You know that sinking feeling in your stomach when you realize you don’t know where your smartphone is? Thankfully, every time I have experienced that I have been able to resolve it by simply calling it and following the rings to find out what couch cushion it fell behind. But, what happens when you really lose your smartphone–like leaving it in a taxi, or at a restaurant?

Symantec conducted an experiment to find out. It intentionally “lost” 50 smartphones in public locations across major cities including New York City, Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Ottawa, Canada. The results of the experiment are not encouraging.