My iPhone 6 got stolen. The status still appears "Offline" after 24 hours of incident.

Question

Level 1

1 points

My iPhone 6 got stolen. The status still appears "Offline" after 24 hours of incident.

Hi,

I am currently on vacation in Stockholm. I bought a new iPhone 6 at Amsterdam airport on my way to here. I activated it with the SIM from my country and I was using it for taking pictures and accessing Facebook etc with the hotel's wifi. While I was watching some street performance in the central station area someone pick-pocketed me and it was gone... Only after 2 days of purchase...

"Find My iPhone" was turned on but almost 20 hours after the incident it still appears as "Offline". What should I do? I understand that the phone needs to be on to be tracked. The thief will need to turn it on eventually to use it or sell it to someone, but is there way for these these thieves to turn it on without being tracked down? I don't want to keep sitting in front of my laptop rest of my time here to wait until this appears on my page. What should I do? Should I just forget about it? ah.... Thank you in advance for your advice.

Posted on May 24, 2015 1:20 AM

Reply

Answer 1

ckuan

Level 10

120,680 points

May 24, 2015 1:24 AM in response to DesignAgent

Sorry to hear, there's nothing can be done.

Is it passcode locked?

Change all your passwords that were used in iPhone.

Read here:

Lost or Stolen

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201472

Reply

Answer 2

DesignAgent Author

Level 1

1 points

May 24, 2015 1:33 AM in response to ckuan

Thank you for your answer. Is it actually possible for them to reset it and use it? If that's the case I will choose "Erase iPhone" option and I won't be able to track it again. Please let me know. Thanks.

Reply

Answer 3

ckuan

Level 10

120,680 points

May 24, 2015 1:36 AM in response to DesignAgent

If yo have passcode on then they not be be able to get in.

If you have FMiP on then they will need your Apple ID & password to erase.

Reply

Answer 4

ZikzakCorp

Level 4

1,089 points

May 24, 2015 9:59 AM in response to DesignAgent

Personally, I would go ahead and choose the option to erase the phone. The phone can be reset to bypass the passcode. While it's unlikely that someone could guess your Apple ID and password to unlock the phone, it's not impossible. Just this morning, someone posted about how they didn't wipe their lost phone and someone logged into their iCloud account and removed the iPhone so it could be unlocked.

iPhone 6 stolen and Apple ID hacked in China

You're probably not getting it back, so just put it into Lost Mode and move on.

Reply

Answer 5

DesignAgent Author

Level 1

1 points

May 24, 2015 4:45 PM in response to DesignAgent

Yes, I already put it onto "Lost Mode". I read it somewhere that you can't reset it and use it because if the Activation Lock is on you can't go past the restore point. Is that true? Meaning that the phone is useless? or there is actually a way to reset it and use it/sell it as if its brand new? Honestly I am still hopping that the it will appear in my "Find my iPhone" map after a month or two. Thank you.

Reply

Answer 6

May 24, 2015 4:53 PM in response to DesignAgent

That is true. The phone is useless unless you have a very easy-to-guess Apple ID and passcode, or you can be tricked into giving that information away. If you don't have a good passcode go to https://appleid.apple.com and change it. 12 characters is probably the minimum length to assure security.

Reply