How a phone dip actually happens
A typical theft takes two to three seconds and often involves more than one person. One creates a distraction: a bump at a train door, a dropped coin, a map held up in your face, a request for directions. Another lifts the phone from a back pocket, a jacket pocket or an open bag. A third may take the phone from them so the person you suspect has nothing on them.
The other common method is snatching: a phone taken from your hand while you are looking at it, often by someone on a bicycle or scooter, near a kerb. Both rely on the same thing: you did not feel it, or you felt it too late.
Where it happens
Anywhere with crowds, queues and distraction. These are the usual places, in most cities.
Public transport
Doors of buses and metro trains, especially when a crowd pushes in or out. The doors closing is the thief's exit.
Learn moreQueues and crowds
Ticket lines, security checks, markets, concerts, festivals and sports events. Everyone is pressed together, so a touch is normal.
Tourist streets
Squares, viewpoints and famous streets where people hold phones up to take photos and carry bags open for maps and water.
Learn moreCafés and terraces
A phone on the table by the street is a snatch target. A bag on the back of a chair is a dip target.
Hotel lobbies and hostels
Places where everyone is a stranger with luggage, and a person walking off with a bag looks like a guest.
Learn moreLate at night
Outside bars and clubs, when attention is low and phones are out to call a taxi.
12 habits that keep your phone
None of these costs anything. Pick the ones that fit how you carry your phone.
- Front pocket, never back. A back pocket can be emptied without you feeling it. A front trouser pocket is hard to reach unnoticed.
- Zip it. An inside jacket pocket with a zip, or a bag compartment with a zip, beats any open pocket. Thieves prefer targets that take one movement, not two.
- Bag in front in crowds. Wear a bag across your body with the opening towards you, and keep a hand on it at doors and in queues.
- Nothing in the hand near the kerb. When you must use the phone on the street, step back from the road and turn your back to the traffic. Snatch thieves work from the road side.
- Put it away before the doors. On buses and trains, pocket the phone before the stop, not as the doors open. The doors are where most dips happen.
- Treat a bump as a signal. If someone bumps you, blocks you or gets unusually close, check your pockets immediately, while the person is still in sight.
- Do not hang bags on chairs. In cafés, keep the bag on your lap or between your feet with the strap around your leg. Keep the phone off the table.
- Use a strap or lanyard when travelling. A short wrist strap or a cross-body phone strap makes a snatch fail more often than it succeeds.
- Keep your phone locked and your screen dim in public. A bright screen tells a thief which phone model you have and that it is unlocked.
- Split your valuables. Phone in one pocket, cards in another, some cash separate. One dip should not take everything.
- Know where your phone is without looking. Tap your pocket at every door and every queue. It becomes automatic in a week.
- Set up remote tools before you leave home. Turn on Google Find My Device, note your IMEI, and switch on Alert24 Remote Access if you use it. Read how to find a lost Android phone.
Tech: a pocket alarm, remote locate, IMEI noted
Habits reduce the chance of a dip. An alarm changes what happens when it succeeds anyway. Alert24's Anti-Pickpocket alarm uses the proximity sensor at the top of the phone: while the phone is in a pocket or bag the sensor is covered. When the phone is pulled out into the open, the sensor uncovers, a short beep sounds, and then the siren starts at full volume, with flash and vibration if you want them.
The siren keeps ringing until your Alert24 PIN is entered. The volume keys cannot turn it down below a loud level. A thief holding a screaming phone in a crowded carriage usually drops it, and everyone around you now knows what happened.
- Arm it by hand before you enter a crowd, or let automation arm it when the phone is in your pocket and you are walking
- Paused automatically at trusted places such as home or work, and on your safe Wi-Fi
- No internet needed for the alarm itself
If it happens anyway
Do not chase or grab anyone. Get somewhere safe, borrow a phone, and start the stolen phone checklist: ring and locate it with Google Find My Device or Alert24, change your Google password, block the SIM, note the IMEI, and report it with a reference number.
If the phone was armed with the pickpocket alarm, it is ringing right now. Look around you before you do anything else; many people simply drop the phone.
Frequently asked questions
Does the pocket alarm go off when I sit down or move?
No. It reacts when the proximity sensor goes from covered to uncovered, which means the phone came out of the pocket or bag. Moving with the phone in the pocket keeps the sensor covered.
Can a thief silence it by holding the volume button?
The volume keys lower the siren only a little; it stays loud. The alarm stops when your Alert24 PIN, pattern, knock code or fingerprint is entered on the alarm screen. Wrong entries are photographed.
Does it work in a bag rather than a pocket?
It works whenever the sensor at the top of the phone is covered. In a bag, put the phone screen-side against something so the sensor is covered. Test it once at home.
Is it free?
Yes. The Anti-Pickpocket alarm, automation and trusted places are free. Remote Access for ringing and locating a lost phone is part of Premium.
Make your pocket loud
Alert24's Anti-Pickpocket alarm is free. Arm it before the next crowded train.