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Stolen iPhone 7+

Find my iPhone is pretty much useless in cases of theft unless the thief is a real idiot. Someone broke into my office in the middle of the night earlier this year and stole my 2015 15" MacBook Pro. I had Find My Mac turned on of course, but it never got a location. Those features are really meant for when you accidentally leave your phone at Starbucks or a movie theater because it fell out of your pocket without you knowing. Or you can't remember if you left your MacBook at grandma's house or Uncle Charlie's house.
 
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I recently sold my phone for parts, my 6+ that was water damaged. Nobody would touch it if it was iCloud locked. In the extremely unlikely event the phone ever operated again, I set the phone to erase, but then I just gave up and removed it from iCloud because there was no saving this device. Every inquiry about the phone on eBay asked for the IMEI number so they could look it up. I'm sure someone would have maybe eventually bought the phone locked, but it's tough, even on a broken phone when sold as whole and not by parts.
 
CEmajr said:
The phone is gone forever. Harsh and expensive lesson learned. Never leave your iPhone outside of your pocket or within arm's reach in your line of sight. Though the thief can't actually use the phone due to Activation Lock, he can easily sell it for parts. The screen alone on the 7 Plus is worth around $350 right now.
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Wow, I didn't realize the phones were worth that much for parts.
 
gtg465x said:
Find my iPhone is pretty much useless in cases of theft unless the thief is a real idiot. Someone broke into my office in the middle of the night earlier this year and stole my 2015 15" MacBook Pro. I had Find My Mac turned on of course, but it never got a location. Those features are really meant for when you accidentally leave your phone at Starbucks or a movie theater because it fell out of your pocket without you knowing. Or you can't remember if you left your MacBook at grandma's house or Uncle Charlie's house.
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Expensive lesson! Don't leave expensive items on your desk. (please note the sarcasm)
 
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dillonm said:
Don't really need any life lessons from you people. Working at a desk where you have chargers, docks etc and leaving your phone isn't uncommon. You usually don't expect someone to jack your phone. Man, I wish we were all as smart as a couple of you. I'll relay the info tho, maybe he'll never leave his computer in his office in which he conducts business on, either.
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Computer is bigger and harder to swipe. Phone is easy. Similar to laying $1000 cash out in the open. It's pocketable and disappears in about 2 seconds once someone decides to take it. Plus even if it activation locked it can fetch a few hundred dollars in the black market.

Sounds like lesson not learned so we'll look forward to your next thread about a phone being stolen.
 
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Sorry to hear, it sucks that he got his phone stolen. Unless you have the carrier insurance you are kind of out of luck on that one. All you can do is put an activation lock on it. Even if you have it there is a $200 deductible to replace, not any good cheap options.
 
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DaveOP said:
It sounds like most people are talking in Retail, maybe it's different there. In an office, I know all my office mates, we all like our jobs, and nobody is out trying to steal things off of desks.
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I hear you.
I'm also in an office that feels pretty secure and everyone is honest but still wouldn't risk it. Better safe than sorry.
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numpsy said:
Yes you can, it just removes any photos and private data, it's still icloud linked to him....
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It's still iCloud linked to his account but you cannot track it if it's remotly erased or if the thief restores it. Period.
If you remote wipe it you cannot track it any longer.
 
DaveOP said:
This is not targeted at you personally, more the sentiment in this thread. I am surprised that people would feel uncomfortable leaving a phone on their desk at work. I work in an office in IT, and I leave phones and iPads at my desk all day long. I would think its reasonable to expect people not to steal company property off my desk.
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Long ago I might have done the same but today's employee/coworker's have changed. The morals of yesterday do not apply today. Besides I think the OP said that other people who do not work their has access to his desk area.

It is sad but society is not what it used to be. My company has only 4 people at the desk with 38 in the field. I would never hesitate to leave my stuff on my desk in the office. If the OP had say 50 people working in his office the chances are one or more would have possibly taken advantage.

You may not think that it is unreasonable to leave a near $1K device on your desk, but this thread proves it is.
 
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DaveOP said:
It sounds like most people are talking in Retail, maybe it's different there. In an office, I know all my office mates, we all like our jobs, and nobody is out trying to steal things off of desks.
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Office actually

And it was my cdg wallet (gift) that was stolen. No outsiders allowed without registering first and photo id. Sad really.
 
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dillonm said:
Expensive lesson! Don't leave expensive items on your desk. (please note the sarcasm)
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Expensive for my employer. They paid to replace it. Their fault really for not having proper alarms in place. My desk is in a restricted engineering area where no customers / clients are allowed, so I don't think it's unreasonable for me to leave my computer on my desk.
 
Working in an IT office is hardly the same thing. I work in one as well and can leave whatever I want on my desk, but I literally sit DIRECTLY below a camera. If you stole something from my desk you would have to do it 3' away from an HD security camera on the other side of the building, up a flight of stairs, past 6 security cameras before this one, and in an office that only a handful of people are allowed to access. That's if you can even get past the fingerprint scanners...

The unfortunate truth is customers will jack anything they can from you the moment you look away. The more common heroin and meth addiction is the more common theft becomes. Unfortunately things with apple logos grow legs fairly often.
 
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Applejuiced said:
I hear you.
I'm also in an office that feels pretty secure and everyone is honest but still wouldn't risk it. Better safe than sorry.
[doublepost=1475161671][/doublepost]

It's still iCloud linked to his account but you cannot track it if it's remotly erased or if the thief restores it. Period.
If you remote wipe it you cannot track it any longer.
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That wasn't my point. We don't know if the iPhone was operable or not when he blacklisted the IMEI. My point was he smart enough to take it to the next level by providing the IMEI to his carrier, which most iPhone users most likely do not think to do. In any case, eBay is a trap anymore these days as we have discussed on other threads. He may not have been paid, but in the least, he has some satisfaction of that he contributed to bricking the iPhone indefinitely. These things happen unfortunately, it's how you handle them and he did all he could. What more could you ask for?
 
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Interesting story (so I've been told by others) about what happened to us last year. Bought our son a new 64GB 6S+ for Christmas and it was stolen from school a month later. Had some kids say they saw a certain kid with it, we offered a reward for its return, etc but nothing happened to really pin it on the accused kid. Find My iPhone immediately showed it as offline so I locked it thru Find My iPhone. We got the police involved and called AT&T to block the phone. Was not happy but just had to live with it. Gave my son my iPhone 6 and I went back to an old iPhone 5. :(

Couple of weeks later I was using Find My iPhone and noticed a device named "Owens Family's iPhone". Clicked on it and it showed offline but its last location in a city about an hour away at an apartment complex. From my understanding of what happened there was a court order for the apartment complex asking if there is an Owens family at that complex. They said yes and turned over the appt # so then a search warrant was issued for that apartment. Cops went to the appt and a kid admitted to having the phone but said he gave it back to the kid who gave it to him. When asked who that kid was he named the same kid who was originally accused of taking it. A search of the appt did not find the phone.

So, the 17yr old kid (originally accused) was charged and we went to court a few months ago. He/his mom/attorney agreed to accept responsibility without a trial and pay for the phone ($850 + tax). Their deadline to pay passed and the judge granted them another 2 months. The last deadline was Sept 14 and they have not paid ALL of the money and I don't know how much they've paid. Judge says the kid is being arrested during court appearance next month and will stay in jail until the phone has been paid. We will see. Bought our son a new 128GB iPhone 7 on release day and I got my 6 back. :D

Still not sure how they got into the phone, changed the name, etc but It's still tied to my son's Apple ID in Find My iPhone.
 
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DaveOP said:
This is not targeted at you personally, more the sentiment in this thread. I am surprised that people would feel uncomfortable leaving a phone on their desk at work. I work in an office in IT, and I leave phones and iPads at my desk all day long. I would think its reasonable to expect people not to steal company property off my desk.
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Reasonable perhaps in a DREAM WORLD, but sadly not REALTY based.
 
Track it to the location! Don't call the cops find the guy yourself and beat the hell out of him, break his fingers for taking something that's not his!!
 
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clunkmess said:
The carrier will put the IMEI on the 'blacklist' so it can't be activated. I sold my old iPhone 5s to an international buyer and he claimed he never received it. Since it could not be tracked once it left the US, eBay sided with him and i was out $250. I take comfort in the fact that at least it can't be used by whoever has it now.
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The blacklist only affects American carriers, the international carriers will still activate the phone. First rule of thumb never send an iphone or anything else outside of the US.
 
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