I'm in a similar situation. I think the best strategy that I'm attempting is creating a new apple id account with a new gmail email address that will be a "placeholder". When I reset the phone I will immediately connect to this temporary apple id and and leave it attached. When I sell (or gift) the phone, I will give the credentials to whoever gets the phone and they can replace it with their own when they are ready. It should at least reduce the window when the phone is "unattached".
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Users Report Some iPhone 7 and 6s Models Activation Locked With Wrong Apple IDs
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I'm in a similar situation. I think the best strategy that I'm attempting is creating a new apple id account with a new gmail email address that will be a "placeholder". When I reset the phone I will immediately connect to this temporary apple id and and leave it attached. When I sell (or gift) the phone, I will give the credentials to whoever gets the phone and they can replace it with their own when they are ready. It should at least reduce the window when the phone is "unattached".
I thought about that too. But from this thread, it seems it's possible that the phone can be attached to a mysterious Apple ID while still under the owner's Apple ID. And as soon as the owner resets the phone, it can be instantly switched and locked to that mysterious account only. If that happens, there's no chance to connect to a "placeholder" account.
Good to get this sort of information. I am probably like many that take some comfort from knowing I am not alone in this fiasco...
You can't. Apple does the exact same thing at the store that they did over the phone. I ended up trading mine in to Apple. Since I had purchased the 7 from them, even though it was weeks ago on release day. I was able to trade in my 6s Plus and get cash. Had no choice really. Had it unlocked twice and it just relocked.
call Apple. if you bought through normal channels they should be able to look up your proof of purchase and send it your way.
I was trying to watch what the associate was doing to gain "back door entry" to clear my 6s. I asked him about it, but he didn't go into much detail. All I know is that he entered info about my 6s into another 5s he brought out from the back (he had the 5s from a POS perspective, then when he couldn't remove the 'Find my iPhone' feature from the other iCloud account, he had to go in back and came back out with another 5s modified device where he entered in the info on my 6s).
Needless to say, I'm glad that I'm on the IUP since I have all the paperwork needed if this were to happen again to my 7 (I'm hoping it does not). However, I do have another 6s which I purchased off of Swappa. I would be hesitant to sell that device to someone for fear this issue will pop up (and since I'm not the original owner, it would create a huge headache).
Apple might have a solution. After spending almost two hours waiting at the Apple Store yesterday while a number of things were attempted by a number of Genuises, and the iPhone was restored a couple of times - the last time apparently successfully without a random AppleID activation lock appearing. Today so far the Activation status web site for my problem 6s, is showing up as unlocked. However I'm not fully convinced so I'll be testing the actual activation lock over the next week by wiping and restoring the phone.
Apple wasn't interested in providing me with a replacement 6s nor refunding my money for the phone. I think they may have taken that challenge to look for a solution. However my actual AppleID account is still messed up showing no warranty service available for the iPhone nor any Apple care. So my guess right now is that they mislead me about unlocking the phone for the duration.
Apple wasn't interested in providing me with a replacement 6s nor refunding my money for the phone. I think they may have taken that challenge to look for a solution. However my actual AppleID account is still messed up showing no warranty service available for the iPhone nor any Apple care. So my guess right now is that they mislead me about unlocking the phone for the duration.
Checking online, my Apple ID also shows no warranty service and no Apple Care. All the senior rep could tell me was that she did not know why, but they are seeing my AppleCare+ on their end and there has been no warranty service.
Your not alone. It probably wasn't a transcription error. I had previously mentioned that I was locked out of my Verizon 6S+ with someone's Yahoo Apple ID. I do not have a Yahoo account. I called Apple last Thursday morning to get a repair case started. They sent me a link to log into using my Apple ID info and I had to attach my Apple Invoice to show proof of purchase. I had purchased this phone directly from Apple last October. They said it would take 2-4 days to get the phone unlocked.
I checked the Case ID status today and I see that their repair center had received a 6S+ phone with my serial number and a replacement phone is scheduled to ship to this person tomorrow using my Apple Care Plus. I live in Iowa and the replacement phone is shipping to someone in an apartment in Covina, California. I have the persons address but not their name. I assured the Apple support that It wasn't my phone in for repair. I was bumped to a Senior Apple Support Rep. This person verified with the repair center that they had a phone with my Serial # in for repair. I told this Senior Support person about this macrumors.com article. This was a sharp guy and while he was verifying that the phone was in their repair center he went to this site and was reading the article and comments, including smarks90's problems, which mirror my own. I was given this person's direct contact info and he said he was going to write a ticket for an even higher level of involvement. I'll update everyone on the info I get back from Apple.
VERY interesting! I'll definitely be interested to hear more.
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AGH! The activation lock came back for a THIRD time today. I'm now beyond irritated. I was optimistic after it was removed yesterday and I was able to erase and re-set up a few times without the lock returning but I went to meet someone to sell the 6s+ and they popped their SIM in the phone and sure enough, activation locked to the same z****@icloud.com account I have seen the previous two times this has happened.
that is now 3 activation locks, 2 weeks of a 6s+ "bricked", 2 times apple has "removed" the activation lock and we still have no answer as to what is causing this issue. I'm livid. I've spent probably 8 hours or more of my time restoring, corresponding and patiently trying x,y and z to resolve this issue...
Geez, I'd email Tim Cook, if you haven't already. Three locks = three strikes. Sorry to hear this.
I have had this happen with two separate iPhones; one a 6s and one a 6s Plus. In the case of the latter, I had the iPhone unlocked five separate times as I worked my way to the engineering team. I was livid, but the A Team finally was engaged. It was nearly a two month process due to my own schedule and coordinating with Apple's tech teams who are off regularly. Ultimately, Apple asked that I send the iPhone for their forensics and they replaced it with a refurbished device. Problem gone.
The second iPhone, the 6s, corroborates some of the theories on this thread, especially the duplicate serial number theory. I never received any info from the forensics report on the 6s Plus, but I did hear them mention Chinese activity of a similarly numbered device.
The 6s was the icing on the cake. It was activation locked on startup, AND, locked to the exact same AppleID as the first iPhone was many months earlier. And here's the kicker...I never logged in with my AppleID with this second device and it had no way of knowing who I was except by cross-referencing my wifi network, which seems completely beyond the pale. It seemed way too wild a coincidence that the exact same AppleID (a Yahoo account) activation locked two of my devices months apart. And let me confirm, I had NEVER seen this AppleID/Yahoo account before the first device.
So what was similar between the two devices? Same Yahoo.com address for activation unlock. Both devices bought on eBay from reputable but novice sellers. No way they knew what they were getting into in terms of facing an unlock process with Apple. Both devices had AppleCare Plus. And both sellers had shared pictures of Apple's AppleCare coverage webpage for the device being sold, including a detail of the device serial number.
My guess is that eBay is a ready supply of intentional and inadvertent serial number publication in listings, though no one would ever record and publish that info if they knew what could happen to it. Furthermore, if you have an IMEI pictured on eBay but no serial number at least one of the lookup services will provide the serial number of the associated device on a free search. So there is a ready stream of Apple Serial Numbers being published on eBay and someone would only need to set up a search script to mail them anytime anyone lists AppleCare or AppleCare Plus in the title in order to be notified of a likely device Serial Number available for deploying. With a lifetime's supply of hacked email accounts (to say nothing of the mega-Yahoo hack), this seems like child's play if the technology exists to write the cloned serial number to another device, which it apparently does.
Based on my experience, I have a couple of recommendations:
1) DON'T attempt to resolve this over the phone with Apple. Bite the bullet and if at all possible, take it to an Apple Store. Provided you have your sales receipt, the genius will see the behavior first hand and will replace the phone.
2) Replacing the iPhone is the only option, in my opinion. I was a masochist to do the unlock five times, and I don't recommend that madness to anyone.
3) Hope is NOT a strategy! It WILL relock. If it's your iPhone, it will be your pain. If you've sold it, it will likely be your pain, as well.
4) If you buy off eBay, avoid devices where IMEI or Serial Number is in the wild. Too easy to skim.
5) If you sell off eBAY, avoid anything which would detail your device info, including actual IMEI or Serial Number.
6) Replace the affected device. Period. It's burnt.
These are my personal recommendations based on my experience and are nothing but my personal opinion. I hope it is helpful to some of you who have or will fall prey to this bummer of an experience. Good luck!
The second iPhone, the 6s, corroborates some of the theories on this thread, especially the duplicate serial number theory. I never received any info from the forensics report on the 6s Plus, but I did hear them mention Chinese activity of a similarly numbered device.
The 6s was the icing on the cake. It was activation locked on startup, AND, locked to the exact same AppleID as the first iPhone was many months earlier. And here's the kicker...I never logged in with my AppleID with this second device and it had no way of knowing who I was except by cross-referencing my wifi network, which seems completely beyond the pale. It seemed way too wild a coincidence that the exact same AppleID (a Yahoo account) activation locked two of my devices months apart. And let me confirm, I had NEVER seen this AppleID/Yahoo account before the first device.
So what was similar between the two devices? Same Yahoo.com address for activation unlock. Both devices bought on eBay from reputable but novice sellers. No way they knew what they were getting into in terms of facing an unlock process with Apple. Both devices had AppleCare Plus. And both sellers had shared pictures of Apple's AppleCare coverage webpage for the device being sold, including a detail of the device serial number.
My guess is that eBay is a ready supply of intentional and inadvertent serial number publication in listings, though no one would ever record and publish that info if they knew what could happen to it. Furthermore, if you have an IMEI pictured on eBay but no serial number at least one of the lookup services will provide the serial number of the associated device on a free search. So there is a ready stream of Apple Serial Numbers being published on eBay and someone would only need to set up a search script to mail them anytime anyone lists AppleCare or AppleCare Plus in the title in order to be notified of a likely device Serial Number available for deploying. With a lifetime's supply of hacked email accounts (to say nothing of the mega-Yahoo hack), this seems like child's play if the technology exists to write the cloned serial number to another device, which it apparently does.
Based on my experience, I have a couple of recommendations:
1) DON'T attempt to resolve this over the phone with Apple. Bite the bullet and if at all possible, take it to an Apple Store. Provided you have your sales receipt, the genius will see the behavior first hand and will replace the phone.
2) Replacing the iPhone is the only option, in my opinion. I was a masochist to do the unlock five times, and I don't recommend that madness to anyone.
3) Hope is NOT a strategy! It WILL relock. If it's your iPhone, it will be your pain. If you've sold it, it will likely be your pain, as well.
4) If you buy off eBay, avoid devices where IMEI or Serial Number is in the wild. Too easy to skim.
5) If you sell off eBAY, avoid anything which would detail your device info, including actual IMEI or Serial Number.
6) Replace the affected device. Period. It's burnt.
These are my personal recommendations based on my experience and are nothing but my personal opinion. I hope it is helpful to some of you who have or will fall prey to this bummer of an experience. Good luck!
Thanks for sharing all of this. I told the Apple advisor tonight (and he completely understood) that I wasn't willing to wait another few days to unlock the phone only to have the problem come back. I indicated I would like to replace the phone and he said he was writing that up in his report to the engineering team. Hopefully they'll be some movement tomorrow and I can head in to my local Apple Store and get the phone replaced. I'm. Done.
One time, not understandable but I'm willing to work with you. Second time, slightly more irritated but still willing to work with them because it's not my daily driver phone anymore so delaying sale of 6s+ by a day won't hurt anything. Third time, I've now wasted 8 hours of my life helping troubleshoot a device that's covered under AppleCare until 6/2018. Patience exhausted. Time to escalate. Tim Cook's email will be getting a "nice", already written, 1600 word email outlining timelines, case #s (there are quite a few), and personal time spent both on the phone and off working on this issue.
Glad it was helpful and good luck. On the local Apple Store route, I was amazed at how quickly they replaced the phone when they saw the behavior themselves. Don't let the Apple Advisor route slow you down—I suspect you could get the device replaced without official blessing from the Cupertino deathstar. Mind you, some great people helped me on the phone, but in terms of getting it done, the Apple Store Genius saw the madness and said, "we wouldn't put up with this either." Hope your new device of forthcoming.
@hexagenia - I wouldn't be surprised if what you mentioned was one reason how thieves got a hold of IMEI and subsequent AppleCare+, thank you for sharing your experience. I bet the Yahoo Hack had something to do with mine as I kept the receipt of this 6s in a subfolder of that account.
I did a complete wipe of my computer's hard drive 3x over and did a complete erase and factory restore on this 6s 2x - which all told took me 10 days and sacrificed back ups too. Not to mention changing my Apple id emails 2x over the course of the unlock, thankfully I haven't seen the lock again but I do not dare erase and restore at this point. If the phone goes into Activation lock again, you better believe I'll be marching right into the Apple Store where I bought the phone and requesting a new one.
I'm pretty tempted to email Tim Cook again on the basis of my AppleCare+ suddenly vanishing and being listed as expired in the AC+ support site, despite having two senior reps confirm my AC+is still active.
I did a complete wipe of my computer's hard drive 3x over and did a complete erase and factory restore on this 6s 2x - which all told took me 10 days and sacrificed back ups too. Not to mention changing my Apple id emails 2x over the course of the unlock, thankfully I haven't seen the lock again but I do not dare erase and restore at this point. If the phone goes into Activation lock again, you better believe I'll be marching right into the Apple Store where I bought the phone and requesting a new one.
I'm pretty tempted to email Tim Cook again on the basis of my AppleCare+ suddenly vanishing and being listed as expired in the AC+ support site, despite having two senior reps confirm my AC+is still active.
This last part "I'm pretty tempted to email Tim Cook again on the basis of my AppleCare+ suddenly vanishing and being listed as expired in the AC+ support site, despite having two senior reps confirm my AC+is still active."
Had exactly this happen in line with the erroneous Apple care accidental damage incident. Apple was able to sort it all out and my account shows normal AppleCare expiration date now. Not sure what they did exactly.
Thanks for sharing the history of your experiences with your 6s and a 6s plus. Good recommendations. It's very odd that the same Yahoo account had activation locked your devices months apart. Is someone hacking into personal computers to get the serial #'s, or is the info coming from cell phone service providers, China manufacturing, or perhaps even Apple itself. For my phone I've had it since I purchased it directly from Apple in October 2015 and I had never ever shared it's serial number with anyone. It was not on sale on eBay. I had 2 factor authentication on and never received any notifications indicating that anything odd was going on.
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All of what you are writing makes sense. But... how do you now it was locked to the exactly same Apple ID? I thought you could only see the first letter and the part after the '@' character? Also, is it possible that Apple in some way attached the new second device to your account before they handed it over to you?
As I said, all of these theories makes sense but do not explain how some people got new iPhone 7s bought from Apple or approved resellers that were activation locked from the start. These devices have never been on eBay etc.
I suppose none of us KNOW that the account it was activation locked to was the same but I think it's a pretty safe assumption to make. What are the chances that Z****@icloud.com was two different accounts that locked my phone 3 separate times. My money is that whoever this account belongs to has an iphone in their possession that is locked to this iCloud account. I'm starting to wonder if this particular phone "looks" identical (IMEI/SN/other) to my legitimate phone. otherwise, there is something deeply-rooted in Apple's servers that somehow has my phone/IMEI/SN tied to both my personal iCloud email when it's unlocked from the z****@icloud account. somehow this then reverts back to locking my phone given enough time.
IDK...I wish I knew more about this whole concept of IMEI/SN cloning and the feasibility/likelihood of this being the cause of the issues.
The fact that we're 13 pages deep about this issue is quite troubling to say the least. I wish that Apple would at least acknowledge or tell customers what is going on. I would think that if they are seeing a pattern with customers calling/going to Apple Stores about this issue, that they would dispatch a team to investigate. While I feel that this could be related to the Yahoo hack, none of us can say for sure. But like someone else mentioned, I wish WSJ or NYT would pick this story up.
I should be clear on this. Both of my iPhones came from different users on eBay in purchases that were nearly a year apart. They were not purchases from Apple nor was AppleCare transferred to me until the lock issue was resolved. So what persuaded me was seeing p******@yahoo.com on two different iPhones from two different sellers received over a year apart. In terms of probability, they could be different email addresses, but I can't believe that they aren't the same. In the case of the 6s, the second iPhone, I never had a chance to sign in to it with an AppleID and it displayed an activation lock with p******@yahoo.com on power and joining the network. It's like a bad mystery, where there are all these clues and you can see shape, but....
while I can't rule out the yahoo hack playing a part for some I can say it hasn't played a part for me. I've never used a yahoo account for anything related to Apple. not even a communication back and forth about an iPhone I am selling...etc. The iCloud account mine continuously locks to is an @icloud.com email extension.
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I have been corresponding back and forth with a MacRumors editor trying to add details, insight...etc. into the story that started that started this now 13-page thread here.
At this point, I'm hoping the next step will be phone replacement in parallel with an email to the Tcook@apple.com email I have drafted (just need to update a few of the latest timeline details with information from lockout #3 yesterday.