Advice on stolen iphone

[polanalyst]

I am looking for some expert advice from Forum readers on the following issue:

In transit from Johannesburg to Australia, my iphone 6 was stolen whilst in Hong Kong Airport. The find-my-phone app has notified me that the phone travelled from Hong Kong to Indonesia. I have now locked (blocked) the phone using the app which has effectively turned the phone into a brick. Now I have had an email from someone in Indonesia who apparently has bought the phone for $195 - saw my lost-phone message when he switched the phone on - but is unable to use it as it is effectively bricked. He has suggested that he wishes to help me get my pictures off the phone as that might be valuable to me. What would you do...would you offer him money and pay the courier fee to get the phone back or just let it go? Clearly, I would never allow him to reactivate the phone using any Apple ID etc. Most of the pictures have been backed up on cloud so that is not an issue, there is no private info on the phone at all and it has a cracked screen. Still, it is a pretty good and usable 18-month-old iphone 6. Any advice on how to continue? Appreciated.

 

[HavocXphere]

Tell him to stop financially supporting trade in stolen goods.

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

Interesting new scam this

 

[roddyp]

Turn the situation around.

If your phone was not insured and you can't claim for it, why not tell him you will unlock it for $100's? At least get something out of the bargain?

 

[ahoudet]

You'll pay to ship it and receive nothing. You will just be funding the person some extra money!

It might also shock you if you see how much shipping will cost... To ship a phone from here to Germany with insurance of R4500 came up to R1200 when I checked last week

 

[genetic]

Tell him to stop financially supporting trade in stolen goods.

This. Don't pay any money.

Write the phone off. The scammer is just trying to milk you for whatever he can get.

 

[RichardG]

This. Don't pay any money.

Write the phone off. The scammer is just trying to milk you for whatever he can get.

Like he said.

Tell him you want a copy of his identification document with him holding the phone. Then decide whether you wanna unblock the phone, cut your losses buddy

 

[ngwe23]

Wipe it and move on. You will not get it back.

 

[Mystic Twilight]

Wipe it and move on. You will not get it back.

Wouldn't that mean the phone becomes usable? Unless you have sensitive data and/or stored passwords on the browser and apps, you could leave it locked to deny the person the phone while trusting Apples security . I also wonder, what happens if you change your icloud password and then the person somehow manages to get into the phone, can they access your icloud data?

If you want to be irritating, you could trigger the alert sound when its like 2/3 am Indonesian time .

 

[ngwe23]

Wouldn't that mean the phone becomes usable? Unless you have sensitive data and/or stored passwords on the browser and apps, you could leave it locked to deny the person the phone while trusting Apples security . I also wonder, what happens if you change your icloud password and then the person somehow manages to get into the phone, can they access your icloud data?

If you want to be irritating, you could trigger the alert sound when its like 2/3 am Indonesian time .

As things stand your data is encrypted or scrambled on the phone. It is unreadable. The only way to unscramble it is using your decryption key which uses a finger print or pass code. By wiping the device you are technically wiping the key so that under no circumstances can the device be unlocked nor the data inside be unscrambled. It is effectively a brick. At the moment there is still a chance that they can guess the pass code and unlock the decide. It is a small chance however, because iOS will wipe the decryption key after 10 unsuccessful attempts.