Chuck Schumer knows that one of the many, many annoying things about losing a cell phone is the idea of the monster who took it away using it, or profiting from its sale. On Sunday, the senator moved to make the experience of creating that “I Need Numbers” Facebook group a little less painful by pressing carriers to make it harder to sell stolen phones on the black market. Standing outside an AT&T and holding an iPhone aloft for emphasis, Schumer urged telecommunications companies to employ technology that would allow them to render missing devices useless by deactivating them, as opposed to just disconnecting the SIM cards.
However, Verizon already does this, as does AT&T, according to a spokesman’s response to Schumer’s proposal:
But if you are a customer of ours, and lose or think your cell phone has been stolen, we deactivate it immediately. And no one can use it.
Does this mean that the senator is a T-Mobile user? Or, more likely, that he’s just never personally dealt with a lost phone? (And whose iPhone was that?) Either way, the NYPD says that 41 percent of theft complaints in New York City include a cell phone. Those familiar with the why-am-I-being-cursed? feeling associated with these disappearances, not to mention customers of less thoughtful phone companies, appreciate the gesture.
Sen. Chuck Schumer calls for tougher stolen cell phone regulation [NYDN]
Does this mean that the senator is a T-Mobile user? Or, more likely, that he’s just never personally dealt with a lost phone? (And whose iPhone was that?) Either way, the NYPD says that 41 percent of theft complaints in New York City include a cell phone. Those familiar with the why-am-I-being-cursed? feeling associated with these disappearances, not to mention customers of less thoughtful phone companies, appreciate the gesture.
Sen. Chuck Schumer calls for tougher stolen cell phone regulation [NYDN]
