My iPhone was stolen. I turned it to erase on Find my. I didn’t get a confirmation email that says it was erased but now it’s marked as Will be removed on 3 Jun 2025. What does it mean?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iPhone 16 Pro, iOS 18
It would seem to mean that somebody removed it from the list of devices associated with your Apple ID. That will let the thieves or their customers reset your phone and set it up as their own.
To remove it from that list, they would have needed to know your Apple ID and Apple ID password … or one of the local passcodes / passwords for an Apple device of yours in their possession.
I suspect that you may have been a victim of a common "phishing" scam, where the thieves message you, claiming to be from Apple or to be the Police, and saying that they want to help you get your phone back. You interact with the message and give them your credentials, or remove your phone from the list of your devices, and the criminals are now home free. There are special circumstances under which the phone will Activation Lock itself again, but it is exceedingly unlikely that is going to happen.
You can still contact your carrier and ask them to blacklist the phone, so that no carrier who honors the blacklist will ever provide cellular service to the phone again. That will at least partially "brick" the phone. But it sounds like the thieves now have a "free" iPod touch to browse the Web (over Wi-Fi), and run apps, if they like.
It would seem to mean that somebody removed it from the list of devices associated with your Apple ID. That will let the thieves or their customers reset your phone and set it up as their own.
To remove it from that list, they would have needed to know your Apple ID and Apple ID password … or one of the local passcodes / passwords for an Apple device of yours in their possession.
I suspect that you may have been a victim of a common "phishing" scam, where the thieves message you, claiming to be from Apple or to be the Police, and saying that they want to help you get your phone back. You interact with the message and give them your credentials, or remove your phone from the list of your devices, and the criminals are now home free. There are special circumstances under which the phone will Activation Lock itself again, but it is exceedingly unlikely that is going to happen.
You can still contact your carrier and ask them to blacklist the phone, so that no carrier who honors the blacklist will ever provide cellular service to the phone again. That will at least partially "brick" the phone. But it sounds like the thieves now have a "free" iPod touch to browse the Web (over Wi-Fi), and run apps, if they like.
If the thieves did get your Apple ID password, secure that account immediately.
With the Apple ID and Apple ID password, they could
I won't spell everything out, but you really don't want them to have access to your Apple Account going forwards!
If you think your Apple Account has been compromised - Apple Support
Thank you. I’ve already changed my passwords and the credit card company blocked the credit cards. They do managed to use one of them but they didn’t approve the transactions. It odd because I can still track the phone and the option to cancel erase is still on. I do appreciate your detailed response. Thanks again.
Ines525 wrote:
So in order to remove it from the list they had to reset it? I truly hope so
That's not what I said.
If they had your Apple ID and Apple ID password, they could remove your phone from the list without resetting it. Then if the phone learned of that, that would clear "Locked to Owner". Only the passcode lock – assuming that you had one – would remain. If they also knew your passcode, they could get into your phone and freely ransack your data.
But whether or not they had your passcode, if they knew your Apple ID and Apple ID password, they could ransack data that you had synchronized or backed up to iCloud. If that included most or all of the stuff on the phone (as it would if you were following good backup practices), that could be just about as damaging as if they took that data directly from the stolen phone itself.
As for the phone itself, once they used your password to remove Activation Lock, they would then almost certainly reset the phone to "make your phone their own."
Thanks. I changed my passwords all over. I didn’t hand my iCloud password or phone pass code to anyone. It either needed that or Face ID. I’m still puzzled about how they managed to hack it including the Apple Pay. I don’t have anything top secret on my phone and yet I feel violated
So in order to remove it from the list they had to reset it? I truly hope so
Please my sim is locked I don’t have the sim pack anymore how can I get the puk code ?
biggest194 wrote:
Please my sim is locked I don’t have the sim pack anymore how can I get the puk code ?
Please do not hijack other people's threads with completely unrelated questions.
What does 'Will be removed' mean after erasing a stolen iPhone?
