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Yeah, I lost it

R

Renfred93

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 22, 2009
91
0
If you're guessing that I lost my new iphone 4 you're right. I know I should be realistic about not getting it back but it's only been one day and it could be in a semi-good persons hands. Is there anyway to track it down without having something pre-installed on the phone? I scurried home to mobile me only to be very disappointed that find my iphone is pretty much useless if you have to set up your account in advance.

If I never see it again, I know I'm still within 30 days and ATT has an insurance plan. I might have heard my salesman say something about free insurance for the first month but I'm not sure what he meant exactly. any tips on what to do?
 
A week or so ago, I called my girlfriend and it was some old Russian lady. All she could say in English was her address. Turns out it was downstairs from my apartment in the same building. Sure enough, she handed me my girlfriend's iPhone 4 and I made it home before she'd even realized she'd lost it.

It was a good day. Best of luck to you, good sir.
 
Nothing you can do but buy another one.
You cant track it since you didnt preinstall MobileME on it and there is no loss or theft insurance on it.
The 30 day is the return policy thats all.
Sorry, I know it sucks.
 
Applejuiced said:
Nothing you can do but buy another one.
You cant track it since you didnt preinstall MobileME on it and there is no loss or theft insurance on it.
The 30 day is the return policy thats all.
Sorry, I know it sucks.
Click to expand...

It does suck, thanks for being understanding. Whats worst is that I bought it with a visa, so I could have filed purchase insurance, but I lost the receipt too of course.

ATTs insurance policy covers loss and theft I believe I have a feeling that won't fly

I can't afford another one right now, so maybe that's it
 
Sorry to hear that.

Perhaps this can be a lesson learned for next time.

Best of luck in affording another one.
 
Renfred93 said:
ATTs insurance policy covers loss and theft I believe I have a feeling that won't fly

I can't afford another one right now, so maybe that's it
Click to expand...

No it doesnt.
Call and verify it yourself if you dont believe though.
If that was the case everyone would be buying iphone 4's and saying they lost it or got stolen.
Its not as simple as you think unless you insured it thru your homeowners policy.
 
Renfred93 said:
It does suck, thanks for being understanding. Whats worst is that I bought it with a visa, so I could have filed purchase insurance, but I lost the receipt too of course.

ATTs insurance policy covers loss and theft I believe I have a feeling that won't fly

I can't afford another one right now, so maybe that's it
Click to expand...

Apple always emails me the receipt for anything i purchase, they can probably look it up and resend it via email if you purchased the phone there.

My brother lost his receipt when he was trying to get the $100 discount on the 3gs phone (due to the price drop when the iPhone 4 came out) and at&t was able to reprint his receipt after two to three weeks, no problem.

You may consider your homeowners or renter's insurance, but if it's like mine, the deductible is more than the price of the phone.
 
Applejuiced said:
...If that was the case everyone would be buying iphone 4's and saying they lost it or got stolen....
Click to expand...

No they wouldn't because that would be insurance fraud, which is a federal offense.

To the OP, hard to believe that you lost your phone AND the receipt unless they were together. Are you really that careless? Expensive lesson!
 
Eek. So sorry - this is one of my fears. BUT there is always the slight possibility of some honest, nice person finding and returning it (like someone on this forum just did).

And if not, chalk it up. I'm betting you'll NEVER lose another one. ;)
 
I don't understand how people can lose their phone, my phone is always attached to my hand, even while i'm sleeping:D sorry for your loss though
 
By any chance do you have MobileMe? It has a "Find my iPhone" feature, which will allow you to locate it, lock it, send a message & sound, or even wipe it if worse comes to worse. If you don't, I really don't have any more advice.

I lost a Krzr when I was with Sprint, and they would not, under any circumstances track it with the GPS in the phone. I wound up finding the person who stole it though and pressed charges, but you may not be as lucky.

If you do find your phone, I'd invest 99.00 in MobileMe. I use it and it was probably the best thing I've ever done. Even if you don't use the email, contacts, calendar, etc, use it for the "Find my iPhone" for sake of mind.

Sorry to hear about it, and good luck.
 
That's a real shame man. When i bought mine in the UK they gave me 8 days free insurance and then my purchased insurance plan started after that.

I thought it was a really good idea to cover everyone for the time it takes to get the phone home and a little after that.
 
Thanks for the supports everyone

Today I'm going to file a police report for the stolen item. I did research and they say AT&T won't track the IMEI of the phone upon user request, but upon influence by a police detective they are more apt to do this. again this situation is unlikely but it doesn't hurt to try

Also yes I did loose the receipt through exceitment, this was a large mistake on my part as I am usually not careless and save receipt to everything valuable I own. I DID however buy the phone with a visa bank card, so I'm thinking I could use my bank statement as a proof of purchase? Also, I believe visa has purchase protect on items so I could maybe file for this, even though on the website the process for filing a claim seems complicated but it's well worth it

Also, I was mistaken ATT doesn't offer insurance directly from them but they have insurance offered on their account through asurion. I will call later about this and tell the results

http://www.mymobileprotect.com/

If anyone has tried any of the processes above please feel free to tell their results. hopefully this will be helpful to others who have had their iphones stolen as well.
 
Asurion does NOT cover the iphone 4 as of yet. Not to mention they wouldnt cover this anyhow,since the insurance wasnt on the account BEFORE the incident. While I hope that you end up with a positive outcome, based on what youve said so far you just might be screwed...good luck
 
AT&T will not track or try to find your iphone.
They dont care, they will only deactive the sim so noone can use your account to make phone calls.
They're not in the business of detecting stolen or lost property even if you tell them you filed a police report.
Also I thought you said you lost it, now it got stolen?
Also if you didnt purchase insurance prior to the incident it wont help much. See if the credit card company would reimburse you or credit your account for the iphone but either way you probably got it for the $199-$299 price and now in order to get another one you will have to pay $599-699 price since you wont get the discount again.
 
Applejuiced said:
AT&T will not track or try to find your iphone.
They dont care, they will only deactive the sim so noone can use your account to make phone calls.
They're not in the business of detecting stolen or lost property even if you tell them you filed a police report.
Also I thought you said you lost it, now it got stolen?
Also if you didnt purchase insurance prior to the incident it wont help much. See if the credit card company would reimburse you or credit your account for the iphone but either way you probably got it for the $199-$299 price and now in order to get another one you will have to pay $599-699 price since you wont get the discount again.
Click to expand...

Well, at least you're realistic.

At first I believed I lost my phone but more than likely it was stolen. I was in a large crowd and it was probably taken by someone, along with my wallet. If I lost the phone, it wouldn't have been turned off, right after I lost it trying to call.

this kind of sucks now.
 
THX1139 said:
No they wouldn't because that would be insurance fraud, which is a federal offense.

To the OP, hard to believe that you lost your phone AND the receipt unless they were together. Are you really that careless? Expensive lesson!
Click to expand...

Yeah because nobody ever commits any type of fraud :rolleyes:
 
Renfred93 said:
Also yes I did loose the receipt through exceitment, this was a large mistake on my part as I am usually not careless and save receipt to everything valuable I own. I DID however buy the phone with a visa bank card, so I'm thinking I could use my bank statement as a proof of purchase? Also, I believe visa has purchase protect on items so I could maybe file for this, even though on the website the process for filing a claim seems complicated but it's well worth it
Click to expand...

Might have extended warranty, but not the theft/loss component of the protection you'd find in the credit cards with yearly fees.

Lose quite a bit of protection on the bank/debit cards -- even though they have tried hanging an industrial strength scented pine tree on them to make people use them.
 
I know how you feel. My iPhone 3gs was stolen right out of my gf's hands with her purse at my college. Terrible feeling because I wasnt there.
 
andrewr23 said:
I know how you feel. My iPhone 3gs was stolen right out of my gf's hands with her purse at my college. Terrible feeling because I wasnt there.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much worse than my situation, I'm very sorry about that. As a fellow student you probably know it's pretty much impossible to afford things like that, at least in my case
 
ya it is very hard. But now i do not bring my iphone 4 to school and wont when fall starts

also got a rescue knife lol
 
Just for an update, I call AT&T to see what they can do. THey set me up with a free trial Family Map plan, which could locate the iphone when it is turned on. I set it up to automatically search within time intervals

ATT told me to call apple, they claimed they had a service that would tag the IMEI as stolen when connected to itunes, but apple told me this didn't exist. I wonder where they get their information from...

I know the chances of getting the phone back at this point is little to none, but for those of you that lose a phone and it's a big deal, try to at least do something. There is a chance that the person who has your phone knows nothing about the way apple/iphones work or is a moron and might turn the phone on or make calls from it. check your recent usage on your AT&T account and call them and activate family maps if your phone rings when you call it
 
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