Contributor
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3 Messages
stolen phone nightmare
Early last month I have my iPhone 6S stolen out of my car. I called AT&T after putting it in "lost" mode and not having any luck finding it through the "find my iPhone" app. Police report was made, etc. When calling AT&T I was assured that the phone would be "bricked" wiping all my personal information off the phone and essentially making it a paperweight. A couple days pass and I get an allert that my phone had been found from my "find iPhone" app. Long story short, whoever stole it threw it away in a dumpster and someone found it.
I was thrilled because I had my phone back but dissapointed that when I had it back in my hands, it was still active and all my peronal information was still on the phone...
Here's where the nightmare started. I stopped by my local AT&T store for assistance. I figured there was a chance the phone would still turn into a "brick". The guy at the AT&T store assured me that it worked, called himself with my phone and said "see!! It works fine"! ... !!! uh... duh
So I left there ticked off. Called AT&T again... was told that it's not "if" its going to erase my phone, it's "when"... it was going to happen. Was told to stay off my phone so the process could be reversed through a case. Was told to keep my phone off and that they would call my wife when the process was completed. Said it would be completed by the next day after 4:00.
We were traveling the next day, I was sitting next to my wife the whole day. No phone calls, no emails, no text messages. About 4:00 I have my wife call AT&T and ask for an update. After getting to the correct dept so was told the attemented to call with no ability to get ahold of her (lie) and that my needed to verify their ability to release and re-activate the phone. (was never told this). 45 min to an hour later the phone has the ability to turn on.
It works. Finally. After a thousand hoops. My biggest beef about this process is lack of caring. Nobody seemed to care that this happened to me. I had to pay off my phone to release my contract to attempt to buy a new one before the phone was found. Was offered nothing due to it being stolen. No compassion. EVERYTIME I CALLED AND TALKED TO SOMEONE ON THE PHONE I WAS PITCHED AT THE END OF THE CALL FOR DIRECTTV..... fuel on fire....
I've been with AT&T since I've had a cell phone and this entire process has me scratching my head.... security of my information, lack of compassion and no follow through...very dissapointed.
formerlyknownas
ACE - Sage
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117K Messages
8 years ago
I have to clear up how ATT blacklist and Find My iPhone work.
Find my iPhone can locate and lock your phone, keeping the contents safe from a thief.
Carrier blacklist deactivates the SIM card immediately and prevent it from being activated on another ATT SIM card, and any other SIM card, but that can take a few weeks. It does not brick the phone.
Please review how Find my iPhone can locate and lock your phone, it is the operators job to secure the device. ATT can only secure your cellular account.
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sandblaster
ACE - Expert
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64.7K Messages
8 years ago
There had to be a misunderstanding with whomever you talked with because ATT does not wipe your phone, at least not to my knowledge. I don't believe they could do that to an iPhone even if they wanted to.
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redgagt
Contributor
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3 Messages
8 years ago
Then yes, AT&T missinformed me from the begining. It doesn't help calling the 800# and not being able to understand anything on the phone. After attempting to speak with someone in-store, I think I realize why they outsourse outside of the USA...
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Danc4500
Contributor
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1 Message
7 years ago
It's just poor info causing confusion. I just went thru the lost phone process. The ATT knowledge is spotty as is the police (Austin, TX). Thought I left phone in rent car. Called the company and they could not find it. They suggested me to notify police to disable. It was my local police who suggested I report as stolen. If you do so to ATT, they permanently lockout
the phone forever. Rather than "stolen", request ATT to disable. This is placed on phone untill you remove it upon recovery. Info on phone is protected by your password. Problem is that very few ATT stores have this info b/c it's not an every day thing.
I recovered phone eventually but it's a dead phone with the info contained still accessible. Attempts to reactivate at ATT via their 800 number last about 30 minutes until their system disables the phone again. Use the disable function rather than stolen, until you are sure. It was the police that gave me the bad info.
Dan.
Dan.
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formerlyknownas
ACE - Sage
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117K Messages
7 years ago
@Danc4500
Terms...
1. blacklist- reported lost or stolen, this prevents the phone from being used on any carrier. It can be placed and removed by the owner of the account only, with a call to support. To reactivate, you have to reverse the process by calling support. I suspect a new SIM card would be required as well as contacting ATT to reactivate the phone/remove from blacklist. This does not protect your contents, you are completely responsible for the contents on your device.
2. Suspend service. This disables the SIM card. It doesn't block the phone or protect your contents. You can suspend a phone yourself online or My ATT app. You can also reverse suspension yourself.
3. Remote lock or erase. The carrier can protect your account. You must protect your contents with screen lock. You can lock and locate remotely with iCloud/find my iPhone or Android device manager.
4. Sim lock. Also called PUK lock. This puts a Pin code on your SIM card which prevents it being used in another phone. This protects your account only. If you add a sim lock, you have to call ATT for the code to unlock the sim for use in another phone. (This is not the same as the carrier lock, which is sometimes called sim lock).
If every customer knows how to remote lock their phones, and puts PUK lock, knows how to suspend service online or with the App, further action is not required until you are sure your phone cant be recovered. This is entirely on each customer to protect their phone and content.
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