iPhone 3G Stolen. What now?

[uiop.]

Last night my friend's iPhone 3G was stolen. She was at a restaurant and left her phone on the table after she was done eating. She went back about 20 minutes later...she was too late. It wasn't anywhere to be found.
I guess a $300 iPhone 3G is susceptible to theft.

She had a passcode set on it, but her questions are:
1) If they try to restore it, will they be able to remove her passcode?
2) Is there a way for the police to locate it using it's GPS?
3) How can she view her contacts from when iTunes backs the phone up?

Obviously, the service has been canceled on it, so the theft has a very expensive brick on their hands.

 

[iblastoff]

1)i dont see why the thief wouldn't be able to reuse the phone. im sure they could just restore the firmware and voila no more passcode. of course they'd have to get service on it but at least they've saved the 300$ for the phone itself.

2) no

3) depends on what app she synced the contacts with.

 

[firewood]

Did she immediately call AT&T to disable her GSM SIM card?

.

 

[barkomatic]

1. They will not be able to bypass her passcode by restoring.
2. The police aren't going to bother to track her iphone using GPS.
3. If she's using a mac her contacts are within iCal. Window--->Address book.

Unfortunately, the person who has her iphone now does NOT have a brick on their hands. It can easily be reactivated in a number of ways. Your friend should check to see if any private insurance policy she may have could cover the the cost of the iphone.

 

[taylorwilsdon]

Did she immediately call AT&T to disable her GSM SIM card?

.

What would that do? Nobody is stupid enough to use the SIM that's already in the phone.

Factory restoring the firmware or flashing with a jailbreak program will kill the password.

 

[TheSpaz]

Text message your phone and say something like:

"Hey, jerk! I know you have my iPhone and if you do not bring my iPhone back to the restaurant, then I shall call the police and they can track this phone down by it's GPS location and you'll be in big trouble."

I don't know if it would work but, it might scare them enough to just bring it back to the restaurant.

 

[ribenaberrie]

1. They will not be able to bypass her passcode by restoring.

I'm not sure if they can bypass her passcode by restoring through iTunes. On occasions where I've connected my iphone to an iTunes that wasn't signed in to my itunes account, it has come up with an error message saying that my iphone was passcode locked and it couldn't connect. I then had to unlock my iphone first and try again before it would connect.

 

[uiop.]

She did call at&t first thing this morning and the service was disabled.
Tehe...trust me we texted the phone last night. Obviously, no theft in their right mind would reply. I asked her a little while ago if she had set the "erase all data after 10 failed attempts" option and she said yes. Phew.

She unfortunately uses Windows Vista.
Is there not any way of getting the contacts back?

 

[Amt]

Text message your phone and say something like:

"Hey, jerk! I know you have my iPhone and if you do not bring my iPhone back to the restaurant, then I shall call the police and they can track this phone down by it's GPS location and you'll be in big trouble."

I don't know if it would work but, it might scare them enough to just bring it back to the restaurant.

Lol. I'd like to see if they actually brought it back.

 

[SFStateStudent]

Sorry to hear about her loss... At least she had the good sense to erase all her data, but that still doesn't get her iPhone back. Sadly, AT&T, the Police and Apple have no response to a lost or stolen iPhone since the release of v1 iPhone. There's no effort to brick the iPhone and make it useless to the thief or the new unauthorized owner. That thing will show-up on CL or EB within the hour and there's nothing that anyone can do...

 

[SAIRUS]

cry

seriously though, why leave such an expensive item around? You may not find it to be expensive, but someone else might.

 

[AiralynRose]

Text message your phone and say something like:

"Hey, jerk! I know you have my iPhone and if you do not bring my iPhone back to the restaurant, then I shall call the police and they can track this phone down by it's GPS location and you'll be in big trouble."

I don't know if it would work but, it might scare them enough to just bring it back to the restaurant.

with a passcode on it, the thief would never see it.

 

[ribenaberrie]

with a passcode on it, the thief would never see it.

I think they might see part of it from the preview window that comes up....

 

[Heimlich]

What's that one app on the appstore.........
You install it on your iPhone beforehand. And then you can track it through gps from your desktop. hmmm
oh ya gps tracker
I might go ahead and put it on my iphone now

 

[m477h3w]

What's that one app on the appstore.........
You install it on your iPhone beforehand. And then you can track it through gps from your desktop. hmmm
oh ya gps tracker
I might go ahead and put it on my iphone now

Except the app has to be running!!! Pretty useless for this type of situation!

 

[Geckotek]

I'm not sure if they can bypass her passcode by restoring through iTunes. On occasions where I've connected my iphone to an iTunes that wasn't signed in to my itunes account, it has come up with an error message saying that my iphone was passcode locked and it couldn't connect. I then had to unlock my iphone first and try again before it would connect.

I'm sure putting the phone in DFU mode would bypass this. Since the IMEI number is now blacklisted on AT&T, the phone is useless on AT&T. But if someone wanted to use one of the SIM unlocks and put it on another carrier they would be able to use it.

Why do you say "unfortunately she's using Vista?" In iTunes, she was asked where she wanted to sync the contacts. Whatever she chose for that selection is where the contacts are. Vista has absolutely nothing to do with it. She may have chosen Outlook, GMail, Windows Contacts, etc... Answer this question and you'll find the contacts.

 

[Stepper]

cry

seriously though, why leave such an expensive item around? You may not find it to be expensive, but someone else might.

I actually left my iPhone on the table at a restaurant the other day, luckily my mate picked it up for me, I bought him a drink at a bar later that night for being such a saviour