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Stolen iphones - Find my phone

hgrimberg

hgrimberg

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 2, 2012
531
21
If you buy an iphone on ebay and say it was stolen and you didn't know. Will the Find my phone feature allow the old owner to find it or these thieves do something to block it? I mean how can you know if a used phone on ebay was in fact stolen and then you end up in jail?
 
But do thieves have a way to block the Find my phone feature?
I lost an ipad some years ago and i was never able to find it using the Find my phone feature, so someone must have blocked it somehow.
 
hgrimberg said:
If you buy an iphone on ebay and say it was stolen and you didn't know. Will the Find my phone feature allow the old owner to find it or these thieves do something to block it? I mean how can you know if a used phone on ebay was in fact stolen and then you end up in jail?
Click to expand...

The old owner cannot track the phone unless Find My Phone is still associated with their account. The last thing a seller should do (and the first thing a buyer should do) is erase all contents and settings which also removes it from any iCloud account.
 
So you must click on Restore and that will erase the old account?
 
PNutts said:
The old owner cannot track the phone unless Find My Phone is still associated with their account. The last thing a seller should do (and the first thing a buyer should do) is erase all contents and settings which also removes it from any iCloud account.
Click to expand...

By restoring the phone, right?
 
You should be more confident buying from a seller with good feeback. I don't see an issue with it, particularly if you are buying an older model. The 4s can do most of what the 5 and 5s can so you could save yourself a great deal by buying second hand.

You just need to build confidence in the seller. Read their feedback and see how much of it comes as a seller and how long they have had their account for. A 2 week old account with 15 positive feedbacks from 99p purchases is clearly not a good idea but if someone has been a member for years and has great feedback record as both buyer and seller there won't be an issue.

That said, pay with paypal and even if there is an issue you can open a dispute and get your money back. I have only ever had to do this once and it did some time to sort out by the money was eventually returned.
 
Ok but in any case by restoring then the previous owner cannot track you down?
 
Find my iPhone revolves around an iCloud account, if an iCloud account is no longer associated with a device it can no longer be traced using Find my iPhone.
 
This seems legit.

The old iOS ( <7.0 ) you could wipe ( Reset->Erase All Content and Settings ) the device and completely sever the connection with old owners account. The original owner would not be able to track it using Find My iPhone.

After iOS7.0 the owner can activate lock the device. If you wipe it, the first thing it will do is to ask you the password for the previously attached iCloud account. While all this is going on, the owner can indeed breadcrumb (track) the device.

The best way is to contact sprint and verizon and check the status of the phone. AT&T is quite a bit more difficult to deal with, but I'd still give it a try.

Good luck living in fear that the previous owner jailbroke it and setup a hidden tracking program. Waiting to steal your bank account information (through emails and a little social hacking), your friends' phone numbers, names, addresses, your credit card information via iTunes. Sounds fun.
 
On ios 7 you cannot just turn off find my iphone.
It will ask you for your password to turn it off or remove that feature.
And even if you do an erase all on the phone itself the find my iphone feature and activation lock will still be there.
Nice new security features that many thieves will not like;)
 
Applejuiced said:
On ios 7 you cannot just turn off find my iphone.
It will ask you for your password to turn it off or remove that feature.
And even if you do an erase all on the phone itself the find my iphone feature and activation lock will still be there.
Nice new security features that many thieves will not like;)
Click to expand...

My iPhone was stolen and I couldn't locate it with Find My iPhone because they turned it off. I sent a command to erase it and that worked. Will they be able to use it now or do they still need my iCloud password?

Edit: He managed to change the phones name somehow
 

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3bs said:
My iPhone was stolen and I couldn't locate it with Find My iPhone because they turned it off. I sent a command to erase it and that worked. Will they be able to use it now or do they still need my iCloud password?

Edit: He managed to change the phones name somehow
Click to expand...

Nope. They can't use it.
Don't unlink it from your iCloud account ever.
Let them have a useless stolen iPhone instead of a functional one.
 
It's stories like this that make me glad apple included the activation/find my iPhone kill switch. The only thing that phone is good for now is parts.
 
Applejuiced said:
Lol:) that was not a good passcode:D
But doesn't matter now since he's stuck with a dead and useless iPhone that can only be activated/unbricked with only your apple id and password.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't have helped even if i had something less common :p





Richdmoore said:
It's stories like this that make me glad apple included the activation/find my iPhone kill switch. The only thing that phone is good for now is parts.
Click to expand...

Well it helped me erase the phone and make sure the thief can't access any of my info but I still can't get it back :(
 
I lost one of my iPhones today at a shopping mall.
In Find My iPhone it shows offline. I enabled the Lost Mode and Notify when found.
It has a passcode for unlocking it.
What you guys recommend to find out when it is powered back on?
Will someone who allegedly found it do anything with it??? Can anyone wipe it clean??
 
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