mobile stolen from 9yr old niece

[mercmanuk]

has anyone a half descent mobile in the draw,i bought my little niece who's 9 a new mobile for xmas and some scumbag has nicked it from her in the street when she was speaking to her sister on it.what is going on!!.can anyone pm me with what you have and a price.located manchester.
many thanks
baz

 

[Spin_bowler]

you have a PM, might be useful to say where you're located to get the best response.

 

[BTB 500]

If a 9 year old 'needs' a mobile phone, doesn't a cheap / basic model make the most sense? Anything else is surely asking for trouble.

 

[mercmanuk]

in the modern world its handy to know they can keep in touch incase of a problem,society makes you aware these days

 

[BTB 500]

Possibly, just querying the need for anything other than a cheap/basic handset.

 

[SilverSaloon]

i dont have a mobile for you but just wanted to say sorry to hear this.... some people are pure scum.

maybe try ebay?

 

[pammy]

If a 9 year old 'needs' a mobile phone, doesn't a cheap / basic model make the most sense? Anything else is surely asking for trouble.

in the modern world its handy to know they can keep in touch incase of a problem,society makes you aware these days

All Bill is saying is that it only needs to be a basic model - not something half decent and therefore worth stealing. if she's been targetted once then she may be targetted again. have a basis phone and she's likely to be left alone.

Personally I would be uncomfortable if a 9 year old was in a position where a mobile was providing the assurance that they were OK. By all menas have one in case of emergency - but it should be just for that - an emergency thus reducing the chance of it being taken by others.

Mine got theirs when they were 11 years old and travelling by bus to secondary school. Until then they did not need one.

hope that doesn't come across as judgemental - it's not meant to be.

 

[Sp!ke]

I wouldnt buy a phone on ebay... so many are stolen/lost and shortly after getting the phone its IMEI gets barred from all networks.

 

[Howard]

I never had a mobile phone till i was 17 ... i was never robbed , attacked , molested and i came from a nasty part of London ( Wembley / Brent ) ...

Why do kids need mobiles ? and why a posh one ? Just an old basic one surely , if you really must ...

If i was a crim and i was looking to nick a mobile , i'd pass by the rude boys on the street and nick one from the kiddy ... much less chance of resistance ... whatever way you look at it , it makes her an easy target ( and an obvious one ) ....

Sadly , mobiles today amongst kids are status symbols aren't they ? If they haven't got one , they are mocked ..... just another fashion accessory ( thanks to clever marketing from the phone companies ) ...

The amount of kids i see each day , that are so engrossed in their mobiles / ipod / mp3 player etc is unreal ... totally unaware of what is going on around them , ( saw one nearly get run over the other day as she was obviously concentrating more on her texting than watching where she was walking !! no doubt if she'd have been run down there would have been a speed kills campaign !! ) no wonder so many of them get robbed .... and as for walking down the street with a pair of white headphones dangling ( you might as well have a sign round your neck saying ' rob me please ' ) ...

I'm not saying we should go back to the 1800's but some of society today just baffles me ...

Mercman , not a rant at you personally mate !! just triggered something off inside me .... I'm forever on at Angela to not wear her headphones while walking out and about .....

Hope the little girl gets something sorted out soon !!

Best wishes

H

 

[mercmanuk]

have you tried to persude a 9 yr old girl who thinks shes older to carry a house brick in her pocket,cant be done,has to be relatively modern.i agree with all the points made but you still feel a little better knowing that its there incase of an emergency,mostly used for txt .
cheers all

 

[andy_k]

have you tried to persude a 9 yr old girl who thinks shes older to carry a house brick in her pocket,cant be done,has to be relatively modern.i agree with all the points made but you still feel a little better knowing that its there incase of an emergency,mostly used for txt .
cheers all

we have rows nearly evey week about what our nine year old thinks is acceptable, what she wants and what all her frineds have got. At the end of each of her sulks when we say no we remind her that we are the grown ups and we make the rules which she lives by not the other way around.

She doesn't have a mobile phone because

a, at nine years old it would be negligent of us to place her in a position where she felt threatened enough to need it. What "emergency" do you forsee where a nine year old is away from any sort of adult supervision and would need to phone you in a blind panic?

b, phones make them an easy target for theft and violence from older kids. thus placing her in more danger than if she were not carrying one.

Sorry but i think you are asking for trouble letting her have anuthing other tha n the most basic of phones and even then you have to wonder whether any potential thief will decide BEFORE he atacks her that the phone isn't really worh stealing after all.

she was lucky this time, maybe it's a good time for you to sit down and explain a few new rules to her

Andy

 

[BTB 500]

I wouldnt buy a phone on ebay... so many are stolen/lost and shortly after getting the phone its IMEI gets barred from all networks.

But if you buy one boxed with all accessories & manuals etc. from a seller with solid feedback the risk of that is very low. Many unwanted upgrades (given free by the network) go straight onto eBay.

 

[glojo]

This is certainly a very emotive topic and we all have our opinions. I feel so sorry for your daughter niece being a victim of crime at such an early age and hopefully you told her to scream her lungs out if she gets attacked as I am positive she would never be allowed to wander off on her own and the screams will usually deter any would be criminal.

Good luck and I'm sure you are doing what you think is best for your niece.

Yours sincerely
John

 

[verytalldave]

Brand new PAYG mobile phones can now be purchased cheaper than £10. Thats the route I would take.

 

[mercmanuk]

i dont really have a say in the matter as its my niece not my daughter but i just feel sorry for her as she was very upset

 

[Sp!ke]

I wouldnt buy her a phone. No primary school aged child should need a mobile.

If she's in a position to need one on the grounds of safety then she has been given far too much freedom and responsibility for a 9 year old IMO. Who was looking after her when she was mugged 'on the streets' exactly?

This should be a wake up call to the parents and not a shopping trip for a new phone.

 

[mercmanuk]

playing on the path with 3 friends 10 feet from her garden gate,a young lad with a hooded jacket walked past and just took the phone while she was texting a friend.

 

[Spinal]

Sorry to hear about your niece's phone. I too don't have a mobile to sell; and like others have further oil to derail the topic

Working at a school, we've found a frightening increase in the amount of "social technology" used by the youngest. While this can be positive from certain aspects, it also opens a whole new battlefield to pedofiles.

We are affiliated with CEOPS ( http://www.ceop.gov.uk/ ), and rarely recomend allowing a child to have "independent" access to social techonolgy before the age of 14. (This usually includes mobiles, emails and social networking websites like myspace/facebook).

The important word there is independent. Its not saying that they cannot have an email address, but it needs to be one that can be monitored (e.g. an account that the parents know the password too; and possibly even have all emails forwarded to another account to avoid deletion).

Sadly in the U.K. no phone provider offers services whereby a parent can monitor their childrens phone usage yet; but there are people out there asking for it.

If you need fodder, just have a browse around the CEOPS website - discretion is advised though, some of the videos designed for teenagers are quite disturbing...

Overall, what I'm trying to say is; maybe the loss of the phone was not such a bad thing after all - maybe it should be taken as "proof" of the bad things out there, and as a lucky-chance that something worse didn't happen.

Michele

 

[pammy]

playing on the path with 3 friends 10 feet from her garden gate,a young lad with a hooded jacket walked past and just took the phone while she was texting a friend.

So not for emergency use then

 

[maddog]

Brand new PAYG mobile phones can now be purchased cheaper than £10. Thats the route I would take.

Our local Staples had basic brand new Nokias on PAYG for around £10 think they were on Virgin