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Some people reported it here that their phones were stolen, and then were contacted by the thiefs to reveal the PIN. To prove they were serious, thiefs attached
by 101008 2y ago
Some people reported it here that their phones were stolen, and then were contacted by the thiefs to reveal the PIN. To prove they were serious, thiefs attached addresses and names of the victim relatives.
I know this wouldn't happen in USA or any serious country (because these people were prosecuted), but in 3rd world countries (where phone theft is super common) this will still be a problem.
- School-Cotton 2y agoI left my phone (iPhone) in an Uber in Mexico and the driver ignored my attempts to contact him to get it back. A few weeks later someone attempted to spear-fish me: I was sent a realistic-looking message pretending to be from Apple saying that my phone had been found and I needed to log in to iCloud to see its location. Of course, it linked to a fake iCloud page.
- okdood64 2y agoI left my phone (iPhone) in an Uber in Mexico and the driver called me immediately on my friend's phone after I put it into lost mode (with the annoying sound). Upon pick-up, I gave him a hefty reward and we both went our merry ways.
- School-Cotton 2y agoI wish I had been so lucky!
- daghamm 2y agoThis is actually a pretty common problem with iPhone thefts in US. First the phone shows up the other side of the globe, then someone either tries to trick you or threaten you to remove it from your account.
- gruez 2y ago>To prove they were serious, thiefs attached addresses and names of the victim relatives. How did they get that info?
- treflop 2y agoI had my stolen in the US at a music festival and this happened to me. I got texts from “Apple Support” at first then it graduated to a threat of some hitman from Miami who was going to kill me if I didn’t release the phone. Of course, the whole time I just imagined some small lanky dude sitting in a basement wrote these texts trying to act tough and I just laughed.
- cdchn 2y agoThey have a whole criminal ecosystem setup between the 'snatch a phone' and 'try to extort the previous owner of the phone.'
- aprilnya 2y agoA criminal ecosystem of small lanky dudes sitting in basements :)
- hnbad 2y agoIt's worth keeping in mind the risk-reward payoff though. It's an ecosystem, exactly. They're not going to murder your family to unlock your phone like in some kind of Hollywood action blockbuster. The catfishing/blackmail scam of getting you to send nudes to a stranger who then turns around and threatens to release them is a different matter as the added charge of "revenge porn" relative to the blackmail charge is not as significant as the added charge of "murder" in the phone theft scenario.
- cdchn 2y ago>They're not going to murder your family to unlock your phone like in some kind of Hollywood action blockbuster. Depends on how much untraceable, no-takeseys-backsies crypto you have access to on your phone.