Laptop theft is endemic the world over least of all in Uganda. The odds of finding a stolen laptop by conventional means are slim if at all in this country. Putting into consideration that laptops cost as much as a plot of land if you know a good broker, we have taken the time to cover all the bases and make sure you do all that can be done in the event that your laptop gets stolen. Don’t be caught off-guard when suddenly you find yourself minus that treasured device.
- File a Police Report on your missing laptop. Note down the laptop serial number and any other details useful in identification. Much as we are aware that Police sits on more cases than they end up solving, who’s to say that by some stroke of luck the culprits are apprehended. A laptop theft report will expedite the procedure of you getting your laptop back lakini with the usual kitu kidogo.
- Contact your Tracking firm like Tambula and Summit Consulting Ltd. based in Uganda and inform them of the laptop theft so they can initiate the GPS tracking chip previously installed on your laptop. (You don’t have a GPS tracker on your laptop? Get one and thank me later). Liaising with Police will ensure the thieves are apprehended within no time and brought to justice and your property returned to you. That is if the Police doesn’t keep your laptop as evidence and drag their feet handing it over to you.
- Use online tracking software such as Prey that uses the internet to track the location of your stolen laptop. That is if you had the foresight to install it beforehand. Lucky if your thief is a Facebook junkie who can’t wait to update their status. A worse case scenario involves you wiping the contents of your hard drive remotely but sadly, this involves having a paid account with Prey.
- Disconnect your online accounts from your stolen laptop. Sign in to your google and log out of your session. Same thing with Facebook. Twitter isn’t so helpful in this regard though so change passwords where you can. This way the thief will not be able to access these accounts for whatever mischief they might wish to carry out such as identity theft and blackmail.
- Offer a cash reward to whoever safely returns your laptop back to you. Don’t be stingy; make it worth the good Samaritan’s while. Throw in a free lunch at Nando’s. Make sure to ask the Samaritan’s name and address if they are forthcoming with such information. This could be insurance against blackmail in a scenario where they took some private data from your laptop in the hopes of milking you dry.
- Reclaim your laptop Insurance if you have any. Laptop theft insurance comes in handy especially for high end laptops one cannot simply replace with spare change from your wallet. The insurance money can be used to replace the laptop or topped up for something better.
- Buy a new laptop. At some point it should occur to you that your laptop is probably far out of your reach end of story. Buy a new laptop. Read up on a previous post of how to go about doing that. Also check out how to safeguard your laptop properly this time. You can restore your file backup from the cloud or your external storage device if at all you have any and you’ll be good to go.
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