PHOENIX, AZ – If you’ve been reading any of my blog posts or listening to my podcasts you know how much I like going on adventures. Well, I just returned from a doozy of an adventure in Phoenix, Arizona.
This blog post and companion podcast episode will describe how my iPhone and wallet were stolen, what problems that caused and what I should have done to prevent it. Hopefully this story will help a few of you out if you travel or go on a vacation.
The story begins when a cousin of my wife invited us to join three other cousin couples to surprise her husband for his 50th birthday celebration. A weekend was planned well ahead for September of 2023. The cousin planning the trip was able to secure some discounted rates for each couple at the resort.
Two of the couples from the west coast met at the Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona on a Friday. The cousin planning the event also booked everyone on a float trip down the Salt River for Sunday afternoon.
My wife’s brother and his wife, also being from Oklahoma, were able to fly out on Saturday morning while my wife and I went to the OU football game in Norman to watch our oldest daughter’s Pom Squad perform during the game.
Almost immediately after the game we drove to the airport to begin our adventure to Arizona. We flew from OKC to Houston with a slight layover and then flew on to Phoenix. We arrived around 10:00pm which was midnight in Oklahoma. This was my first trip to Arizona.
We had decided not to rent a car since the trip was going to be short and we had no plans to leave the resort on our own. My wife booked our first ride in an Uber which ended up being nice and very uneventful. We arrived at the resort, surprised our cousin and then everyone was off to bed.
On Sunday morning we all packed up our things for the float trip and headed to breakfast at a fun restaurant with a live DJ and huge Bloody Mary’s. After eating we stopped by a liquor store to get supplies for the day. All of this required money and ID.
After that we drove to Mesa, Arizona where the start of the float trip was located. I went into this adventure with zero knowledge of the river or what was even happening. Once we arrived everyone had to decide what they were going to take with them on the float.
I opted to wear swim trunks and Hey Dudes shoes and that was it, not even a towel. I did also take my prescription sunglasses, a ball cap, my iPhone and my wallet. I took my iPhone for photos and my wallet in case I needed cash, a credit card or my ID.
We then carried a large floatable cooler that was full of our beverages to the check in point. That’s where we each got our tubes for floating. Come to find out I had not needed money or my ID but we were so far from the vehicle I decided to stick my wallet in the clear waterproof bag with my iPhone.
The plan was to carry the plastic bag in my pocket and use the phone, while in the bag, to take photos. My main thought was not to let my stuff get wet.
One we arrived at the launching point we noticed that the river was shallow and the current was not that strong. We dropped our tubes in the water and decided to hang on to each other and go down the river as one big floating party.
While slowly drifting down the river I noticed that water was getting into my pockets so I pulled the clear bag out of my swimming trunks and put it on my lap. Since my body filled the inside of the tube there wasn’t really anywhere for the bag to go. So I thought.
What we didn’t realize was that there was one spot on our float trip that got a little fast at the only bend along the course and that area was deeper than the rest of the river. Before we understood what was happening our entire group was forced into the faster water which took us to the other side of the river and into a wall of rocks with bushes sticking out.
There was a group of guys sitting there on rocks pushing people off the rocks and down the river. We all tried to paddle with our arms to avoid the rock and limbs but the force was too much and we crashed into the wall. Some people started tipping and things were going everywhere.
As soon as we left the rock wall I looked down noticed the bag was gone from my lap. For a split second I thought I had slipped it back into my pocket but quickly realized it was gone. I must have really leaned over to push us off the rocks which created a gap and the phone and wallet slipped right through.
I can’t say I remember ever having as much of a feeling of panic as I did in that moment. Without even thinking I immediately yelled that I had lost my phone, asked my wife if she had her phone and jumped off my tube. I soon realized I was in deep water that was rushing at me like a ton of bricks.
If I hadn’t been in decent shape I would have been swept away or possibly sucked into the deep water near the wall. I was able to swim a couple of yards upstream but quickly wore out. I swam to the wall and found some rocks to stand on and grabbed a few limbs on the bushes.
As I sat there in panic mode I noticed several guys wearing dive masks. I could tell they were jumping into the deeper rushing water looking for things. I asked a few of them to please dive down and look for my phone. I was never really able to keep them on trck to look for my stuff because they could not speak English.
I tried for a while to dive in and look around. At one point I was swept back down the river over a bunch of rocks and got scraped all over my body. I eventually made it back to where I thought the phone had dropped but had no clue as to what I should do. I had no idea where the rest of my party had ended up.
I decided I couldn’t just leave my stuff there, especially my license, since I had to fly the next day. I started telling the guys with masks that I would pay them if they found my stuff. There were also guys there that spoke English and they were directing the diving guys. The longer I was there the more I noticed lots of valuables washing up into this area due to the rapids and the wall.
As I was talking to a guy there on his own I watched a nice Bluetooth speaker wash up next to him and one of the guys directing divers said something to him. He told that guy to go get another guy. What I believe was happening was that these guys were collecting lost items, sending them down to another guy and he was having them carried off or collected in a spot on the shore. Then the items were most likely going to be sold or used.
At that point I figured these guys were not interested in helping me find my stuff. Just as I was about to start diving again one of my cousins yelled from across the river that they knew where the iPhone was using my wife’s GPS. Once I realized that I made my way down the river to where everyone had been waiting for me.
I looked at her phone and it said my phone was in the water, across the rive and to the left of us. It was not giving us live updates in the phone but would updated every few minutes. Soon it showed my phone almost directly across from us in the water but slightly to the right. I began to think that they GPS was just jumping around trying to get a read on my phone.
I went ahead and tubed across the river and looked at the phone tracking again. It then showed my phone on the shore further to the right. It eventually led me up the bank onto a flat rocky area. It said my phone was only a couple of feet away. There were no people there and I couldn’t see a phone I was about to go back to the water when my cousin said he thought someone had taken off with it.
Using my wife’s phone I placed her icon directly over where it aid my icon was. I looked down and at the exact spot was my clear waterproof bag stuck under a rock. I picked it up wondering if it really was my bag when I noticed that someone had broken off the black clips that kept it closed. At that moment I knew everything was gone.
The things stolen included my iPhone 14 Pro, my wallet, three debit cards, three credit cards, my drivers license, my insurance card and around $200 cash. It was at that point that I was actually able to take a deep breath and relax. Knowing that everything was gone and there was nothing I could do about it finally gave me the relief I needed to move on.
One thing I forgot to mention on the podcasts was that after I threw my tube up on the shore and started tracking my phone, one of the people on the river bank grabbed my tube and they were going to take off with it. My brother-in-law, who’s very big, told them to put it back. They said they had lost theirs and figured they had a right this one sitting on the shore. They did give it back without much trouble.
After all of that we jumped back into the water and had a great time floating down the Salt River. For the remainder of the day we never did reach another spot that would have caused me to lose my bag. It was just bad timing and my fault for not paying attention.
By the time we got back to the resort the iPhone popped up on my wife’s GPS and showed us the exact house and location of my device. As much as I wanted to go get it there wasn’t much need since everything had been turned off and canceled.
My iPhone was never turned on and stayed in the same location until at least Wednesday night. After Wednesday it quit updating so I’m guessing the battery may have died. I decided to add to the adventure by firing off a letter to the address with my phone.
The letter wasn’t angry but just asked if the perpetrator would consider sending my phone back since they had acquired my $200 cash. Since the phone had not been connected to the Internet is still had not been erased. If I could get the phone and turn off the erase feature before it went online I could recover my photos from the weekend.
Do I think they would really send it back? Not really. But what if a kid took the phone and their parents read the letter. Possibly. I’ll update if I hear anything.
The rest of this story is what I should have done to prepare before the trip, what I could have done to prevent some of the losses and what problems I encountered after losing all of my identity.
Here is a list of tips that should help you before you leave for a trip. These should be useful if you’re floating, going to an amusement park or just getting out of town:
1. Back up your phone before leaving town. That includes photos, emails, apps, etc.
2. Saving photos to the cloud or a backup device is the best way to keep them safe.
3. Put your account numbers, credit card numbers, debit card numbers in a digital file that you can access from the cloud if needed.
4. Write your passwords in a secure location but one that you can access.
5. Take a second device like an old phone, iPad or laptop. Old phones and tablets allow you to access your apps in case you need to use them.
6. Inventory and write down what is in your wallet or purse. If you forget what you are carrying you might forget to cancel something in case of theft.
7. Pack a second form of ID, preferably one with photo and address. A utility letter or prescription bottle with name and address could help.
8. Don’t keep all of you cards in your wallet or purse. Store some in a safe or in your luggage.
9. Don’t carry all of your cash on you. Split some into multiple locations.
10. Pack a watch of some kind. If you lose your phone you’ll want to keep track of time.
11. Type the serial number of your phone into a file you can access from a cloud or app.
12. Make sure all iPhones are registered on Find My phone app.
13. Take an old camera, camera phone or waterproof Go Pro.
14. Set up alternative phone numbers or backup codes for 2-Step Verification on apps and websites. (Facebook, Google, etc.)
15. Take old closed toe shoes for river tubing.
16. Keep insurance on your phone if it was expensive.
17. Research where you are going and read reviews. You will get insights into troubles you might run into.
18. Take an extra pair of prescription glasses.
19. Have a list of phone numbers for lost credit cards, banks, phone service provider and insurance.
20.
Once you’ve made it to your destination and are ready to go on an excursion you should think about this list of tips:
1. Put valuable things in waterproof bag or container and keep a leash on it.
2. Don’t wear your rings especially if water is involved.
3. Leave your hotel key in your vehicle not in your wallet or purse.
4. Hide a spare key in magnetic box under your car or rental.
5. Get cheap sunglasses that will float.
6. Leave an extra pair of prescription glasses in your vehicle.
If your things get lost or stolen here are some tips to make life easier:
1. Use a family members phone to mark iPhone as lost which locks it with a passcode
2. Track phone with Find My Phone app
3. If you can’t find phone use the erase feature which erases everything when the phone finds Internet service
4. Immediately call bank to cancel all cards
5. Call credit card companies to cancel cards
6. Call phone service provider and report phone gone
Things you won’t have after your stuff is stolen or lost:
Clock
Alarm
Sound machine
Music
Contacts
Messages
Voicemails
Things you could lose on your phone:
Photos
Text Messages
App settings – like cities in Weatherbug
Logged in status on apps
Projects in iMovie
Art used in design apps
Ringtone settings
A big lesson I learned is that you are able to get on an airplane in the US without a photo ID. I would not recommend trying it but if you have no other choice you should be fine.
Once you arrive at the TSA ticket gate they’ll ask you for your ID. Tell them it was stolen. They’ll ask if you have a number of other items with your name, photo and address. If you do not have anything at all you have to stay outside of the gate and they’ll call a TSA supervisor.
The TSA supervisor will ask you the same questions about having another form of ID. Once they realize you have nothing they’ll have you fill out a TSA Form 415, also known as a Certification of Identity form. Forms may be different but it’s basically your name, address, phone number and social security number. Some may ask for your place of birth, date of birth, etc.
Then TSA will call a number and provide your information. The person on the other live will ask you to answer some questions. It is very important to take your time and get the answers correct. A couple of wrong answers could keep you from getting through.
Some of my questions included the last four digits of my phone number, several questions about past cars I’d owned and a question about a close relative. They aslo asked about my social security card. I don’t believe there is an exact set of questions so you there’s nothing you can do to get prepared.
After that I had to go through security like normal but I was patted down and then I had to wait for everything in my tote to be swabbed and tested. Overall it should be an easy experience if you cooperate and know answers to the questions they ask.
Getting on an airplane with no identification tips:
1. Arrive even earlier than you normally would. Give yourself an extra hour.
2. Have your spouse check bags in their name if airline allows two bags each then you won’t have to show ID at bag drop off.
3. Do not leave the secure area of the airport terminal. You can only get in once every 24 hours without an ID.
Lessons learned:
1. Beware of double authentication on accounts. You will need a device with apps to verify identity with a verification code.
2. AT&T insurance has a $250 deductible on a stolen phone. You will not get a new Apple phone, you’ll receive a refurbished phone and most likely will not get to choose a color.
3. As bad as it seems at the time, it’s really just a minor bump in the road to get everything replaced.
4. You can survive without a phone and all of the apps that drain your time.
5. GPS tracking is actually pretty accurate when searching for a lost phone.
6. You can always turn a bad situation into an adventure.
Listen to the podcast!
Watch the video:
Leave a Comment