Wife's phone been stolen in Ibiza, quite worried about her

[m3jappa]

My wife has gone to Ibiza for he weekend with two friends. Last night at around 4am her phone was stolen from her bag (which she had in front of her). Club security said it's a massive problem they can't control.

Anyway, I wasn't that worried until just now, I looked at her emails and found the following (bear in mind phone went at 4am)

These are the basis of emails

At 8.08pm how to reset password

8:09 pm password been reset

8:10 pm disable find my iPhone.

23:58 reset Apple ID
23:59 Apple ID used to sign in.

Around 8pm she was having some face make up thing done as she went to zoo (club).

This morning I have been trying to get into her account to see if we could find all her photos (we have a small baby and she was heartbroken all the pics would be gone). Luckily they are all there thank god.
I have had to reset her password as her normal one she insisted it was didn't work.

I'm now worried that her and her mates are being watched somehow, sounds a bit extreme but how the fk has someone accessed her phone before it was stolen. Both friends can be ruled out as they are bloody good girls so no way them.

She's coming home this evening and her friends will accompany her to the airport.

Could those emails be a glitch? However even if they are I was trying to turn on find my iPhone and have set an alert if it comes back on.

[robm3]

How did they get past the first screen e.g. The 4 or 6 digit code?

[Evolved]

Not sure I'd assume she's being watched matey. Those emails are consitent with someone trying to reset the phone after taking it though. Is there an hour time diff between the uk and Ibiza? So it would be 9pm instead?

[m3jappa]

She didn't have a pin on the phone (neither do I tbh).

I think it's an hour in front there so not sure how these resets have happened several hours before it went walkies. She knows she had it shortly before 4am as she did a video on it.

Got to try and not worry, sure she will be ok, I'm sure people don't get abducted at busy airports when they are sober. Maybe if she was walking down some alley at 4am on her own really drunk, possibly.

[bitchstewie]

m3jappa said:

She didn't have a pin on the phone (neither do I tbh).

Set a PIN and a six digit one at that. It essentially becomes a brick if stolen.

[jmorgan]

Any use?
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201472

Back up pictures if at all possible.

[Wilmslowboy]

The time stamps on the emails could be wrong ..

Are you using webmail to read her emails.
Are there any other emails either side to confirm accuracy of time stamps ??

[Du1point8]

I taught my OH to either buy phones that no one wants or learn to zip up her sodding bag when carrying it around.

Lost count the number of times she says Im being paranoid and shouldn't worry as she would tell if someone was taking something out of her bag...

best one was when I was getting a lecturing whilst in the queue for the coffeehouse, everyone heard that it was about females not being able to walk around with the bags closed, we got to pay, low and behold her purse was not in her bag... I said don't worry I have money and pulled out her purse from my jacket and gave her £10...

fk me did I run fast out of the place.

[anonymous-user]

No pin on the phone, really!

Hope you don't have any of the banking apps on the phone you really could lose more than the phone. The bank wouldn't cover the cost as they would consider not protecting the phone as negligent.

[carinatauk]

Ring network provider and get phone locked!

I had my iphone stolen in Ibiza, rang provider up via friends phone, iphone locked instantly.

Contacted police, won't even acknowledge a police report, waste of time. Mentioned when I was asked for police report by insurance company, they paid up straight away.

[bitchstewie]

gottans said:

No pin on the phone, really!

Hope you don't have any of the banking apps on the phone you really could lose more than the phone. The bank wouldn't cover the cost as they would consider not protecting the phone as negligent.

People just don't see this. We had an IT security talk at our place recently that we organised and the number of people with no PIN at all on their £600 shiny lump that contains their entire digital life was enlightening to say the least.

[davepoth]

If the timestamps on the emails are on PST - Pacific time (Apple's home time zone) then they would get you a lot closer to the correct timings.

Also, set a bloody PIN.

[MGTS]

Can you use find my iPhone to delete the phone ?

[m3jappa]

The time stamps I think are pacific time, so that looks ok, as I was trying to log on to it all this morning.

I agree about the pin, tbh we don't go to many places where they are likely to be stolen but I'll put one on mine now. The phone was locked straight away last night. Her friends helped her out as she was really upset at the thought of loosing the baby pics. And no banking apps on there either. We both access them through the website as opposed to an app.

Waiting to go pick her up tonight now.

What amazes me is how naive woman can be, this isn't the first time of being somewhere that's not safe and her and her mates are a liability, although she's a lot lot better now a days (years of me telling her to be careful and not fking stupid).

[craigjm]

m3jappa said:

I agree about the pin, tbh we don't go to many places where they are likely to be stolen

Phones can be stolen from anywhere. Granted it's less likely if you never leave your house ever!

m3jappa said:

amazes me is how naive woman can be

Really? and yet you're the one saying you don't go to many places where phones are likely to be stolen?

[anonymous-user]

The attempt to get into the apple account is to get it de-authorised from the apple account. A stolen iphone locked to someone else's apple account is only good for spare parts.

Getting it removed allows it to be authorised on a new account and therefore worth a lot more money...

[shopper150]

I think Touch ID is fantastic.

Slight OT, but there you go.

[Chris200]

gottans said:

The attempt to get into the apple account is to get it de-authorised from the apple account. A stolen iphone locked to someone else's apple account is only good for spare parts.

Getting it removed allows it to be authorised on a new account and therefore worth a lot more money...

Technically not true. My mum works in a school and had an iPhone 5s handed in. This was about 6 months ago and she has tried everything to get it back to the owner, we know it belonged to someone called Rachel.

However, 6 months had passed and no luck. The phone had been disabled and could not even get to the pin screen. I just followed the instructions on the Apple website after googling "how to reactivate a disabled iPhone" and about 30mins later, it was fully up and running and like a new iPhone.


You follow the instructions to "Erase your devise with recovery mode".
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204306

So basically anyone could go out and "acquire" an iPhone, switch off wifi and remove the SIM card so find my iPhone cannot be used, enter the pin incorrectly 6 times to disable it, plug into iTunes, follow the above instructions and boom, you have an iPhone that has been erased and can be used and setup as a new one.

Edited by Chris200 on Sunday 31st July 16:24

[Du1point8]

Thats assuming you have not reported it and bricked it... nothing you can do will fix it then.

All the stuff you did was only possible due to someone not reporting the IMEI number and turning it into a paper weight.

[Alucidnation]

Once it's reported as stolen it does, in effect, become a brick.