iPhone Stolen, put it in lost modus, but Find my not showing it anymore

[Rayparlourrr]

Hi all,

We are on holidays in Peru, and my wife's iPhone got stolen yesterday, someone ripped it out of her hand and he jumped on the back of a motorbike and he was gone. I quickly put the phone in lost modus, and Find my still gave the original location of where it happened, so I guess they shut the phone down, or put it in airplane mode, and it showed the initial location for the remainder of that evening, without updating.

Now, the next morning, but not more than 24 hours later, I can no longer see the phone in the Find my app, and when I check the settings on her iPad it says that her phone has switched off Find my.. But it was switched on before it was stolen, so is this typical? I searched the internet and see conflicting reports.
We also filled it as stolen at the local police station, including IMEI and Serial Number, and they put that in their system, is that maybe the reason we can no longer see the phone?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Cruncher]

Does you Wife use Fingerprint or FaceID to unlock her iPhone? If not, they may be stalked you and saw her putting in her code. With that they can change the AppleID PW and remove iCloud lock.

Also if it is an older Phone up to the X, they have a Exploit in Bootrom and could be jailbroken and also get icloud locked removed. If it is newer than an iPhone X this is not possible.

 

[Rayparlourrr]

Thanks for the help. It's an iPhone 15 and she uses FaceID, so I don't think they can change AppleID PW?
Also, I can still log-in on iCloud.com with her ID and PW, so I guess they have not changed it.

 

[Bigwaff]

I can still log-in on iCloud.com with her ID and PW, so I guess they have not changed it.

Change her password. Change it now.

 

[Rayparlourrr]

Thanks, totally forgot to do this so thanks for reminding!

 

[Rayparlourrr]

Somebody have any idea how the phone is no longer visible in Find My.., did the thief's disable it? Or is it due to the cops being involved? Or is it standard with Apple after you set it in Lost Modus.

 

[Kottu]

When you are logged in her iCloud, is her iPhone among Devices list?

 

[Rayparlourrr]

If you mean appleid.apple.com/account/manage/section/devices, then yes, the phone is still mentioned there.

 

[JPack]

If you mean appleid.apple.com/account/manage/section/devices, then yes, the phone is still mentioned there.

Is "Find My iPhone" still checked under the device details?

 

[Rayparlourrr]

No, it says: Find My iPhone Off
But before it was stolen it had Find My iPhone working, and we put it in Lost Modus quickly and got an email from Apple about that (saying Apple Pay is blocked on the phone as it is put in Lost Modus), so that is just really surprising to me.

 

[Kottu]

Sorry to hear that. They have succeeded to remove the phone from find my. The first thing these thieves do is to put the phone in Airplane mode and remove sim. I have blocked the access to control center from the locked screen.

When I Googled, it gave results how to remove iPhone from find my without password. So, these thieves know how to deal with it.

In countries like India (not everywhere) police will help to find the lost phones through the network. So, if someone insert a new simcard or e-sim, they will trace the phone.

 

[Rayparlourrr]

Yeah, so the police has the IMEI so they could hopefully help us, and there are many locals that know a guy that knows a guy, so a lot of shady people now know the phone is stolen, and we have been told they often want to sell it back (for like $50-100) as they can only sell it for parts, so we are their best option. But I am also hesitant with that, as you don't know what they did with the phone, and who you are dealing with. So I prefer police to sort it out, but don't have high hopes for that.

 

[JPack]

People with sophisticated tools can remove the Find My feature. They can also do social engineering at the Apple Store or present fake receipts to remove it.

If Find My is off, then it's gone because they can sell and price it like any unlocked iPhone.

 

[Rayparlourrr]

There are no official apple stores around here, so not sure if a cheap knock off store could help them, but it seems like we can just forget about it and move on. Biggest issue now is getting a new e-sim from the provider, who is not helping at all with this, as we need to be physically present in a store back home in Europe to get a new e-sim.. but we are still travelling in South America for the next 5 months.

 

[Kottu]

I don't understand why the providers ask customers to visit the store for e-sim. In Sweden, you never need to visit a store for e-sim. To connect my Apple Watch to the mobile number I had to make a call. Otherwise I only have to login to my page and order an e-sim. The whole procedure takes a couple of minutes. It's the same with extra data sims. Can't someone back home help you to get e-sim?

 

[Rayparlourrr]

It's absolutely insane in my opinion, but we spoke with three different employees of Vodafone and they all shared the same message; you have to go to the store to get a new e-sim as they cannot do an sms verification (as the phone is stolen), they believe the only way to verify that my partner is actually who she says she is for us to fly back to the Netherlands. Obviously we are not going to do that. So our new plan is to ask a friend to go to a store, and FaceTime, so that we are sort of 'physically' present. Hope we find a kind store employee that can help us through Facetime.

 

[Kottu]

It's absolutely insane in my opinion, but we spoke with three different employees of Vodafone and they all shared the same message; you have to go to the store to get a new e-sim as they cannot do an sms verification (as the phone is stolen), they believe the only way to verify that my partner is actually who she says she is for us to fly back to the Netherlands. Obviously we are not going to do that. So our new plan is to ask a friend to go to a store, and FaceTime, so that we are sort of 'physically' present. Hope we find a kind store employee that can help us through Facetime.

Hope they can help you out. Why a sms verification needed to get new e-Sim? In 1998, Dutch telecom was one of the first in the world to activate simcards within 15 minutes. (A couple of friends from India did it for two telecom companies there). Don’t you have any option to download e-sim from your account?

 

[Rayparlourrr]

If I understand correctly, the say that the e-sim is still 'physically' on the stolen phone, and the only way to migrate it to another phone is by sms verification. If the phone wasn't stolen I think that is a good procedure, but now that is impossible. So they say that the only solution is physically present in a store, so you cannot call with customer service or anything to verify who you are, that is just absurd to me, but that is protocol.

 

[Kottu]

If I understand correctly, the say that the e-sim is still 'physically' on the stolen phone, and the only way to migrate it to another phone is by sms verification. If the phone wasn't stolen I think that is a good procedure, but now that is impossible. So they say that the only solution is physically present in a store, so you cannot call with customer service or anything to verify who you are, that is just absurd to me, but that is protocol.

So basically whoever steals a phone with sim in it can identify as the owner. I am glad that our system is not so complicated. Here, I can just login and order a new e-sim. The old one which is connected to my phone gets cancelled automatically. And there is no limit how many times I order the sim in a single day. When I call the operator, I can verify with bank ID in my devices. (If the phone is stolen, they have a questionnaire to verify your identity)

 

[Rayparlourrr]

If the e-sim is not blocked we can generate a new qr-code as well, but I wasn't aware of it. So, when the phone was stolen we instantly contacted Vodafone to help us out, as the app has a 2FA. So, they blocked the e-sim, and to unlock your account you have to be physically present in a store. In hindsight, if we didn't have 2FA we could have generated a new qr and that would be it, so without all this frustration and hassle.
So, the thief cannot migrate the e-sim as the e-sim is blocked, but we cannot generate a new one. A friend of ours went to the store, and we FaceTimed, after a lot of debate and them calling the store manager and so on, they we're eventually willing to help. So now they are sending over a new qr-code over the mail to our house, so hopefully with that qr-code we can get e-sim working again.