What to do if your phone suddenly has no service
Your phone has been sitting on “No Service” or “SOS only” for an hour, restarting it did nothing, and now password reset emails are landing in your inbox that you never asked for. If that is roughly your morning, treat it as more than a network glitch. There is a real chance someone has moved your phone number onto a SIM card they control, and the next hour matters.
This is called a SIM swap. Someone convinces your carrier, or uses stolen personal information, to transfer your number to a new SIM. Once they have it, every call and text meant for you goes to them, including the security codes your bank, email, and crypto accounts send by SMS. The dead phone is not the attack. It is the side effect of the attack already being underway somewhere else.
First, call your carrier from another phone
Use a family member’s phone, a work phone, or the carrier’s online chat from a computer. Tell them you believe your number has been swapped without your consent and ask them to suspend the transfer, restore your number to your SIM, and note the account as compromised. While you have them, ask for a port-out PIN or account lock so it cannot happen again five minutes after you hang up. Carriers handle these calls every day, and the sooner they act, the shorter the window the attacker has.
Then protect your email before your bank
That ordering surprises people. But your email is the master key, because almost every other account resets through it. From a device you trust, change your email password first and sign out all other sessions. Then move to financial accounts: bank, brokerage, crypto exchanges, and payment apps like Venmo, Zelle, and Cash App. If any account offers app-based two-factor authentication instead of SMS codes, switch to it now. An authenticator app stays on your device even when your phone number does not.
Check where the money is
Log in to your bank and any crypto accounts and look at recent activity. If you see transfers you did not make, call the bank’s fraud line immediately and ask them to freeze further transfers and start a fraud claim. Speed matters here the same way it does with any theft: money that moved minutes ago is easier to flag than money that moved yesterday. If crypto left an exchange account, ask the exchange to flag the destination address while it may still be reachable.
Save the evidence while it is fresh
Screenshot the password reset emails, the login alerts, and any texts or calls you received before the number went dark, including the exact times. Ask your carrier for a record of when the SIM change was made. Those timestamps are what later connect the account takeover to the money leaving, and they are the kind of detail that fades fast. Our guide to preserving evidence in the first 24 hours covers how to capture things cleanly.
Report it in the right places
File a report with IC3.gov, the FBI’s internet crime center, and with the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. If the attacker got into accounts tied to your Social Security number or opened anything in your name, IdentityTheft.gov will build you a personal recovery plan and the affidavit banks often ask for. If money was stolen, ask your local police for a report and a case number, because banks and exchanges tend to move faster when one exists.
Expect the follow-up call, and hang up on it
SIM swap victims often hear from a “fraud department” within days, warning that their accounts are still under attack and offering to help secure them. That call is usually the same crew, or the next one, working from the fact that you are already rattled. Your bank will never ask you to move money to keep it safe. If a call like that comes, hang up and dial the number on the back of your card instead. We wrote about how that script works in our post on fake bank fraud alert texts.
When to bring in an investigator
If the swap led to a significant theft, especially crypto, a documented trace can turn your report into something law enforcement or a court can act on. Our Investigation Help page covers the smaller cases we sometimes take on, and for five and six figure losses that need court-grade attribution we point people to Rexxfield.
A dead phone feels small until you understand what it means. Act on the first hour, and you take back most of what the attacker was counting on: time alone with your accounts.
— Gus