What if the previous owner could not be found when the activation lock is on?

Private party sales of personal property are always caveat emptor. Apple provides an IT system for owners to use, but they do not participate in its use (nor do they monitor its use). Owners (and buyers) bear 100% of the responsibility of using activation lock, or not, and disabling it when necessary (as in before selling, donating, gifting or trading it away).

Apple has never gotten involved with personal property changing hands. I don’t know of any consumer electronics company that does and I cannot think of a single good reason why any company should (I can think of many reasons why I would not want any private or public corporation to ever do so).

There are many people who have bought activation locked phones. But an activation locked phone that is sold used is probably stolen, especially if the seller doesn’t say it’s used. And hat stolen property is owned forever by the person it was stolen from. So Apple cannot legally decide arbitrarily that the phone no longer belongs to that person. To make any exceptions would open a real can of worms; anyone who stole a phone could claim that they bought it in good faith, and, with over a billion phones in use it would take a staff of thousands to verify each claim. So Apple resolves that problem by saying “no exceptions”.

But it’s also the responsibility of the buyer of any product that isn’t bought from a legitimate dealer to verify it’s authenticity. That’s the principle of Caveat Emptor, or Buyer Beware in English. For an iPhone that’s relatively easy: turn it on, and if it doesn’t display “Hello” in a dozen languages pass it up.

As you would know, if you bothered to read the thread you posted to, the ONLY WAY TO UNLOCK ACTIVATION LOCK IS TO CONTACT THE PERSON WHO ENABLED IT. THAT IS THE ONLY WAY. THE ONLY WAY.

Do you get it now?

Well, the used car was just a loose analogy. The thing is, that the vendor had managed to enable a lock which is designed to be unbreakable by a thief, and omitted to remove it for whatever reason before selling it. If done knowingly this would be fraud, but in any case it's the vendors responsibility - though buying something like this without checking it doesn't help.

The Activation Lock has been quite successful in reducing thefts as it renders the phone unusable: if there was some way round it by anyone other than the person who set it there would be no point in having it in the first place.

The person who set the lock can, if they've forgotten the ID/password, use Apple's online services to retrieve them. Failing that, if they are the original purchaser they can take the device to an Apple Store and ask to have it unlocked. In all cases it is the responsibilty of the vendor to ensure that the device is fit for purpose, just as much as if it had blown out something within the circuitry, It's not Apple's responsibility. And you can stop slinging 'fanboy' around: there are many cases where I disagree with Apple's policy but this isn't one of them.

I don't know of any state that has limited access to death certificates, you pay your money and you can get one but that won't help you in this case. If you purchased the iPhone from the deceased and then discovered that they did not properly prepare the iPhone for your use then your issue is with the estate since the deceased is no longer available. Do you have a receipt documenting the sale from the deceased to you? And did the deceased provide you with the original receipt? Do you have ANY documentation you can provide to Apple other than telling them you bought the phone? If not they will not unlock it as Activation Lock is an antitheft mechanism. If anyone could walk in and tell Apple they bought it from a guy that died and Apple cleared the phone it would be useless.

You do know you can actually politely ask for things, you don't have to hound people? I would ask first if they can find a copy of the original receipt and then get a letter from the executor of the estate saying you legally purchased and hold it.

Are you sure the Apple ID belongs to the person you purchased it from?

Have you read Apple’s privacy policies and their whole approach to people’s privacy? They are not going to build in a mechanism that allows anyone to send an unsolicited message to anyone else. That would also put them in the middle of providing services, via their iOS, to assist individuals with lost or stolen personal property, something they very clearly do not do, at all.

Apple provides find my iPhone/iPad/Mac via iCloud. But Apple is not a participant in who chooses to use that feature nor how it is used. They have very deliberately set up a system where the power to use (or not use) as well as disable, Find my iPhone and activation lock is squarely on the shoulders of those people who own that private property.

And anyone buying someone else’s private property is governed by the legal principle of caveat emtpor, so again, it’s a private matter between buyer and seller. Apple doesn’t get involved at all, as no large corporation should intercede in private party commerce of purely personal, unregulated property.

If the preview owner was someone that you knew and they died in an accident, then you can take it to an Apple Store with a copy of the death certificate, the original receipt, and any information that you are now the legal owner and they might help you then.

If the phone isn't reported lost or stolen then Apple should be able to remotely unlock it, or even replace some sort of hard/software for a fee.

Isn't reported lost or stolen where, exactly? Are you aware of some international database that has information like that? If so, I'm sure Apple would like to know about it. And how do you propose compelling people to report it? There is no such facility, and it is a pipe dream to imagine that it is even a remotely workable idea.

GB

How, exactly, does one go about obtaining original receipt from a deceased Individual.

Not to sound overly harsh but people have not learned how to deal with the 21st century and digital legacies. Apple requires a way of knowing that that device belonged to that person, otherwise anybody could walk into a store claiming a phone belonged to a deceased relative and wouldn't Apple pretty please unlock it for them? Then they also have to have proof that they now own the phone. Maybe it was left in a will to a third cousin but the spouse of the deceased person decided they wanted it instead and tried to get Apple to unlock it for him/her and not the new rightful owner. Yes, it is complicated but so has society become complicated.

Keep records of your purchases (I have receipts that are 30 years old and still have active lifetime warranties on services I purchased in 1986, much to the chagrin of the companies when I turn up with a faded receipt and request free service and expect them to honor their lifetime warranty). Make a note in your will as to who inherits items if it is not to the default person. This will make it a lot easier if you decide to leave a device to a specific person. Of course the smart and simple thing to do is leave a note of your Apple ID and password so they can remove a device from Find My. Of course this is assuming you don't care what the person receiving the device can see on it (well, I guess you are dead when that happens so you have more important/zero concerns then).

the school baby very well give out private information as to their where about

??? I think I know what you are trying to say. The school acted correctly. How do they know you aren't an axe murderer trying to track down the family?

you see the problem with this is...

No. The problem is you bought an expensive piece of electronic equipment that has a theft deterrent lock built in from a total stranger without bothering to do your homework.

Take this as a life lesson instead of whining about it.

The system is working EXACTLY the way it's supposed to by preventing a more than likely stolen phone by being used.

You do realize that 'receiving stolen property' is a crime, right?

Turn it over to the police so you're not charged and let them deal with it.

Apple doesn’t know who the owner is. It may or may not be the person signed in to Find my iPhone. And Apple does not maintain a list of email addresses associated with devices. But the key point is that Apple avoids getting involved with lost property. It would be an overwhelming task requiring thousands of additional people to track the 2 billion devices in use, and there there would be mistakes made constantly identifying the wrong party. It is the owner’s responsibility to protect their property. If your car is stolen do you go to the dealer for help?

The answer is simple. If someone is trying to access/reset a device registered to someone else, all Apple has to do is send an email to the address on record. If the owner of record knows this is legit, they can get on iTunes and unregister the device.

Your comment about Apple not being able to find the previous owner is incorrect, as the partial email address shows up on the device.

I test donated electronics for Habitat ReStore, and many times we've gotten in items without passcodes. If we can't contact the donor, we usually have to toss the device or sell it for parts. There's no reason for this.

Activation Lock is an extremely effective theft deterrent. Once you make any exceptions to the strict rule thieves will find a way to exploit it. Unless Apple enforces the NO EXCEPTIONS rule in all situations Activation Lock becomes useless for its primary purpose as a theft deterrent.

First, because that is contrary to Apple's policy. Which is not a permitted subject for discussion in this user-to-user forum.

Because that would defeat the theft-deterrent purpose of Activation Lock. A stolen object is stolen forever. Like the artwork stolen by the Nazis during WW II. It is still stolen 75 years later and is returned to the people or their descendants that it was stolen from. You are suggesting that a stolen object is no longer considered stolen after a period of time. That isn't the way laws work.

Err....try basic data protection/privacy legislation. How do you imagine a company could give out a customer’s personal information to some random individual without breaking the law? Why am I even having to explain this?