According to a study conducted by smartphone security services company Lookout, unrecovered lost and stolen cellphones could cost U.S. consumers more than $30 billion this year.
Lookout has also launched a new site called Mobile Lost and Found in tandem with their study, which helps users to discover the places where phones are most often lost, rates by region, financial impact, etc.
Lookout also offers a missing device app for Android and iOS, similar to Apple’s Find My iPhone app, which transmits map locations and sounds an alarm to signal a user if the phone is nearby.
The company surveyed 15 million cellphone users in gathering their data, and found that demographics and behavior had the biggest impact on phone loss. The study showed that U.S. users lose their phones about once a year, at a cost of about $250, if the device in unrecovered.
Lookout also noted that many of the cities with highest rates of lost and stolen phones also were at the top of the FBI’s recent crime statistics, including Cleveland, Detroit, Oakland and Newark.