And THIS is why i support parts pairing. 3 years ago, the LCD and battery could be resold making this worth it. This year - nope. I dream of a world where even the little screws that hold my iPhone together are parts-paired so stealing it costs more in effort than the possible $ recovered from it!
Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it
31–40 of 319 posts
Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it
#32What information do thieves get from an erased iPhone and how did they contact the legitimate owner? Does it say something like "locked and linked to sarah96@icloud.com" or can it display custom messages like "owned by sarah xyz, please call +43..."? Could it possibly get you into situations where people can successfully threaten to physically harm you because your contact information doxxed you?
I assume they just eject the SIM card tray and get your phone number from the SIM by simply putting it into another phone.
Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it
#33What information do thieves get from an erased iPhone and how did they contact the legitimate owner? Does it say something like "locked and linked to sarah96@icloud.com" or can it display custom messages like "owned by sarah xyz, please call +43..."? Could it possibly get you into situations where people can successfully threaten to physically harm you because your contact information doxxed you?
By default you can set the "lost mode" message. many people put their contact info into it, in case someone wants to be helpful. This is how these scammers get this info. There is no other way to get the icloud contact info from a phone with a PIN/password.
Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it
#34Is it true that if you remove it from Find My iPhone then they are able to unlock it? I didn’t see any warnings of this when I erased my phone after I recently lost it (and someone found it but decided to keep it)
> Is it true that if you remove it from Find My iPhone then they are able to unlock it?
Yes, as long as it is in your account, nobody can activate it. When you remove it, it can be activated by someone.
Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it
#35What I'm seeing here is that Apple has a really shitty, poorly thought out design. To keep the phone useless to somebody who steals it, you have to keep it exposing your contact information so that people can threaten you.
In the case that I lost my phone, though, instead of it being stolen, I really might want my contact info displayed on the lock screen so someone who finds it can get it back to me.
Yes, I know, in many anti-social places in the world (like most US cities), it's much more likely that the phone was stolen, or that even in the lost-phone case, the person who finds it will be shitty and not try to return it. But in many (most?) other places people are generally honest and will try to return something that's lost.
Then again, if you know that it was stolen, you should be able to keep the thief from getting your contact info.
Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it
#36What I'm seeing here is that Apple has a really shitty, poorly thought out design. To keep the phone useless to somebody who steals it, you have to keep it exposing your contact information so that people can threaten you.
Well this also applies if someone friendly finds your phone and wishes to return it. It's a catch 22 there.
Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it
#37Is it true that if you remove it from Find My iPhone then they are able to unlock it? I didn’t see any warnings of this when I erased my phone after I recently lost it (and someone found it but decided to keep it)
The Activation Lock remains if you use Remote Erase - all documented on Apple's site: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108794
Only Remove Device specifically deactivates Activation Lock.
Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it
#38What I'm seeing here is that Apple has a really shitty, poorly thought out design. To keep the phone useless to somebody who steals it, you have to keep it exposing your contact information so that people can threaten you.
That's not my understanding of the situation at all.
The journalist:
- Marked the phone as lost;
- Wiped all data;
FTA: As quickly as possible, I did all the things you’re supposed to do when your phone is lost or stolen —- mark it as lost, cut off service, and remotely erase it
She did not, however, remove (delete) that iPhone from her iCloud account, which means that the iPhone can't be factory reset by the thieves because "FindMy" is still activated.
FTA: As long as I didn’t remove the phone from my Apple account or the Find My app, the phone was essentially bricked to anyone without the passcode and my iCloud password
The iPhone did not, at any time, leak any personal information. What probably happened is that she had a SIM card on it, and from ejecting the tray and putting the SIM into another phone they managed to get her phone number, from which they started contacting her with the threats/scams.
I think this wouldn't even be possible with a e-SIM in the newer iPhone models.
Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it
#39And THIS is why i support parts pairing. 3 years ago, the LCD and battery could be resold making this worth it. This year - nope. I dream of a world where even the little screws that hold my iPhone together are parts-paired so stealing it costs more in effort than the possible $ recovered from it!
Agreed. Anti-theft is a higher priority for me than repairability.
Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it
#40Is it true that if you remove it from Find My iPhone then they are able to unlock it? I didn’t see any warnings of this when I erased my phone after I recently lost it (and someone found it but decided to keep it)
Yeah, when I sold my old iPhone I wiped it and removed it from my account so that the new owner could use it. The site I was selling on warned me multiple times that it would be unusable without that step.