Search Deal Posts

🚨 20 THINGS YOU SHOULD DO TO YOUR PHONE NOW TO STOP CRIMINALS STEALING YOUR MONEY 🚨

Most of us carry access to our entire financial lives in our pockets. Banking apps, savings accounts, investments, credit cards, cryptocurrency and email accounts are often accessible from a single device.

And criminals know it (as evidenced by these articles):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8y70pvz92o
https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/s/iqKgfBlUw3
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64240140
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/phone-snatch-gangs-soho-london-borough-amazon-apple-louis-vuitton-b1213922.html

We’re not just talking about someone snatching your phone and running off. Criminals can target unlocked phones, watch people enter PINs, or even force victims to unlock their devices and transfer money.

Here are 20 things you can do TODAY to make yourself a much harder target or allow you to get out of trouble without all of your funds being taken. Some take less than 30 seconds, others require a little more thought.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1️⃣ ENABLE STOLEN DEVICE PROTECTION

One of the most important settings on your phone.

On an iPhone, this adds extra security to sensitive actions, including changing your Apple Account password and accessing saved passwords. Some actions require biometric authentication, with no passcode alternative, and others involve a security delay.

📱 iPhone: Settings → Face ID & Passcode → Stolen Device Protection → ON. We recommend setting Require Security Delay to ALWAYS.

📱 Android: On supported devices, go to Settings → Google → All services → Theft protection. Enable the available protections, particularly Identity Check, Theft Detection Lock and Offline Device Lock.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

2️⃣ HIDE YOUR REAL BANKING APPS

Someone who steals your unlocked phone shouldn’t immediately see which banks you use.

Both Apple and Android offer ways to hide sensitive apps behind additional authentication.

📱 iPhone: Press and hold a supported banking app → Require Face ID → Hide and Require Face ID. It moves into the Hidden folder in your App Library.

📱 Android: Android 15 and later supports Private Space, which can keep a separate installation of banking apps behind another lock. Find it under Settings → Security & privacy → Private space.

📱 Samsung: Secure Folder offers similar protection. Find it under Settings → Security and privacy → More security settings → Secure Folder, although menus vary by model.

IMPORTANT: Hiding an app doesn’t necessarily hide its notifications, transactions or other traces of your banking activity. Configure those separately.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

3️⃣ CREATE DECOY BANKING APPS

This is an unusual one, but potentially useful.

Consider installing a few genuine banking apps for banks you DON’T use.

The idea is that someone looking through your phone sees these rather than immediately identifying your actual bank.

On iPhone, you can also create an automation that locks your screen when a particular app opens, see the other section for what else you can automate.

📱 iPhone: Open Shortcuts → Automation → App → Choose the decoy app → Is Opened → Run Immediately → Add the Lock Screen action.

📱 Android: Some devices support similar automations through apps such as Samsung Modes and Routines or third-party automation tools.

⚠️ This is only a distraction, not a reliable security measure. A determined criminal could simply search for other financial apps.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

4️⃣ ENABLE LOCATION-BASED PAYMENT PROTECTION

Some banking providers offer additional controls depending on where you are.

For example, Monzo and Starling offers enhanced security features that can require extra verification or restrict certain sensitive transactions unless you’re in a trusted location.

📱 iPhone & Android: Open your banking app and look under Security, Privacy or Payment Settings for trusted locations, additional verification and transfer controls.

Features vary significantly between banks. Don’t assume your bank automatically prevents large transfers when you’re away from home.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

5️⃣ DON’T KEEP YOUR LIFE SAVINGS ACCESSIBLE FROM YOUR EVERYDAY PHONE

This is arguably one of the biggest changes you can make.

If you have £50,000 in savings, does the banking app containing that money really need to be accessible while you’re standing outside a pub at midnight?

Consider keeping everyday spending money in one account and your substantial savings somewhere less accessible.

Ideally, moving significant sums should require additional authentication or access to a separate device. This is where having multiple companies you bank/invest in can spread the risk.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

6️⃣ CONSIDER USING TWO PHONES

It might sound excessive, but plenty of people already have an old smartphone sitting in a drawer.

One phone can be your everyday device containing your normal spending account, transport apps, messaging and everything else.

The second stays somewhere secure and is used for accessing savings, investments and other high-value accounts. Or skip the second phone and just use your computer/laptop etc for those sort of payments. Yes it might catch you out occasionally where you run short but most of the time it will be fine to do a transfer only when you’re at home.

The important part is ensuring your everyday phone cannot simply reset passwords or authorise transfers from those accounts.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

7️⃣ REMOVE INVESTMENT APPS YOU DON’T NEED

Do you really need instant access to your investment portfolio when you’re walking around town?

If you have significant investments, consider removing the apps from your everyday phone.

Accessing investments through a browser on a separate trusted device may reduce your exposure.

📱 iPhone & Android: Uninstall unnecessary investment apps, remove saved login credentials where appropriate and ensure account recovery cannot be completed using your everyday phone alone.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

8️⃣ CHECK HOW EASILY SOMEONE CAN ADD YOUR BANK CARDS TO APPLE PAY OR GOOGLE WALLET

This is something many people overlook.

Some banking apps allow customers to add cards to digital wallets very quickly.

If a criminal gains access to your banking app, could they add your card to another device?

Could they transfer money from your savings into your current account first?

📱 iPhone & Android: Check your bank’s card controls, digital wallet permissions, transaction notifications and additional verification options.

If your bank supports it, require stronger authentication for adding cards to new devices.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

9️⃣ DON’T RELY ON FACE ID OR FINGERPRINTS ALONE

Biometric authentication is excellent at protecting against someone who has simply stolen your phone.

However, it doesn’t solve every problem.

Someone could watch you enter your passcode, or a criminal could threaten you into unlocking your phone.

It’s also fairly easy to add a new Face for Face ID especially if you give them permission with your face (e.g. if being threatened).

If your banking app opens with the same biometric authentication as your phone, consider what additional protection exists for large transfers.

Look for separate banking PINs, transfer limits, trusted beneficiaries and additional verification.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🔟 SET LOWER DAILY TRANSFER LIMITS

If your bank allows you to reduce your daily transfer limit, consider doing it.

Do you really need to be able to transfer £25,000 instantly from your mobile phone?

A lower limit could reduce the amount a criminal can move before you regain control of your accounts.

📱 iPhone & Android: Open your banking app → Settings → Payments or Transfers → Payment Limits.

Not every bank allows customers to reduce these limits, and some permit immediate increases, so check how your bank handles changes.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1️⃣1️⃣ PROTECT YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT EVEN MORE CAREFULLY THAN YOUR BANK

Your email account is often the key to everything. It should be treated as your #1 priority.

Someone with access to your email could potentially reset passwords, intercept security messages and gain access to other accounts.

Use a strong, unique password and enable two-factor authentication.

Where possible, use passkeys or a physical security key.

Consider keeping your most sensitive financial accounts linked to a separate email address that isn’t signed in on your everyday phone.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1️⃣2️⃣ HIDE SENSITIVE NOTIFICATIONS ON YOUR LOCK SCREEN

Banking notifications, verification codes and password reset messages shouldn’t be readable by anyone holding your locked phone.

📱 iPhone: Settings → Notifications → Show Previews → When Unlocked or Never.

📱 Android: Settings → Notifications → Notifications on lock screen. Choose to hide sensitive content or disable lock-screen notifications.

You can also configure individual apps.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1️⃣3️⃣ PROTECT YOUR PHONE NUMBER AGAINST SIM SWAPPING

Your mobile number may be used to receive verification codes or recover accounts.

Criminals sometimes attempt to transfer someone’s number to another SIM or eSIM.

Contact your mobile provider and ask what additional security they offer for SIM replacements, account changes and number transfers.

Also enable a SIM PIN where appropriate, although this doesn’t prevent every form of SIM-swap fraud.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1️⃣4️⃣ SECURE YOUR CRYPTOCURRENCY

Cryptocurrency can be particularly attractive to criminals because transfers are often difficult or impossible to reverse.

If you hold significant amounts, consider using a reputable hardware wallet rather than keeping everything accessible through an app on your everyday phone.

Never store recovery phrases in your phone’s Notes app, screenshots, photographs or cloud storage.

A hardware wallet is not protection against every threat, particularly if someone can force you to authorise a transaction.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1️⃣5️⃣ ENABLE REMOTE LOCATION AND LOCKING

If your phone disappears, you want to be able to locate and secure it quickly.

📱 iPhone: Settings → Your Name → Find My → Find My iPhone. Enable Find My iPhone, Find My network and Send Last Location.

📱 Android: Settings → Google → All services → Find Hub or Find My Device, depending on your version.

Android also offers Remote Lock on supported devices.

Make sure you know how to access these services from ANOTHER device.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1️⃣6️⃣ STOP PEOPLE ACCESSING YOUR PHONE WHEN IT’S LOCKED

Check which features are accessible without unlocking your phone.

On iPhone, for example, you can restrict Control Centre access from the lock screen.

📱 iPhone: Settings → Face ID & Passcode → Allow Access When Locked. Review Control Centre, Siri, Wallet and other options.

📱 Android: Lock-screen controls vary between manufacturers. Review available settings and disable anything you don’t need.

These restrictions can make it harder for someone to interfere with your phone immediately after stealing it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1️⃣7️⃣ USE A STRONGER PHONE PASSCODE

A four-digit PIN has just 10,000 possible combinations.

A six-digit PIN has one million.

A longer alphanumeric password is stronger still, particularly against someone attempting to guess it.

📱 iPhone: Settings → Face ID & Passcode → Change Passcode → Passcode Options.

📱 Android: Settings → Security & privacy → Device unlock → Screen lock.

Avoid obvious combinations, birthdays and PINs you also use for banking.

And be aware of people watching you enter your code in public.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1️⃣8️⃣ ENABLE ADDITIONAL PROTECTION FOR YOUR PASSWORDS

Your password manager potentially contains access to dozens of valuable accounts.

Make sure it locks automatically and requires strong authentication.

📱 iPhone: Review your Passwords app security, device passcode and Stolen Device Protection settings.

📱 Android: Review Google Password Manager or your chosen password manager, including biometric authentication and automatic locking.

For particularly sensitive accounts, consider keeping credentials or recovery methods off your everyday phone entirely.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1️⃣9️⃣ HAVE AN EMERGENCY PLAN BEFORE YOUR PHONE IS STOLEN

If someone steals your phone, how quickly could you secure your accounts?

Make sure you know how to:

✔️ Lock or erase your phone remotely.

✔️ Contact your bank’s fraud department.

✔️ Suspend your mobile SIM.

✔️ Revoke access to your email and other important accounts.

✔️ Remove payment cards from digital wallets.

✔️ Report the theft to the police.��✔️ Call your partner, friends and/or family without your phone’s contacts to get help.

Keep important contact details somewhere OTHER than your phone.

In the UK, you can report fraud to your bank using its official fraud number. Many banks also support 159, which connects you to participating banks’ fraud teams.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

2️⃣0️⃣ THE MOST IMPORTANT SECURITY FEATURE IS YOUR OWN AWARENESS

All the technology in the world won’t protect you against every situation.

Avoid walking down busy streets with an expensive phone held loosely in your hand. Consider a strap especially if you’re in a big city / high crime area.

Be conscious of people watching you enter passwords or banking PINs.

Don’t unnecessarily advertise your wealth, investments or cryptocurrency holdings.

And if someone threatens you for your phone or demands access to your accounts, prioritise your personal safety. No amount of money is worth being seriously injured over.

For those with substantial assets, physical security matters too. Think about the principles of DETER, DETECT, DELAY and RESPOND, both at home and when you’re out.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

💰 FINAL THOUGHT

The goal isn’t to make your phone impossible to steal. It’s to make stealing your phone as financially unrewarding as possible.

Ideally, a criminal who gets hold of your everyday device should have no straightforward route to your savings, investments or other substantial assets.

You don’t necessarily need to do all 20 things, but even implementing a handful could make a significant difference.

📌 SAVE THIS POST and spend 15 minutes reviewing your phone’s security settings.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 SHARE IT with family members, particularly anyone who uses their phone for most of their banking.

👇 WHAT HAVE WE MISSED? Have you implemented any other clever security measures that could help protect people against phone theft and financial crime?

Marks and Spencer's Takeaway Dine-In £16.00
➜ https://10ws.co/4zgvCFC (aff ad)