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Topic: Things I wish I had done after my backpack went missing
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I had my backpack stolen from INSIDE the office I was working in New York. Here are few things I wish I had done differently.
Earlier this week I was working out of Manhattan office. It was reasonably secure so when my backpack was not where I left it, I assumed it had been moved for cleaning or the like rather than stolen.
Unfortunately I was wrong. A day later security footage revealed a man posing as a delivery person had made off with it.
The backpack had my iPad 2 (with 3G and Wifi connectivity), along with my passport, an external hard drive, and odds and ends.
Here are the three things I wish I had done (right away or before travelling) even though I didn't know the it was stolen:
- using Find my iPhone right away would have told me that the iPad had left the building and therefore been stolen rather than simply misplaced
- had an active cell account on the iPad so it could connect to the internet regardless of Wifi availability
- once I determined that the backpack was stolen, I should have checked the garbage cans and dumpsters around the building
Using Find my iPhone right away
By checking Find my iPhone sooner I could have either located the backpack in the office or started the process of reporting it stolen sooner (or perhaps recovered the iPad, but think chances of that are slim with more savvy iTheives these days).
For me the paperwork necessary to replace my passport is the biggest hassle. I need the police report to do anything. It's going to take three days to get the police report. That's a big deal when you are travelling internationally so getting the process going sooner would have been useful.
Have an active cell account for your iPad when travelling
To locate the iPad or lock it, etc., Find my IPhone requires that the iPad is connected to the internet.
I hadn't bothered to replace the sim card in my iPad and get a local data plan account since I mostly tether my iPad for network when I don't have Wifi.
If I had an active 3G data plan, perhaps I could have located or locked down the iPad. Wifi connectively often relies on a password being entered, etc. and is far from a sure bet for internet access after the iPad has been stolen.
Check the garbage around the area
It may not of turned up anything, but I have heard that purse snatchers often ditch anything they don't deem valuable as soon as they can. I may have been able to recover some of things in the backpack that were of value to me, but not a robber, if I had taken a look in the area around the building.
Even if I hadn't found anything from the backpack in the area, at least I would have known I had done what I could to recover anything from it.
The real drag
I'm disappointed that my stuff is more than likely never going to be returned to me, but stuff is stuff. It's just a collection of things. It can be replaced or I can live without it.
However I can't replace my time on this earth. Dealing with the repercussions of the theft actually means time I could be doing something of value has been stolen from me. That sucks!
