My iPhone was Stolen and has not erased yet

The options on the device are ‘Cancel Erase’ or ‘Remove Device’

Do not Cancel Erase unless that is what you want to do. The erase will take place when the phone has a good Internet connection. It does not have a good Internet connection at this time, but it can report on its location if there are other Apple devices nearby to pick up the signal.

Do NOT Remove Device.....ever. That is my opinion though, because it will really frustrate whoever has the phone because they won't be able to do anything with it.

In other words, they won't be able to use the phone. If they sell the phone to someone else, then the buyer will soon learn that the phone is useless.

Finally, do not be surprised if you see that the location of the phone is in China in the future. There is a huge remanufacturing plant there that receives hundreds of stolen phones each day. Your data will remain safe even if this occurs.

First, remember that your passcode is protecting the data on the phone. There is no way that anyone could ever guess your correct passcode in less than 10 attempts.

After that, whoever might have the phone cannot even try to enter a passcode guess because the phone has been security locked.

So, even if the phone is never erased, the data on the phone is protected.

I believe the erase is still "Pending" because the phone does not have a good Internet connection. The location of the phone is likely being broadcast via a very brief intermittent Bluetooth signal that the phone sends out as long as the battery remains with some charge and another Apple device is picking that information up.

When the phone does have a good Internet connection using either cellular or Wi-Fi, the erase will take place and you will be notified that the phone has been erased.

Do NOT remove the phone from the list of devices that are using your Apple ID. This would allow the bad guys to erase the phone and try to set it up again, but even if they do this, they should be stopped because they do not have your Apple ID Password.

It will really frustrate whoever has your phone if you do NOT remove the phone from the list of devices using your Apple ID because the phone will be completely useless to them or anyone that they might try to sell the phone to.

If you had cellular data turned on, or the phone came within range of a Wi-Fi hotspot to which it had previously connected, it could have automatically connected to the Internet without the thieves or fences doing anything.

Your tag line indicates that you had an iPhone 15 running iOS 17.

Erase a device in Find My on iPhone - Apple Support

According to this Support document, "When you erase a device remotely using Find My, Activation Lock remains on to protect it" and "If you erase a device that had iOS 15, iPadOS 15, or later installed, you can use Find My to locate or play a sound on the device."

If your phone is still on the list of devices associated with your Apple ID, and you are now seeing a location, and your Erase attempt is no longer pending, that suggests that

• The phone was able to automatically reconnect to the Internet
• It learned that you had marked it as Lost, triggering Activation Lock
• It may have learned that you have requested an Erase. Because it had iOS 15 or later, it might be findable even after an Erase.

Provided that your device was locked with a passcode that the thieves did not have a chance to learn, I think they're now in possession of an erased, or soon-to-be-erased, Activation-Locked "brick".

"Erase Pending" usually means that the iPhone has not connected to the Internet since the erase command was issued. Note that the iPhone will still appear in Find My at the last location where it was connected. When you look at the Devices list in Find My on your Mac, how long ago does it say it was last reported?

Do's and Don'ts for lost iPhones - Switched Off - Offline - Beware of Phishing – Apple Community

To expand on the "phishing" warning: You might get messages from "Apple" or the "Police", claiming they want to reunite you with your iPhone. These messages are not from Apple or the authorities, but from the criminals. They will be trying to get you to give them your credentials, and/or to release the Activation Lock.

Don't bite, don't give them anything, and don't be a "phish."