offline with the Pending: Erase Phone as it will not happen until the thief/dishonest person powers it back on again. I changed all of my passwords and reported it stolen to my cell phone provider.

Things I should’ve done differently:

1) I should have made sure that my purse was zipped up and secured so no one can find it easy to reach in there and swipe it
2) Patience instead of panic-When I realized it was gone instead of calling it, I should have found someone with an iPhone and used the iPhone app to track it instead of alerting the thief/dishonest person that I now had realized it was gone and was looking for it.

Things you should do:

1) Make sure that you have the Find my iPhone app, have back up enabled for wi-fi.
2) Have a lock pass code enabled so your information is safe.
3) Be aware of your surroundings at all times.

One last thing, when I got home I went into my Instagram app on my iPhone and realize that the thief/dishonest person had posted a picture that I had taken, which means they were definitely snooping before I realized it was gone. The audacity!

The sad part is that I had pictures from the weekend that had not been transferred to my photo albums and I’m sure that there are things that I haven’t even realized were on there that are now gone forever. I know it’s only a phone, but in this day and age, most of my life is in my iPhone.

Adieu sweet friend!