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Stolen/Lost iPhone Stories?

V

VideoNewbie

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 6, 2009
476
6
having recently had my iphone stolen in another country (where the find my iphone feature was pretty much rendered useless because it couldnt connect to a network or wifi due to the fact that u need the phone's password to get on wifi) the event was entirely traumatic and stressful especially considering that i havent backed up my phone since the beginning of the year. thats almost a whole year of data, memories, contacts that have just disappeared . my phone does have a 4 digit passcode but the idea of someone being able to bypass that passcode paired with the reality of losing all my data has given me many sleepless nights.

any of you guys have some personal stolen/lost iphone stories? i know i cant do anything to get my phone back but just reading about other people's experiences would make me feel better.
 
Just had a very bad experience yesterday. Some guy on craigslist said he wanted to buy my iPhone 6 64GB. He said to meet in a kind of ok area, but last minute changed it to a market in Detroit since he's "buying groceries for his mom". He sounded ok and I really wanted to sell it before Wednesday. Me, my mom, and brother already driving so we just went there, Told me to meet him in front of a store and he pulled up and swung his door wide open and shifted himself towards me. 5 min in his friend in the driver seat floored it! I was in shock and couldn't believe people would do this.

I was so naive and put us at risk of being shot especially since a local boy in my city got killed for a $200 craigslist transaction in Detroit! I am still getting the iPhone 6S but don't care about the iPhone 6 anymore since I'm realizing now how lucky we actually were. If you ever meet on craigslist, always go IN THE STORE or police station. Even if there are people walking by.

But in my case it was already erased to sell. To be honest the thief who took your phone probably tried to erase it RIGHT AWAY and bricked it since you didn't turn off find my iPhone (I'm assuming). Did you have iCloud backup on? Did you have photo stream on? Odds are if you signed in onto iCloud some stuff should be backed up. Dot give up hope until you get a new iPhone and log in you iCloud and enable everything and hope some stuff fly back on to it.
 
VideoNewbie said:
having recently had my iphone stolen in another country (where the find my iphone feature was pretty much rendered useless because it couldnt connect to a network or wifi due to the fact that u need the phone's password to get on wifi) the event was entirely traumatic and stressful especially considering that i havent backed up my phone since the beginning of the year. thats almost a whole year of data, memories, contacts that have just disappeared . my phone does have a 4 digit passcode but the idea of someone being able to bypass that passcode paired with the reality of losing all my data has given me many sleepless nights.

any of you guys have some personal stolen/lost iphone stories? i know i cant do anything to get my phone back but just reading about other people's experiences would make me feel better.
Click to expand...
Are you sure you don't have a recent backup. If the phone was set to backup to Icloud then each time you charge it provided it had a network connection it should automatically backup.
 
iCore24 said:
Just had a very bad experience yesterday. Some guy on craigslist said he wanted to buy my iPhone 6 64GB. He said to meet in a kind of ok area, but last minute changed it to a market in Detroit since he's "buying groceries for his mom"...
Click to expand...

Should've stopped there. ;)

I kid, and I'm glad you and your family are safe.
 
I had my phone stolen in the Las Vegas airport last summer. I had it out in my hand to check for gate info as we were getting off the plane. I foolishly stuck it in my back pocket when I went to the restroom and someone either pickpocketed it or it fell out and someone grabbed it before I noticed.

I noticed it was gone a few minutes later, but it was too late. What I learned from that experience is that Find My iPhone is pretty useless if your phone is stolen. The thief will power down the phone immediately, and my phone was never powered back up. I turned on the Lost phone option and eventually the option to erase upon network connection. I have to assume they sold it for parts, and I also had to trust that they weren't ever able to get my data, although I never felt really good about that. (It did have a passcode).

That experience is why I still have a 5s this year and not a 6. Because the phone was stolen only a few months before the 6 release I couldn't justify paying full price for two iPhones within a few months of each other. I guess I could have bought something cheap to tide me over, but I was traveling at the time and needed my data back ASAP.


And now I have an Apple Watch so I never have to have my phone out for gate info while traveling.
 
I forgot my iPhone 3GS in a McDonald's bathroom in 2011. I had no passcode on it or anything. Never made that mistake again!
 
Was at Safeway the other day. Some woman ahead of me in line walked away and left her phone on the counter. Irritating because she was so imperious with the cashier about a product that was marked wrong but it wasn't so important she couldn't stop talking to someone else on her phone while being rude to the cashier.

I did the right thing though and let the cashier know and she caught the lady before she had gone very far. The cashier thanked me because the last person who'd been in her line to see a phone left on the counter had just walked out with it without saying anything.

It was the right thing to do and I'm glad I did it, but the lady still irritates me. Her phone was so damn important she couldn't talk to the cashier like a decent person, but apparently not so important she can't remember to pick it up from the counter when she leaves.

Sorry, maybe not a story that helps, but just a recent experience.
 
TAI182 said:
I forgot my iPhone 3GS in a McDonald's bathroom in 2011. I had no passcode on it or anything. Never made that mistake again!
Click to expand...
I had my iPhone 4 stolen from my pocket on the tube in London in 2012. I also did not have a passcode on it. How foolish I was. I was more worried about the thief having access to all my personal data than the loss of the phone itself.
 
I had someone that was supposed to be buying a phone I was I was selling try to steal it when I meet him. I got him to the ground and gave him a few digs to show him the error of his ways. In the tussle before he ran away his wallet fell out of his pocket. The **** had over £200 in cash in his wallet.
 
I had an iPhone 4 pick-pocketed a while ago while I was commuting on a Bus.

Fortunately I had the 4 digit pin activated and a sim pin.

The iPhone was jailbroken and had a tweak installed that also pin protected any apps I chose to.

I back up at least once a fortnight so my info was up to date in iCloud.

Findmyiphone didn't work as they had turned off the iPhone before I could get to a computer.
 
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