should i remove my stolen device from find my

+1

Yves:

Without your passcode, your data is irretrievable by ANYONE.

As long as the device remains on YOUR account, it can’t be re-used by anyone else.

So do NOT remove it from your account.

The scam messages are tied to your phone number (not the device itself) and were probably obtained by the thief from your SIM.

(That SIM by the way was deactivated by your carrier as soon as you reported the theft)

You’ll likely continue receiving these sorts of messages for quite a while.

Learn to ignore them.

My phone was also stolen about 1 month ago. I got an identical text from an overseas number. I even blocked the number and got another text from a different overseas number threatening the same thing. I immediately called apple support who said to NOT remove the device. This gives the thieves the ability to wipe it and re-sell it. Do not remove it, erase it instead. It will say erase pending until the phone is turned on and on wifi for at least 10-15 minutes. Even once it is erased, your phone will remain under Activation Lock as long as you DO NOT REMOVE IT. Now the thieves can't re-sell it. STOP THE SCAMMERS!!!!!

The message is not from Apple. It's a scam.

If you remove your iPhone from the list of devices using your Apple ID, you will give whoever has your phone free access to do anything that they want with your phone.

You won't ever get the phone back, but you can at least continue to really frustrate whoever has your phone if you do not remove the phone from your list of devices.......so they can't use the phone.

Saegzz wrote:

How does removing it from Find My devices give thief access? Is t the phone locked either way?

Removing the device from FindMy will remove the activation lock, allowing the thief to reset the phone and use it as their own or sell it. So long as it is not removed, it’s a useless brick.

Don’t reward the thief by removing it from Find My.

Do not remove it. If you do the thief will be able to use it. You can erase it remotely via Find my…

The thief is scaring you into removing the phone so he can use it.

Either way, the phone is gone.

By leaving the phone on your device list, you prevent anyone else from ever using the phone. That will really frustrate whoever might have your phone, thinking they now have a phone to use for themselves or sell to any unsuspecting user.

If you are OK with someone else having use of your lost phone, then you can remove it from your list of devices.

Personally, I would much rather have whoever has the stolen phone really frustrated that they can't use it, but it's your call.

A hint to the fact that this is an extortion scam based on leverage the criminals do not have lies in how the criminals sending the message pretend to be wanting to help you safeguard information from a phone that has supposedly been hacked - while they simultaneously threaten to sell all your information to the black market if you fail to meet their demands.

Someone who would do the latter is NOT to be trusted when they say they they are contacting you to protect you. If they actually wanted to protect you, they could refrain from selling your information (which they don’t actually have!) to the black market without a quid pro quo - and they could hand over your phone to police. Why didn’t they? If they had actually hacked the phone, and had the ability to erase it, they would have done so themselves without taking the risk of contacting you for “approval” of the theft. Again, why didn’t they?

They didn’t because they are not your friends, and because they can’t get into the phone without tricking you into helping them.

Not that you could trust them to protect your information if they did have it and if you did comply. An extortionist might blackmail you again, and again, and again; each time reneging on the promise to protect/erase your data.

Do NOT remove it from Find my...

It could be that the phone will never turn on, connect and erase. It could be junked, thrown away, or disassembled for parts by now.

No one knows except the thief, so why run the risk...

My phone was stolen and I've been getting the exact messages word for word, typo for typo! its a huge scam, do not listen to it!

If he removes (turns off) Find my… the thief will be able to erase the phone and activation lock will be off, thus enabling the thief to activate the phone as a new phone .

The only thing you did was to allow the thief to now use/sell your device. In most cases, you will want to leave it associated to your Apple ID to prevent that from happening. There is no privacy issue by leaving your device locked to your Apple ID. Your data is safe, because the thief will still need to erase the device before they are able to use it.

The message is a scam. Definitely not sent by Apple. I would block that number that keeps texting you trash

Authentication codes are sent to your AppleID Trusted Devices … if they can’t access your passcode protected device, they can’t receive the code.

Alternatively codes can sent individually via SMS to Trusted numbers … but this requires knowledge of your AppleID AND associated Password. And w/o your “active and provisioned” SIM in the old phone, it can’t receive an SMS even if one was sent.

Any SMS will be received at the current location of the active SIM for that line; presumably your new replacement device.

Hi,

I have a similar situation as the original poster. I do not either want to reward the thief but I'm thinking that I rather have the thief reset it (and have all data erased) and resold rather than a jailbreak being available in some months or years and my data being exposed. Or by some unlucky coincidence risk to be locked out of my appleid if the thief guesses my passcode correctly.

In my case it is an iPhone 14 with iOS 17.5.1 that was stolen. Successfully marked as lost, sent remote erase command (but not executed as phone was not online), appleid password changed, SIM deactivate.

Your thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks Felipe. I’m not sure I follow. What is the risk if I remove that device from my account? It is marked as lost and remote request to erase is sent.

The only “risk” I see is that the thief resets and erase the device (which is what I’m after) then resells it (which I don’t care about).

Thanks for bearing with me, this is just not clear to me.