Scammers disabled the locator on my iPhone

vikyla wrote:

Hello! My iPhone was stolen and scammers disabled the locator through a link in regular messages., which I followed without realizing that I had been deceived. Please tell me, is it possible to return the iPhone at all? Is there a chance? The iPhone cost me a lot, and I would like it to come back to me..

The chances of getting stolen iPhones back are slim and none. Even if you had not fallen for the scam, chances are that you would not ever see your iPhone again. But at least you could have kept it Activation Locked – making your phone worth less to the thieves, and helping to deter future iPhone theft.

Now that you have given the thieves the information they need to disable Find My and Activation Lock, they can go ahead and "make your phone their own". I don't think there's any way for you to enable Find My remotely, not with the way the system is currently set up.

About all that you can do is to

• Report the theft to the police
• Ask your carrier to blacklist the phone, so that it will never receive cellular voice, text message, or data service ever again from any carrier who honors the blacklist
• Secure your Apple ID (and any other compromised credentials)

If you think your Apple Account has been compromised - Apple Support

And yet, on the iCloud website and in my other iPhone, my stolen iPhone is hanging, but when I click, it says that the "Find iPhone" function is disabled.

According to a Support article, if you remove the phone from the list of devices associated with your Apple ID when the device is offline, that clears Activation Lock immediately, but the phone still remains In the Find My list for thirty days. Bizarre, right?

Supposedly if the phone comes online after the 30 days, Activation Lock will turn itself back on automatically – but I'm pretty sure the criminals who scammed you aren't going to sit around for 30 days to let that happen. They will have already used your credentials to clear Activation Lock so they can "make your phone their own."

They may have already ransacked any synchronized or backed-up data in your iCloud account, but it is still crucial to lock them out of your Apple Account as quickly as you can, so that they cannot continue to ransack your data, or to do other nasty things that you will not like, going forwards.

All they need is the Password to your Apple Account to reset the device and turn off Find My. If you gave that to them, your device is gone. You may still be able to get access to your Apple Account. It is normal for you to have to enter a verification code when signing into your Account on a new device. That is the purpose of two factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access and you have 3 options:

• Enter code from a Trusted Device (which you cannot because it is your lost phone)
• Choose didn't get code, to get a text or call to the Trusted Phone number you previously set up on your account.
• If that Trusted Phone number is the same as your lost phone or another device that is not available, then you are left with Account Recovery that usually requires a waiting period to reset your Password on your account and then you will be able to access it.

Get a verification code and sign in with two-factor authentication - Apple Support

No, you are unlikely to have a stolen device returned. And, if you provided your account credentials to unlock the device, it is no longer yours. Be sure to change your password at account.apple.com

What happen when you put the code in when prompted to? The fact that it still shows in your iCloud is just an identification of that apple product and your account being linked at some point. Kinda like showing a Bluetooth device list and not being connected with the device. I suggest you make a formal theft complaint with your local non emergency police department line. If you have coverage of your lost phone and can get a replacement, do that through apple support. Change your passwords and either do an apple support ticket to recover the account and put a lock on the device through apple care by requesting they lock, stop, and deny the device from being activated by a new party. All hardware comes with identification markers that you can verify with your credit number used to activate your account. Turning off the find my app is usually the first step in completely removing the device’s information and reissuing imei’s in the SIM card free newer phones. Hopefully this helped and you’re able to resolve the problem and prevent future problems.

vikyla wrote:

But, my phone is displayed in apple ID, but not in the locator. And when I logged into apple ID, they didn't ask me for an identifier, but for the password to the stolen phone itself, so they didn't change the password on the stolen phone?What does this mean? does this mean that the password is the same as it was on my stolen iPhone?

When you logged into Apple ID where?

You told us that you clicked the link in the scam message "which I followed without realizing that I had been deceived." Any Apple ID, Apple ID password, device passcode, or other credentials that you supplied when you logged in to the other end of the scam link would have gone straight into the hands of the criminals, who would have then been free to use the information to access iCloud on the Web or to access your stolen phone.

It would be like criminals coming up to you and saying "We're your next-door neighbors and we need the keys to your house" and you being naive enough to hand the keys over to them. When the criminals stole everything of value that wasn't nailed down, they wouldn't need to break down your front door and deadbolt lock to get to your stuff. They'd just use the key you so helpfully provided, and then walk right in.

Once you gave the criminals your credentials, they could have kept the phone powered off, then done a "Remove This Device" online.

Remove a device from Find Devices on iCloud.com - Apple Support

"If the device is offline, Activation Lock is removed immediately, and the device is removed from Find My after 30 days."