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iPhone 14/Plus Does eSIM make an iPhone less desirable to steal?
- Thread starter DaveTheRave
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I don't think a thief is going to look at person's phone and think less to steal it because it has eSIM. If the opportunity comes, they will take it regardless if it has eSIM or physical SIM card.
They'll take whatever phone they have the opportunity to steal. Regardless, most iPhones are iCloud locked so can only be sold as parts or used to scam people.
They can reset the lock by sending a phishing email to the owner or presenting a fake receipt to Apple. Parts route is for the really lazy thieves.
Fake receipt is quite a stretch, I doubt Apple would fall for that. Phishing email might be but hopefully users are getting smarter against it.
Why is it a stretch? It's a very well known practice in the community.
Do you think it's difficult to create a fake invoice based on a current sales template from Verizon, T-Mobile, or AT&T? Have all employees working at Walmart wireless department sworn an oath to Tim Cook?
OK. then Apple must be really dumb and they make their own feature really useless. But I’m sure you and community rumors know much better
It's not dumb, it's a compromise between unbreakable security and impossible to recover. Unless Apple is the global sole-issuer of sales receipts and does not allow carriers to sell iPhone, there will always be a loophole.
Agree. If from a distance it looks good enough to worth the risk, they'd steal first and examine it later.
And what makes you think Apple will bypass their security feature when presented with a random third party receipt without any validation? Sometimes people just take urban myths as fact. Sure maybe a fluke or two have happened, but I doubt it is a common method.
I have no idea what you are talking about. I never said or thought or heard anything like this.
You are giving way too much credit to frontline workers able to identify false or misleading documents and proceeding to deny such claims. And even if such issue happen, Apple will always deny such claim publicly regardless, because losing one customer means nothing and public pressure doesn’t work as well as we’d hoped.
The average knucklehead thief doesn’t think that far ahead, otherwise they wouldn’t be stealing random stuff
The very few thieves who make a good living doing it, they arnt stealing random phones, and if they do steal a phone it’s targeted and they want the data not the device
The very few thieves who make a good living doing it, they arnt stealing random phones, and if they do steal a phone it’s targeted and they want the data not the device
People break into cars for some loose change. There is no consequence for taking a phone so why wouldn't they, esim or not. If there is money to be made criminals will find a loophole or pay the right person. It might not be the street thief that gets that done but the higher ups that buy the stolen phones in bulk. People are easy to corrupt.
I don't understand why people steal phones these days--unless the strategy is to steal something else from you and prevent you from calling the police immediately.
In addition to what others have said, how would the thief know if it had eSIM or not? When they steal it?