iPhone lost or stolen? What to do
iPhone lost or stolen? What to do when your iPhone is stolen or lost.
HELP! You reach for your trusty pocket or purse after a wild night out and grab and miss. In a panic, you haul everything over heaps and search the most unlikely places to see if your smartphone happens to be there. After about 5 to 10 minutes, your spirits sink and you come to the conclusion that your phone has been stolen or lost in some unusual way. In whatever way this happened, it is an unmitigated disaster!
It is important to take the right steps when your iPhone has been lost. In this blog, we explain what to do at the moment your iPhone is lost or stolen.
Steps in this blog:
1. Log in to Find My iPhone
Log in with your Apple ID using the “Find My” app on another Apple device or at www.icloud.com and check if your iPhone has been recently located. If so, you can see where your device is located on the map. The location is displayed via Apple Maps, not Google Maps. It may be that an honest finder has found your device but has no way to contact you. This way you can hopefully get in touch.
When the phone is stolen, a thief will most likely try to disable the phone or block the tracking. Still, it pays to check the location regularly as long as the device remains connected to the Internet.
2. Trying to contact the finder
When you open Find My iPhone, you have three options you can select:
1. Play sound
2. Lost Mode
3. Erase iPhone
If your iPhone happens to be in another bag or in the pants of the person next to you, Option 1 may help you out. This feature lets your iPhone play a loud sound even when it’s on silent, so you can check if it’s nearby. If the iPhone is really lost, it’s best to turn on “lost mode. This will cause the iPhone to display a notification where you can enter a phone number or email address (other than your iCloud address) so the finder of the iPhone can contact you. If this yields nothing and you want all your data erased, choose option number 3. This will erase all data from the phone.
Note that even after deletion, the iPhone remains locked to your iCloud account via “Activation Lock. This means the iPhone remains unusable by others. Only the person with your iCloud address and password can unlock the device. Since a few years, this security has been tightened even further: even after hardware replacement, this lock remains active. Apple has completely shut down this security; there are no legitimate ways to bypass it. So always make sure you use a strong password for your Apple ID that cannot be easily guessed (avoid your name, date of birth or simple strings like 12345).
3. Changing passwords a declaration
Make sure you change all important passwords to your emails and social accounts after your phone is lost. Even though finders won’t get into your phone, it’s better to be on the safe side. In addition, it is always wise to file a police report.
CAUTION
If your phone comes back online and is visible in “Find My,” Apple will notify you via email. Criminals cleverly take advantage of this by sending fake messages. For example, they send an SMS or email in the name of Apple or Find My iPhone, containing a link to a fake website similar to iCloud.
Never click on such links and do not log in anywhere unless you are sure you are on the official website: www.icloud.com. If you do, criminals can obtain your iCloud credentials and try to unlock the device.A genuine notification from Apple always comes from an address ending in @apple.com.
