lost/stolen iphone

You should contact ATT. They may be able to help you.

Unfortunately, no. Neither Apple nor AT&T offer a service to track or "blacklist" your stolen phone.

The best you can do is file a police report. The cops can, if they choose to, send AT&T the IMEI number and request that the number be tracked.

I wouldn't count on that though. Very few police depts seem to have the time.

The sad fact is there really isn't much you can do in this situation. You phone will most likely not be returned and there is no real recourse. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

AT&T should have a Loss Prevention/Fraud department who can unlock the SIM card temporarily to view the recorded call history (numbers called/sms inbound and out, call times/dates, voice recordings). This information better assists police tracking the stolen property but ensure to first file a police report so as to provide the case number to the Wireless Loss Prevention/Fraud department. The call records provided by the wireless carrier better assist the police with legal grounds for an arrest.

Actually, such a department would be unnecessary. If the phone's service was not suspended, it would be as easy as monitoring the bill.

If the phone's service was suspended then when the IMEI number was reactivated they could just trace the new billing address.

Either way, AT&T does not offer this service. To my knowledge, no carrier does.

Ansuz82 wrote:
Unfortunately, no. Neither Apple nor AT&T offer a service to track or "blacklist" your stolen phone.

That's only half true.
The IMEI number of the iPhone can most certainly be blacklisted so it can never be used again.
AT&T will blacklist an IMEI at the owners request if the phone is lost/stolen.
Blacklisting of IMEI numbers is very commonplace.

Really? Everything I had heard was that AT&T did not do this...

I'd be surprised to hear that AT&T doesn't have a Loss Prevention/Fraud department as other carriers. Here in Canada all the major wireless carriers (Rogers, Fido, Bell, Telus) have a Loss Prevention/Fraud department for situations such as this.

Yes, really.

Actually they don't. It's not very feasible. Sim cards can be easily replaced. It is very simple to remove the sim card from a iPhone and replace it with another card. It would make more sense for Apple to stop the activation thru iTunes based on the devices serial number. That makes me think. Do you even have to activate an iPhone? If you just replace the sim on the device, would it remain active?

Good feature to have but there are no free rides - customers are footing the additional expense for such a department and associated cost.

I haven't read anything about the other carriers but I've seen posts here from folks in Canada complaining about Rogers in regards to charges for unlimited data plans and for cell phone service overall. Is this true?

whats imei?

ok nevermind i have foudn out what imei means
i asked at&t on the phone and said they are not able to track phones
what is the difference between track and blacklist?

A number to identify the phone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMEI

Just because someone is using a phone that is "stolen" or "lost" doesnt mean the police can even do anything. To prove criminal intent with the first scenario would be nearly impossible and just because someone found a phone and decided to ditch the sim card and use their own is not against the law. Even if a phone could be proven stolen the person who is using it doesnt necessarily play a role. The thief could have given or sold it to someone, anyone, making the person using the phone (given they have no knowledge of it being stolen) ignorant to the crime.

Wrong. The person buying the (stolen) iPhone is still guilty of recieving stolen property regardless. The person who bought the phone doesn't have to know the iPhone was even stolen.