Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Lost/stollen iphone 4s today
- Thread starter MacTheChipper
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Short answer is yes for an AT&T iPhone. Simple restore and back in action.
With Verizon or other CDMA carriers in the USA, they will blacklist the phone. Other Countries have different rules and many GSM carriers will block the device from their network.
Dave
That sucks.
Remote wipe should be more of a self destruct. How many confirm dialogs you thing apple would make you go through for that? You sure? Really sure? OK. Seriously you don't want to think about it for a while? Draw a picture to confirm.
No password on your phone and you have it controlling your car???? Wow!
I could have send a "remote lock" command but either way it was a lost cause.
They were not answering calls, just rejecting them straight to voicemail.
Im not really suprised though, not many would return a new iphone 4S.
$700 mistake learned the hard way
True, I will set one up when the new one comes in.
I was just not thinking that I would lose it cause I never lost a cellphone in over 16 years but figures it happened now.
Live and learn.
Lol
True, but if it could be blacklisted like in most countries you wouldnt really need a self destruct switch
It would be useless as a phone.
Last edited:
In my dept (police) we caught someone who stole an iphone thanks to the find my iphone app. the victim got his girlfriends iphone to track his, and brought it to us. we put him in a car, drove to the spot, the victim pointed him out, and in his shirt pocket was the phone. victim got his phone back, and perp got a felony arrest.
You never explained how you lost it.
Did you drop it/ slipped out of your pocket?
Did you leave it somewhere accidentally?
Did someone grab it from your hands?
----------
I love these success stories. did you cuff the perp in the most uncomfortable way?
Did you drop it/ slipped out of your pocket?
Did you leave it somewhere accidentally?
Did someone grab it from your hands?
----------
In my dept (police) we caught someone who stole an iphone thanks to the find my iphone app. the victim got his girlfriends iphone to track his, and brought it to us. we put him in a car, drove to the spot, the victim pointed him out, and in his shirt pocket was the phone. victim got his phone back, and perp got a felony arrest.
I love these success stories.
did you cuff the perp in the most uncomfortable way?
In my dept (police) we caught someone who stole an iphone thanks to the find my iphone app. the victim got his girlfriends iphone to track his, and brought it to us. we put him in a car, drove to the spot, the victim pointed him out, and in his shirt pocket was the phone. victim got his phone back, and perp got a felony arrest.
It would be great if most PD's would do something like that for people.
In my area they would tell you should have got insurance and that they are way too busy with real crimes than chasing a lost cellphone.
You never explained how you lost it.
Did you drop it/ slipped out of your pocket?
Did you leave it somewhere accidentally?
Did someone grab it from your hands?
----------
I love these success stories.
he was not a happy camper at that point
When a phone is truly off, that generally means no power is going through the majority of the device's circuitry. Therefore it is unable to receive a signal sent to it to instruct it to turn on.
There is a sort of middle ground whereby a phone can have its display off, but still receives a signal and is able to accept data, voice calls and messages. It's called "sleep." But your iPhone already does this.
Yeah, my local PD said the same thing when my iPhone 3GS was stolen. I even had the phone tracked to the house of the thief, or at least some house where he was crashing while he connected to a computer to wipe and restore it. Which would likely mean that if he didn't live there, the people who do either know who he is, or would certainly like to know their house had been broke into.
But even with the Find My iPhone track, the cops said they were just "too busy to go off chasing after people's cell phones every time one goes missing."
This isn't to say every police department will ignore you, but the larger the city you're in, and the more cash-strapped the police force, the less likely they are to even bother to help, unfortunately. Some departments aren't even responding to traffic accidents anymore.
Now if it's an armed robbery, like the article that was linked to on this thread, then it's a different story. They're way more likely to help, since thieves pointing guns directly at people tend to get the cops' attention a bit more.
Last edited:
There's a Jailbreak app that when activated you can take pictures from the front camera and it emails the photo to you. Apple should implement this function into Find my iPhone
Yeah, my local PD said the same thing when my iPhone 3GS was stolen. I even had the phone tracked to the house of the thief, or at least some house where he was crashing while he connected to a computer to wipe and restore it. Which would likely mean that if he didn't live there, the people who do either know who he is, or would certainly like to know their house had been broke into.
But even with the Find My iPhone track, the cops said they were just "too busy to go off chasing after people's cell phones every time one goes missing."
This isn't to say every police department will ignore you, but the larger the city you're in, and the more cash-strapped the police force, the less likely they are to even bother to help, unfortunately. Some departments aren't even responding to traffic accidents anymore.
Now if it's an armed robbery, like the article that was linked to on this thread, then it's a different story. They're way more likely to help, since thieves pointing guns directly at people tend to get the cops' attention a bit more.
I live in LA... they'll surely not give a $h!t about helping me.
How do you guys lose a $650+ phone that you've had for less than 3 months?
I saw a status on my FB 2 days ago that said and I quote "iv lost my 8th iphone.......why".
I wanna feel sorry for you guys cause accidents happen, but I'm not. My mother taught me to take care of my things.
I saw a status on my FB 2 days ago that said and I quote "iv lost my 8th iphone.......why".
I wanna feel sorry for you guys cause accidents happen, but I'm not. My mother taught me to take care of my things.
Agreed... the only way my iPhone leaves my person in public is pryed from my cold dead hands... and even then I'll probably find an app that makes it a dead man's switch.
It's apparent you not only hate AT&T, but are lying.
One call to AT&T and no one will have access to using the phone. Period.
Before acting like a know it all, it's a good idea to get honest with yourself.
Yep, mine is either plugged in, inside my pocket or mine or a close friends hand. I was so tempted to comment on that status and say "It's cause you have more cash then brains. Why don't you buy two new iPhones and let me hold onto the backup 4S till you lose the 9th phone."
But I didn't wanna start an argument with someone I'm cool with, so I used a more mellow way of saying "you're an idiot."
Hey, I quoted you!!! Actually, I do have to agree but, like so many other things, it's really situational. I have my 4 stolen last Oct. and my GF's mom bought a replacement for me. We went to Apple, fully prepared to pay full price for a new one, but their inventory system or something was shut down, so they couldn't sell me a phone...Against my better judgement, we hopped over to the AT&T store, I told the guy what had happened and he offered to sell me one for the early upgrade price. They certainly won't give you a new one for free, but you may have a sympathetic employee when you go in...and don't expect that you'll get anything, like I said, it's just going to be who you talk to and how they're feeling.
AT&T will blacklist the iPhone,but only if you have insurance through them. If you have insurance through them then they will replace your iPhone AppleCare won't.
The reason att will blacklist an iPhone on insurance, is because it is fraud if someone brings in a lost/stolen iPhone to have activated that a claim has been filed on.
The reason att will blacklist an iPhone on insurance, is because it is fraud if someone brings in a lost/stolen iPhone to have activated that a claim has been filed on.
This is the reason why I got AT&T's iPhone insurance on top of AppleCare+ which covers lost/stolen iPhones. I wanted to make sure that I would be covered in all aspects, plus I can cancel anytime as it is monthly. Excessive? yeah, but peace of mind? Definitely.
Assuming you actually use it, it's in at least 3 places: your pocket, your nightstand, and your hand.