What to do about a lost or stolen Fire.

[RolandD]

So my eighth-grader gets home today and realizes that her Kindle Fire didn't make it home from school. The last time she can remember having it was right before lunch. We immediately returned to the school and commenced the search. It didn't turn up.

What steps can I take? I thought that I would be able to go to Amazon's website and report it stolen, but the only advice they offer is to deregister it. I'm hesitant to deregister, because at least I can, sort of, monitor it. I changed the name of the device to 'This Kindle was stolen from S*** A***'

The school is aware that it is missing and they have the serial # to check any suspect devices, but they also seem pretty unconcerned. I'm going to wait until school gets out tomorrow before I go to the police department and report it stolen.

Anyone got any advice?

[obsessed2]

I would definitely call Amazon. Since the Fire is serialized they may have a way to remote wipe it. It's at least worth a shot.

Did you happen to buy a Square Trade warranty? I remember reading on Amazon where a guy dropped his Fire in a lake and Square Trade replaced it.


http://www.amazon.com/review/R3747PY..._res_rtr_alt_7


I believe there are still some honest people in the world and hopefully someone has found it and will turn it in.

[ucfgrad93]

If you had any apps that you stored or used passwords for (email, etc.) you may need to change them.

[Tangiegirl]

Make sure when contacting amazon, you speak or chat with a Kindle CS Rep. Not just an Amazon Rep. It does make a difference. url can be found at the end of this post. You answer a few questions and then choose a contact option.

Chat works fine but I prefer the "Call Me" option. You will usually get a call from a Kindle CSR within one to two minutes of your request

With the fire, Amazon has been offering a replacement fire@ a $100 discount.

I know of two instances just today verifying that. One was stolen and one was misplaced/lost. Both were offered a replacement fire at the $100 discount.

I can't see your post details at the moment, but first deregister your fire. (Be aware that with the fire, once you degister, you lose all your content and you won't get it back even if you do recover and reregister it.)

You can deregister from any computer. Log in and go to manage my devices, click on your stolen device and click deregister. This prevents charges being run on the cc attached to your Amazon account.

Contact KCS and they will brick it. Unfortunately, bricking only stops
reregistration and Amazon purchases. Content can still be obtained from all sources, other than Amazon.

It is my understanding that Amazon can only help with tracking if they have a copy of the police report. And I'm unsure of how much help will be given even then. But it wouldn't hurt to ask for specifics.

I do hope your daughter recovers her fire. I know I'd be lost without mine!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/conta...ndle-help.html

[weatherman]

Probably too late, but there is a program in the app store called "locate my kindle" and I think it would be possible to load it remotely via pc account, but I believe it requires the user to register from the device.

[salsaguy]

The app avast! Mobile Security also has an anti-theft/recovery feature

http://www.amazon.com/AVAST-Software...9555322&sr=1-1

[RolandD]

Originally Posted by salsaguy

The app avast! Mobile Security also has an anti-theft/recovery feature

http://www.amazon.com/AVAST-Software...9555322&sr=1-1

Thank you for the suggestion, but most of the anti-theft features appear to non-applicable to the Fire. That, plus the number of bad reviews, combined with my past experience with Avast! products makes me very leery of it.

[RolandD]

Filed a police report yesterday. The officer was very helpful and was surprisingly upbeat about the possibility of recovery. He did say that he wished that we had come in on Thursday and reported it, so that he could have gone to the school on Friday and began questioning kids. I thought we'd give it a day to turn up, but maybe that was a mistake. On Friday, my daughter and the school counselor came up with a couple of leads, so the officer is going into the school on Monday to follow up on those.

I haven't yet deregistered it from her account, but I did finally figure out how to delete my credit card info from the account.

I also told the school counselor to let it be known that I would pay a $25 reward for it's safe return.

Now it's just a waiting game. I had originally felt that we would never see it again, but the officer reminded me that kids are really stupid when it comes to stuff like this and so I have a little hope now, at least.

[RolandD]

My daughter's Fire was successfully recovered by the police. Unfortunately, the the case I had made for it is gone.

[bert501]

Glad you got it back!

[Hope]

Wow, kudos to the police department where you live. That is just amazing police work. Most cities now won't even bother to take police reports on ANY minor crime.
Or did someone just turn it in?

[obsessed2]

Originally Posted by RolandD

My daughter's Fire was successfully recovered by the police. Unfortunately, the the case I had made for it is gone.

Great news. So glad to hear it.

[tstarky]

Originally Posted by RolandD

My daughter's Fire was successfully recovered by the police. Unfortunately, the the case I had made for it is gone.

I'm glad to hear they were able to recover it for you. Now it is time for you to re-cover it! Lame, I know.... Seriously, that is amazing that they got it so quickly!