Stolen iPhone found in Mexico

Submitted by pythonmama t3_11crzda in iphone

In fall ‘21 my husband’s iPhone XR was stolen. On Saturday I got a text from someone in Mexico saying she’d bought a used iPhone online and when she charged it, it was locked and had a message saying the phone had been lost and to call my number. She sent me photos and it’s my husband’s phone. She said she’s lost a phone before and thought we might have lost something of sentimental value, and that’s why she contacted me.

Two things: 1) my husband was out of iCloud storage and his phone wasn’t backed up, so he lost a couple years’ worth of photos. We’d like to get those back. 2) This poor woman paid 8,000 pesos (around $400 for it). I’d like to be able to safely unlock the phone so she can use it, but also don’t want her to have access to sensitive info on his phone.

Can both of these be accomplished? The guy at the ATT store gave me a complicated explanation of how this could be done remotely, but it involved giving her my Apple password to unlock it, and then changing the password. But that seems risky to me.

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infinityandbeyond75 t1_ja4qoj7 wrote

At this point the phone isn’t usable to her since it’s activation locked. Although she may be skeptical, offer that if she sends it back so you can copy the information on it then you’ll send it back to her and remove the activation lock. I mean it’s your phone so I can understand if you want to keep it but I’m guessing the photos are worth more than the value of the phone is to you.

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pythonmama OP t1_ja4renw wrote

That’s a great idea! I had thought of buying it from her, but that would involve a lot of trust on both sides. I love this solution.

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InUrGutz t1_ja4vs7d wrote

Fall of 2021? I’m surprised the phone hasn’t already been stripped for parts.

It’s possible the person that has your phone is telling the truth. It’s also possible that they’re the one that stole your phone or know the person that did. Regardless, don’t send them your Apple ID password under any circumstances and don’t send them money hoping they’ll ship you the phone.

Like mentioned earlier, ask them to ship you the phone for free so you can get your photos and remove the activation lock/factory reset it. I doubt they will but if they do send it for free they’re more than likely telling you the truth. After that it’s up to you if you want to send your phone back to them. At the end of the day it is your phone despite the other persons circumstance.

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[deleted] t1_ja4owff wrote

Could you possibly meet up with her? I know that may be a little weird but if both parties would be comfortable with it maybe you could transfer all the data to your husbands current phone? And then she can use it

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pythonmama OP t1_ja4pvml wrote

That would be the ideal situation, but I live near the Canadian border and she is in central Mexico. It’s just too far. I’m hoping I can do this remotely.

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[deleted] t1_ja4tmmh wrote

Ahh I see. Yes that wouldn’t work. Maybe try and get in touch with apple, there might be a way to resolve this

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Entertainnosis t1_ja4rb4m wrote

Without unlocking the phone and getting it on WiFi there won’t be any way to back it up regardless unfortunately…

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pythonmama OP t1_ja6wakd wrote

The guy at the ATT store said if we bought more iCloud storage, the lost phone would automatically back up to our iCloud account if she charged the phone. He made it sound like we could thereby remotely recover our lost pictures. This sounded too good to be true. You’re saying this is the case, right?

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Entertainnosis t1_ja6yr6t wrote

iPhones don’t back up automatically unless they’re on WiFi unfortunately afaik.

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