Icloud ID locked Iphone

Diarmuid97

Does anybody know how to unlocked an iCloud locked phone? Somebody sold me it for €400 and am very disappointed as it is locked and can't use it.

SpaceTime

Contact them.
It's possible the phone's stolen.

Generally people remote lock / brick their phone if it's been nicked.

podgeodge

Try and get your money back if possible. It sounds stolen.

The Ayatolla

Email/ring the person who sold it to you and tell them you'll report it to the Gardaí unless they sort it within a day.

podgeodge

That's actually fairly solid advice. Unless the person is a total scumbag then thread with caution.

Bob24

Same here... 99% chances it is a lost or stolen phone. You won't be able to properly remove the lock unless you find the previous (lawful) owner and get them to unlock it with their iCloud account. It actually is a very good think from Apple's side ... I had my phone stolen 6 months ago and while it is not going to give it back it is good to know it can't be used (which should limit the market for stolen phones).

Try to get your money back but if the guy who sold it looked dodgy proceed with care. If any safety concern just go to the Garda station. If it is lost/stolen and it was reported to them, they should find the IMEI number of the phone in their database.

On a side note, I was checking second hand prices for iPhone on adverts.ie the other day and I was really surprised to see many phones IMEI or iCloud locked phones openly sold on there (many from newly created accounts and some with a few locked iPhone and bikes add, not exactly looking good). I posted that on the talk to adverts.ie forum saying that 25% first page of results for "iPhone 5c" looked dodgy (and provided all the link). Their reaction was to delete my topic and send me a message telling me I can't accuse them of promoting the sale of stolen items. But they obviously agreed with what I was saying as they deleted avery single of the 7 ads I had linked. I was not very impressed by their way to (not) deal with this type of thing to say the least ...

They seem to have cleaned-up a bit when I posted but a few of them have already came back:
- http://www.adverts.ie/apple/excellent-iphone-5c-16-gb-locked-icloud/6597968
- http://www.adverts.ie/apple/iphone-5c-pink/6593956

ScouseMouse

Bob24 wrote: »

Same here... 99% chances it is a lost or stolen phone. You won't be able to properly remove the lock unless you find the previous (lawful) owner and get them to unlock it with their iCloud account. It actually is a very good think from Apple's side ... I had my phone stolen 6 months ago and while it is not going to give it back it is good to know it can't be used (which should limit the market for stolen phones).

Try to get your money back but if the guy who sold it looked dodgy proceed with care. If any safety concern just go to the Garda. If it is lost/stolen and it was reported to them, they should find the IMEI number of the phone in their database.

On a side note, I was checking second hand prices for iPhone on adverts.ie the other day and I was really surprised to see many phones IMEI or iCloud locked phones openly sold on there (many from newly created accounts and some with a few locked iPhone and bikes add, not exactly looking good). I posted that on the talk to adverts.ie forum saying that 25% first page of results for "iPhone 5c" looked dodgy (and provided all the link). Their reaction was to delete my topic and send me a message telling me I can't accuse them of promoting the sale of stolen items. But they obviously agreed with what I was saying as they deleted avery single of the 7 ads I had linked. I was not very impressed by their way to (not) deal with this type of thing to say the least ...

Or it could be you have brought to their attention something that needs looking at and they are now doing that? Are there any listed now?

Bob24

ScouseMouse wrote: »

Or it could be you have brought to their attention something that needs looking at and they are now doing that? Are there any listed now?

Have edited my previous post with some links ... yes there are some coming back.

I think basically if someone reports them they delete but otherwise they just decide to ignore it as they don't want to review every new ad.

Maysa07

The market for used iPhones is fraught with risk!

Put the phones IMEI number in the link below before you hand over cash.it will tell if it's locked or not.

https://www.icloud.com/activationlock/

Bob24

ScouseMouse wrote: »

Or it could be you have brought to their attention something that needs looking at and they are now doing that? Are there any listed now?

Did you by chance report the ones I linked a few minutes ago? ... I see they are now gone from adverts.

ScouseMouse

No I didnt report any of them.

Its quite possible when you report something, its brings it to their attention. There are thousands of ads there and its hard to keep on top of any issue.

Clicking report brings it up for their attention. I know it looks like they may be not interested, but if you see something wrong, report it.

Bob24

ScouseMouse wrote: »

No I didnt report any of them.

Its quite possible when you report something, its brings it to their attention. There are thousands of ads there and its hard to keep on top of any issue.

Clicking report brings it up for their attention. I know it looks like they may be not interested, but if you see something wrong, report it.

Yes I understand there are many ads and it is not always easy for them to know if something is stolen (and don't get me wrong I think they are providing a great service which I am using regularly). But I guess my point is that there are many blatant cases which are never being removed and after looking at it for a few days I can definitely say they are not being proactive with this and solely rely on people reporting issues - which creates a market for stolen phones and is bad for everyone.

What I was fairly unhappy about is that when I first pointed to them that there were a lot of suspicious ads for locked phones with new accounts and a high rate of broken screens (which screams stolen phone to me), their first reply was to say they have a policy preventing the sale of iCloud locked phones and they kind of implied I was exaggerating the issue. This is why I then posted hard evidence that for the particular type of phone I was looking at 25% of the search results at that time where in violation of their policy and they should probably be more proactive. They clearly didn't like this and deleted my thread (and all the ads linked to), which I partly understand (they don't want to damage their reputation) but to me is really not good if it is just a cover-up and they don't try to also fix the issue).

Sure people can report them when they see them, but looking the website this is not working very well. The 2 5Cs I just posted here have been removed because someone probably reported them since I put them on the spotlight, but if you keep looking you will easily find more - you are likely not going to do this though as you probably have better things to do that helping a private company fix an issue you don't really have anything to do with.

Maybe I am a bit too sensitive with this because I have had my iPhone grabbed for me and I very well know that behind every single of these ads there is a person which suffered various levels of financial, physical, and emotional damage - but I find it a bit irresponsable on their side that for things which as so easy to spot they don't have someone spending 30 minutes everyday to flags these ads (I don't think it would take much longer) - or even better develop something to flag them automatically (it would likely only take a few minutes for a developer to write a script which scans their database and returns all the ads for IMEI and iCloud locked phones).

ScouseMouse

All good points. Now you have made them aware of the issue, keep an eye on it to see if there is any improvement.

There must be thousands of ads there and its probably a matter or resources. Keep an eye on it.

Rambo

Just a quick question how do you lock a iphone with a icloud account

flyguy

Just go to settings, iCloud and make sure "find my iPhone" is switched on (and a passcode set to the phone helps too). Now if someone tries to wipe the phone the phone will ask for the iCloud passcode. Also you can remotely track, lock and wipe the phone if it's lost/stolen.

naasrd

If buying a 2nd hand phone make sure it's erased and at the "hello" screen. I bought a 5 for my son from Adverts. Met in Liffey Valley, stuck my nano sim in and connected to the public wifi and set it up there and then. A little time consuming and finickity but highly recommended. There are people right now with 2nd hand iPhones who don't even know that their device is iCloud id locked to a previous owner who forgot to disable it or worse, a stolen iPhone.

dodzy

Diarmuid97 wrote: »

Does anybody know how to unlocked an iCloud locked phone? Somebody sold me it for €400 and am very disappointed as it is locked and can't use it.

Have you tried to contact the seller ? Is he/she gone to ground ?