Text Scam? Lost/Recover Iphone

These people must be targeting girls at nightclubs. My sister's phone was stolen from a Hardrock nightclub in Florida. She had a cross body purse on and they stole it out of the pocket.

I received the same text on September 5.

"This is a automated message from the Apple Store. Someone has turned in an iPhone, verification of ownership is required. Once verification is complete, the iPhone will be shipped to the mailing address on the account. Click the link to complete the verification process. Apple Device Recovery Priority Code LV3-R3. Please verify (they gave me my son's icloud account) go to Validation.byethost22.com"

My husband called Apple support (a customer support #) from work and gave them the priority code number. The Apple employee said it was legitimate.

I then went on my computer to the validation site and logged in to my son's account. Next I received a text stating: "Verification was successful. You will receive the iPhone in 3-5 days. Thanks."

The site I went to "validation.byethost22.com" looked very official. It mirrors the official apple site: "appleid.apple.com"

My call to Apple lasted an hour this evening. While I was on hold I found this forum. At some point during my call to Apple, they knew it was a scam, but didn't say anything about it to me. Once I found this discussion and the tech came back to me, I said, "Ok. Now I'm seeing it's a scam." I wish they could have told me that earlier in the call.

Bummer!

This just happened to me, too. Ugh. My phone was stolen out of my purse at a bar in Los Angeles earlier this month and a few days later I got the exact same text you all are referencing. I had reported it with AT&T and Apple and they had told me if it was found I'd be notified and it would be sent back to me so I didn't think anything of it when I got this message and the Apple log-in page looked authentic. I've since changed my password, once I realized it's been weeks and no phone has been returned, but I'm afraid they could have gotten information in the meantime. Does anyone know what they can access with this? I'm assuming everything on iCloud, which means everything....? What can we do now?

I am extremely irritated after reading these posts. I had my phone stolen on December 4th, and received texts similar to those listed above on December 12th. I thought it sounded sketchy, so I called the Apple Support line. The representative told me that it was legitimate, so I put my Apple ID in. After reading this I'm thinking I will not be getting my phone back. How can Apple Employees be so dumb as to not know this?

erikacareen8 wrote:

I am extremely irritated after reading these posts. I had my phone stolen on December 4th, and received texts similar to those listed above on December 12th. I thought it sounded sketchy, so I called the Apple Support line. The representative told me that it was legitimate, so I put my Apple ID in. After reading this I'm thinking I will not be getting my phone back. How can Apple Employees be so dumb as to not know this?

I would be extremely irritated when phone was stolen, and I would not ask technical support for advice about scam, but talk to law enforcement. When

I have a problem with legal side, I talk to legal subject matter expert, not to customer service or technical support -police would be good. But as a techie

I can tell you right now your account is compromised and you need to change all of your passwords at the very least.

Hey, everyone. My phone was stolen right from under my hand in the SF area. We filed a police report within an hour. A few days later I got a text from 210-441-6637 saying the iPhone was found and to go to this website: www.trackiphone.phpnet.us. It was pretty apparent that this was the thief trying to get our iCloud information.

We informed the police and they traced the number. Unfortunately, it's to a website that doles out phone numbers to make calls/texts from. Just FYI

This a similar story to my girlfriend who had her iPhone stolen in San Francisco. They followed up trying to scam iCloud information.

Hi, this happened to me today. The same story. I also gave to those criminals my iCloud login and pswd via theirs fake page. I have a question now - as I see this happened to you at August 2014..Have you got any real troubles because of it? What all should one change after this happens? Thanks a lot! Lukas.

Same. Phone stolen in Houston. Husband and I both receiving professional looking texts from 562-375-6347 with a link to iphonestatus.com. Previously we received texts from 252-25 with a link to www.icloudsupport.cf

I just had this happen too. I had my phone stolen while overseas about two weeks ago and just received a text message from a 484 area code to goto a website that has the word "appleid" in it but is NOT a real apple website - although it says "Apple Support Copyrights 2015" on it to make it look official. The link takes me to a french page asking me to input my apple ID and password. I didn't fall for it, but it's very disconcerting because I'm sure a lot of people do.

My wife's phone was stolen in Los Angeles last week and while I didn't get the text message like others, I did get a call from Apple Inc (it appears they spoofed the Called ID) and it all seemed legit until I hung up. I reported to LA PD, and Apple but doubt anything will come of it. But it does seem like a service being offered to phone thieves to get these things unlocked.

Yes, we got a similar message after my partner's iphone went missing. I recognized it immediately as being a phishing message and did not respond. Now I see the blessing in the message: it confirmed to me that in fact the phone was not LOST, but rather it proves the phone was STOLEN. An important distinction when sorting out what went wrong, whose fault it was, how to act in the future. The fact that we know for sure now that it was stolen and not simply misplaced or left by mistake somewhere, that's important to know.

I wonder if police can figure out where the message came from....

Wow just last month on Labor Day weekend my phone was stolen also in Vegas at Omnia right out of my bag and my friend had $200+ stolen out of her purse. She made a police report and omnia is looking into it. And I've been these type of messages everyday sometimes even multiple messages in one day. And I haven't opened the link because I have two factor authentication on my Apple ID. as soon as I got home from that weekend I changed my password and when I got the replacement phone I turned the two factor authentication on which is really awesome and very secure. But will I ever stop receiving these messages?

I also had this happen in Las Vegas at Hakkisan night club. See text message. This is a scam, do not respond. I called apple and they reassured me that they do not send text messages.