Phone and watch locked with ransomware - Apple Support has no solution

[pholt1938]

Woke this morning to find my iPhone 7 and Watch had been placed into "lost mode", with a phony email address to contact that of course was asking for bitcoin.
Called Apple Support, and there's nothing they can do over the phone. They directed me to an Apple Store, so I called the nearest one, and they require proof of purchase before attempting the fix.

Two problems:
For one, the receipt is long gone, and two, the guy said his techs told him there's "nothing they can do if the phone is in 'lost' mode." He wasn't sure if I could get anywhere without the receipt.

Would a billing statement with the phone's number and my name on it, coupled with my ID, be enough to convince the store to attempt to fix it? I attempted a full restore, but the Apple ID itself that the phone is associated with is locked. It can't get the verification code to me while the phone is in setup mode, so I'm essentially stuck.

Any ideas?

 

[cwosigns]

I don’t know how to fix this, but once you do get it worked out enable two-factor authentication. It should prevent anything like this from happening in the future.

 

[pholt1938]

Agreed! There was no real official fix I suppose. I was able to work around it pretty simply though - I just put my SIM card in another iPhone long enough to receive the verification text to reset everything, after hard resetting and restoring my phone to get it out of "Lost Mode". The watch ended up just needing to be wiped, but that is what it is.
A bit disappointed I didn't think of such an easy fix sooner while running in circles with Apple support!!

On a humorous note, the guy at the Apple store I called told me that his techs told him once your phone was in "Lost Mode", there was absolutely no way to get it out without the passcode. About that....