Register Hardware

Original URL: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/05/09/mobile_phone_theft_study/

Phone-theft hotspots named and shamed

By James Sherwood
Published Friday 9th May 2008 09:39 GMT

If you’ve lost your mobile phone recently, have you tried trawling Cambridge's pubs? Because the city’s boozers are the most likely spot for handsets to ‘go missing’, according to new research.

Security firm CPP has compiled a list of ten English cities where mobile phone theft is at its highest, and doubled the stats up with the ten most likely individual spots for handset theft, such as the pub.

London, surprisingly, only comes in at third place, trailing behind Cambridge in first place and Leicester in second. Manchester took seventh position, followed by Liverpool and Southampton in joint eighth place and relatively safe Plymouth in tenth position.

Unsurprisingly, the pub is where talkies go walkies most frequently. We guess your handset’s likely to be in a pretty vulnerable state after you’ve played a game of one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.

Clubs, much like pubs but with more shape-throwing drunks, are second on the list. Your very own home is the fourth most likely spot for mobile phone ‘theft’, but it’s bound to be down the back of the sofa somewhere. Looked behind the fridge yet?

Seeing as many people spend the vast majority of their time working, it’s not really surprising that work was named as the sixth most likely place for mobile phone loss - so be wary of those so-called colleagues. Other likely places where your talker might be taken include the bus, at the supermarket and on the train.

So you may want to think twice if a strange bloke in a Cambridge boozer offers to hold your handset while you get the beers in.