What should I do if my phone is stolen?

Money moves faster than a handset. 159 is a short code run by Stop Scams UK that routes you straight to your own bank's fraud team, is supported by providers covering more than 99 per cent of UK retail current accounts, and cannot be spoofed or impersonated the way a long number can. Use it from any phone you can borrow. Ask for card and mobile banking access to be suspended and for a note on the file, then work through any other payment app — wallet, buy-now-pay-later, transport, food delivery — that stores a card.

Ring the network next, and do it inside 24 hours. GOV.UK's announcement of the Code of Practice names EE, O2, Three, Virgin Media and Vodafone, and describes a voluntary agreement under which the five networks protect around 27 million consumers on pay monthly contracts, with liability capped at £100 where the loss is reported to the mobile network and the police within 24 hours. It is an agreement rather than legislation, and Citizens Advice is blunt about the default position: you will usually have to pay for the cost of the calls up until the time you reported the phone missing. Citizens Advice also notes the cap applies to monthly contracts, and that on pay as you go you might not get a refund for credit used before you report.

Then deal with the device itself, and lock before you wipe. Apple's iCloud guidance says Lost Mode locks the device so others cannot access your personal information, lets you create a message saying it is lost and how to contact you, suspends payment cards and other services on applicable devices, and shows the device's current location on the map. Android's Find Hub, in Google's words, marks the device as lost, locks it with your PIN, pattern or password and displays contact information on the lock screen. Erasing is stronger and close to one-way: Apple's erase guidance warns that afterwards you will not be able to locate the device or play a sound on it. Google's requirements are practical — power, a mobile data or Wi-Fi connection and a signed-in Google account — so act while the handset is still online.

Report the theft to the police. In England and Wales call 101. nidirect gives Northern Ireland the same routes — 999 in an emergency, 101 for non-urgent matters, or reporting online through the PSNI — and asks for as much information as you can give about the location, the time and descriptions of those involved. Police Scotland says to call 999 if someone is in danger or a serious incident is happening or about to happen, and to call 101, report online or come in person otherwise. Citizens Advice says your network provider will give you the phone's identification number, the IMEI, which you should pass on to the police; ask at the same time for the handset barred, not only the SIM stopped. Keep the crime reference number.

The part people skip is the accounts. A stolen phone is an identity incident, because it is where security codes land. Work through the logins that send a code to that number — banking, email, GOV.UK One Login, HMRC, NHS login, Universal Credit — and change the registered number on each. Email first: whoever controls the email controls the resets for everything else. The NCSC's two-step verification guidance is useful here precisely because it plans for this failure: backup codes, it says, are ideal because they can be used even if you lose your phone, and it tells you to store them somewhere safe. The same page is measured about text messages — not the most secure type of 2SV, but still a huge advantage over using none.

Two habits make all of this shorter next time. Ask your network for the IMEI it holds against your account and keep it somewhere that is not the phone, alongside the make, model and colour — chasing that number from a borrowed handset at eleven at night is the slowest part of the process. And check what is reachable from a locked screen: notification previews showing one-time codes, and a wallet that pays without a passcode, hand a thief the two things they need. Citizens Advice adds a third — if the phone is insured you might be covered for unauthorised calls made between losing it and reporting it, so find out now what your cover includes.