Never remove it from your devices. It’s completely useless to anyone who has it until you do. And if you start getting nasty messages and notice it’s in China when you use Find My, there are some tasty replies on Reddit you can send about Winnie the Pooh, etc.
Yep, I won’t, it’s not my first rodeo, so I will continue to keep my Apple ID on it, same thing happened with my 11 Pro Max, it’s still sitting in my Find My, with that phone I think they eventually took it apart for parts.
My 15 Pro Max has gone to India instead of China, lol, seems these syndicates are primarily between those 2 countries.
They have been spamming me daily with those SMSs, I have a good laugh each time I see one because they are sitting with a whole 15 Pro Max 512GB, they could make some proper dosh from it, but the person they took it from is too stubborn to remove his Apple ID

, it must be absolutely frustrating them.
My only qualm is that my new 15 Pro Max is black, which I don’t completely mind, but I have had waaaayyy too many Black/Space grey Apple devices and I absolutely loved how it looked in White with the raw titanium, it looked absolutely stunning and I was planning on getting a light brown leather case for it, ah well, next time I guess,
Will checkout Reddit

Thanks!