I lost my iphone and I think someone stole then trashed it

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Level 1

4 points

I lost my iphone and I think someone stole then trashed it

So I dropped my iPhone and didn’t realize until too late as when I went back to look for it, I couldn’t find it. I asked a person if I could use find my iPhone then that lead me to some private apartment complex so dead end cause the phone was shown as offline (either they there or they happened to turn off right outside) so I don’t have any actual concrete evidence to be allowed in and the front desk lady there was really rude for no reason.

anyways, I got a new phone and got esim so my old SIM card in the lost phone doesn’t work and I checked find my iPhone a day later and the phone looks to be in this parking lot behind this restaurant meaning dumpsters. Either some homeless person has it or someone dumped it after failing to access it cause the new location is a good hour walk from the old one and it then has remained there since (3 days now) without being offline.

should I be worried? I already have it as missing, filed a police report, and pend erase but at this point I will be waiting on pend erase forever as the phone probably will be at the dump yard or somewhere similar by next week. I don’t really care about if the phone becomes usable to strangers, I just want to make sure the data is wiped. Is there any “quicker” way to wipe my phone then wait until my phone is ultimately crushed down in some trash trash compactor?

iPhone XS Max, iOS 16

Posted on Jul 8, 2023 2:23 PM

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Answer 1

Kurtosis12

Level 9

76,432 points

Jul 8, 2023 3:08 PM in response to Soulie0

What to do if your phone is lost or stolen.

If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is lost or stolen - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

157,902 points

Jul 8, 2023 3:54 PM in response to Soulie0

If your iPhone was stolen, the following steps are strongly recommended:

Immediately change your Apple ID password. A thief would need your Apple ID credentials to disable Find My on this phone.
DO NOT remove this phone from your Apple ID's Trusted Device List. (i.e., do not disable Find My on this phone) Doing so will remove Activation Lock.
Do not enable "Lost Mode." Do not update the phone in Find My with a message or phone number to contact you. Do you really want the thief to know how to contact you.
Erase the phone using the Find My app via a web browser. The next time the thief connects this phone to the Internet, the phone's data will be completely erased.
- Erase a device in Find Devices on iCloud.com - Apple Support
Contact your cellular provider and report that your phone is stolen. They can then "blacklist" this phone so that it cannot be used on any cellular network.
Contact your local law enforcement agency and report your phone as stolen.
You may want to consider contacting each of your financial institutions to report that your phone was stolen and potentially the thief could gain access (not very likely if you leave Activation Lock enabled) to your financial information.
Do NOT respond to text or email messages that claim they have your phone. Apple will definitely NOT send these types of messages as they do NOT participate in recovering stolen phones. They only provide you with both Activation Lock and the ability to "track" your phone via the Find My service.

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Answer 3

Mac Jim ID

Level 9

60,860 points

Jul 8, 2023 3:38 PM in response to Soulie0

Remember that if you do remove your phone that it would be usable and becomes more valuable to the person that took it, since they could then sell it. I would leave it associated with your Apple ID so the device will just show Activation Lock on the screen and make the value of the phone zero. Of course, that is just my opinion. In any case, you would want to at least wait until the erase has gone through.

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Answer 4

Soulie0 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 8, 2023 3:15 PM in response to Kurtosis12

I already followed these steps. I’m told by apple members when I was buying a new phone that I should only remove the old phone after the erase has gone through which I doubt would happen anytime soon.

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I lost my iphone and I think someone stole then trashed it

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