Lost Phone turned in 5 months later

So back in the middle of January, I got black out drunk at the local bar. The only part of the night I can remember was slipping on ice and falling on my ass in the parking lot on my walk home. Woke up fully clothed in my bed in the morning and couldn't find my phone anywhere. Walked back to the bar when they opened to see if I left it at the bar or to see if it fell out of my pocket when I fell. Nobody saw it at the bar and no sign of it in the parking lot. Walked back home and tried calling it with the house phone to see if someone found it, if they would answer, no luck there either. Wrote it off as a lost cause and went and got a new one a few weeks later.

Today I got an email from someone at Best Buy saying someone turned my phone in and to come down and claim it. Being locked, they couldn't get into it, but turning it on they could see my email on the screen below the date and time. The manager said the person who brought it in got it from someone else and they thought it might be stolen and decided to turn it in. Very strange IMHO. I went there and unlocked the screen to prove it was indeed my phone and I went home.

Now to the reason for my post. Is there some way it could have been cloned or compromised in any way without wiping it? Or wiping it and installing a rootkit and reinstalling the OS and resyncing? Would that preserve my screen unlock gesture? I did notice when I turned it on at Best Buy, fingerprint scanning was disabled. I don't want to reactivate it and have my usernames/passwords/info stolen. Should I just factory reset it to be safe?

The phone's an LG L84VL through StraightTalk. It's older than my current LML414DL but much nicer and faster which is why I'd like to reactivate it.

Occam's Razor

Why would they return it if were so heavily compramised?

a reply to: FlyingFox

Well if it were cloned somehow, then I use it to log onto my accounts, they might be able to see the usernames/passwords I enter. I'm not sure if it's possible, that's why I asked.

It is almost impossible to wipe it isntall some software and then restore everything else including your lock pattern.

However it is possible( though not probable) for someone to have guessed at your lock pattern, got in, installed a keylogger or something then return it.

Personally i wouldnt worry about it, but if you are just factory reset it.

Iphone or android?

a reply to: Kaleshwarfj

That's what I was thinking. My brother mentioned it and got me a little paranoid, hence the thread. I looked through pretty much everything and it all looks the same as far as I can remember. Who ever had it didn't even take my SD card out which has a bunch of music, ebooks, and some personal docs on it.

a reply to: GreenGunther
Android