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Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

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Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#51

Post by uptown »

AndroTux wrote: post #46
writeslowly wrote: post #29

This seems like a lot of work for one (or two, once it got to China) people repeatedly trying to get into the phone. I wonder if this is like debt collection agencies where the stolen phones get repeatedly fenced at a steadily decreasing value, and each new owner has a go at sending out these unlock copypastes until it's clear that it's only value is in being scrapped.

Doesn't seem like a lot of work to me. Sending out that message takes a few minutes, and I would assume that most people would simply cave in and delete it. It's gone anyways, so they don't really lose much, and being threatened does things to people.

Yeah but flying Miami back to the US to murder their whole family does seem like a lot of effort.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#52

Post by localfirst »

long time ago i had my samsung galaxy stolen

ive not reported as stolen because my carrier said i needed proof of the receipt (which i lost years ago)

its such a crappy experience i dont wish it on anyone. Samsung has been next to useless in finding it.

having said that this article makes me glad I bought an Apple

just wish they'd kept the hardware touch button on the non-SE phones and back button.

this is the first iPhone for me but i keep searching for the "alt+tab" and back button. it was ridiculously hard to switch between apps (have to physically press the touch button twice which makes me lose grip on teh phone).

honestly its so close to being perfect but the iPhone has some obvious interface flaws coming from Android

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#53

Post by TheDudeMan »

pqdbr wrote: post #38
Hizonner wrote: post #25

What 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…

Thanks for this informative post. I was a little confused as well.

Right, now we have e-SIMs. So what was the reason for physical SIMs in the first place?

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#56

Post by oynqr »

dmitrygr wrote: post #31

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!

The part pairing isn't the problem, it's that you can't unpair parts. Creating a secure unpair process would not be beyond Apple's capabilities.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#57

Post by emptysongglass »

colordrops wrote: post #24
infotainment wrote: post #2

> I checked Find My and my phone was indeed in China. It looked like it was in an office building conveniently located around the corner from an Adidas store, about 8,000 miles from me. You’d think for a police state, China would be just little bit better at cracking down on obvious crime that happens within their borders. But I guess not.

China is not a police state, they are a military state. The US is a police state. In China the local cops are generally far more hands off than an in the US. China is more top-down from the national level. In the US, local police are the typical mechanism for control.

[flagged]

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#58

Post by renewiltord »

mmsc wrote: post #18
Fripplebubby wrote: post #6

Not from the article, but from the comments below it. > My phone was stolen while I was going through TSA security at JFK and the TSA guy must have been in on it because he wouldn't let me get it even though we were able to locate it using my husbands phone. When we used the find me app later we saw it was somewhere in Queens so definitely wasn't stolen by someone else flying that day. I had never heard of that happe…

It happens often. Here's a new one with a video https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/miami/news/tsa-agents-accused-of...

Oh so that's why you have to push it through yourself these days. That way they don't touch the thing and so can't steal anything.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#59

Post by factormeta »

ronsor wrote: post #4
infotainment wrote: post #2

> I checked Find My and my phone was indeed in China. It looked like it was in an office building conveniently located around the corner from an Adidas store, about 8,000 miles from me. You’d think for a police state, China would be just little bit better at cracking down on obvious crime that happens within their borders. But I guess not.

1. Chinese government is not as competent as it tries to appear. 2. They do not care about foreigners or crimes unless they involve Chinese citizens.

>2. They do not care about foreigners or crimes unless they involve Chinese citizens.

Don't know if they really care that much about Chinese citizens. Probably just the ones in the politburo.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#60

Post by neaden »

gabolaev wrote: post #41
Hizonner wrote: post #25

What 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.

How exactly can they get the phone number though? The only thing I can think of is if there was an unlocked (no PIN) physical SIM-card, and they could just insert it into another phone. And yes, e-SIM solves this problem.

I think in this instance they got the email associated with the iCloud and messaged her on that.

Edit: she replied to a comment on the article: "when trying to reset my phone they are prompted to enter my iCloud password. My iCloud email is also one of the ways to reach me via iMessage. So they used that to contact me"

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