Earlier today, my Samsung Galaxy phone that I spent so long saving up for was stolen by a man and right now it’s locked. Luckily, I have a very hard password so they can’t just get in. However, the thing is the person who stole it PROBABLY shut it down. I had both a Samsung account and a Google account on the phone, but I had the the WiFi turned off. I set up SmartThings Find before so now it can be occasionally tracked when it’s offline with the help of other devices if they’re nearby.

1- If the person who stole it tries to shut it down, would he be able to? It was locked with a pin, but it wasn’t in lockdown mode (which is the mode that I know for not letting you shut down the phone when it’s locked). Does it also not allow you to shut it down when you’re not in this lockdown mode?

2- If the person who stole the phone formats it, will I lose my ability to track the phone using SmartThings Find’s Offline Finding? I know for sure that they won’t be able to use the phone after formatting it since I had a Samsung/Google account signed in, but I don’t know if the ability to use SmartThings Find would work after the phone gets formatted

3- What is the best course of action? The police in my country are literally useless. My brother lost his phone once before and when he filed a police report, they didn’t even try getting it back even though he provided the IMEI number, the phone number and all relevant details. I thought about tracking the phone down from a vehicle and following it until I narrow down who took it (SmartThings Find gives me a location approximately every 10-60 minutes), then try getting it back by myself with the help of a couple buff friends once we find out who has it (my plan was to keep following the location of the phone until we see a familiar face that had been in the same location of the phone every time), but I don’t know how realistic that plan is.

  1. If they format the phone, will they be able to access my data afterwards? I remember this being possible on old phones, as back in 2015 I think I had the ability to literally pull all previous images on any phone using an application. Is this possible for newer phones? My phone was released in 2022 or 2023.

Please help. This is very urgent. I have all of my schoolwork on the phone and I use it for many services. I’m approaching my high school finals exam but now this will be a struggle to me.