Stealth phone tracking App or Feature

[M7Navy]

Anyone have any suggestions for an app or function that would allow me to track someone via an iPhone 5c without them knowing it? Struggling with a troubled teen not making very good choices.

A few details:

- IPhone 5C
- Verizon
- have locked down GPS so they can't turn it off
- tried Find my Iphone, they ignore ping

I am not looking for advice. Believe me, we have that covered, thanks. :smile: Just need a way to make sure they aren't going to places we know to be sources of trouble for them.

Any thoughts on apps or features would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[pkcable]

Verizon has a family locator service for 10 bucks a month that allows you to track location...

https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.co...oductDetails.action?productName=familylocator

 

[M7Navy]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Tried that. Didn't work. The ping has to be answered, according to my hubby.

 

[Jaguarr40]

I have read many of these posts and find many of them to be parents to be out and out spying where for some reason if it is the non treating way you have worded your post and what seems to ME to be sincere and wanting to make sure that in 2 posts you have written you have not said your kids. You have mentioned someone as the people looking to be located and just that wording sort of bothers me as it could be what I am perceiving to be worse then the kids.
Would you elaborate a bit more if you wish further help as people get touchy around here helping someone like this for the wrong reason or if it is a spouse or partner or really even the kids even though in.my mind sort of lessens things.
Please try and understand and if you don't I am sorry and if if you wish to explain to us so we can use further better judgement on our part we might and I said might be able to help. Thank you for understanding I hope.

 

[M7Navy]

We have a troubled child who is doing everything she can to try and get in trouble. We simply are looking for a way to track her movements via her phone so we can try and make sure she is making good choices. She has fallen in with a bad crowd at school. Counseling isn't helping. Suspensions from school aren't getting through to her. She is 15. We are grasping at straws and are looking for anything that could help. That's all this is. We have tried Find My Phone and she won't reply to the Pings. She disappeared for an entire weekend, with friends, and they all took some sort of oath that none of them would tell anyone where they were. None of the kids would answer their phone, answer, texts, or emails from their parents. We were terrified something horrible had happened. We don't ever want to go through that level of worry again.

So, just looking for some way to try and know where she is in case we can help her, even when she doesn't want help.

Thank you for asking Jaguarr40.

 

[Jaguarr40]

We have a troubled child who is doing everything she can to try and get in trouble. We simply are looking for a way to track her movements via her phone so we can try and make sure she is making good choices. She has fallen in with a bad crowd at school. Counseling isn't helping. Suspensions from school aren't getting through to her. She is 15. We are grasping at straws and are looking for anything that could help. That's all this is. We have tried Find My Phone and she won't reply to the Pings. She disappeared for an entire weekend, with friends, and they all took some sort of oath that none of them would tell anyone where they were. None of the kids would answer their phone, answer, texts, or emails from their parents. We were terrified something horrible had happened. We don't ever want to go through that level of worry again.

So, just looking for some way to try and know where she is in case we can help her, even when she doesn't want help.

Thank you for asking Jaguarr40.

No problem at all and while i am not a parent i have way too many friends that are and go these from time to time as well as friends that get into things like this.
Would I presume you have already tried or thought about sitting down and talking, going to counceling and everything else like this? If not it can't hurt if you have tried everything else especially asking straight out if you can sit down and talk about what the trouble is. you never know, You might can't an answer that can go towards correcting on both parts. I wish you luck and sorry to have pried so much.

The reason I said that although you said you had the advice covered, I know this is what you have already done but if they won't respond to anything from their phone, No apps or anything else is going to work.

 

[M7Navy]

We tried this, and she has to respond to the Ping in order for it to work. She won't respond to the request to Find her. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[pkcable]

You could go the spyware route like flexispy or mobile spy but they are very expensive. Google is your friend here we can't really help you with this sort of thing.

 

[Jaguarr40]

As once again and to beleaguer the situation and I do feel you I don't think or at least it does not appear that you are going to find what you are looking for in a stealth type of way because you have to remember as it would seem to me that it would get her phone from her to install something that she knows nothing about and the receiver part on your end so hers is ALWAYS turned on and you can just jump on your end and say oh there she is. I just don't see that happening. As. Ad as you want. This I think it is time to quit and hope for the best that she is wherever she is and with whom is cool and everything is is ok.
I really wish you luck with your situation and it is a always hard when it. Comes down to something like this.

 

[bobbob1016]

We tried this, and she has to respond to the Ping in order for it to work. She won't respond to the request to Find her. Thanks for the suggestion.

TBH I'm not sure an iPhone would be the best route here. I'm not sure if Push To Talk phones services still exist, I recall hearing they're being taken down, but if you could get one of those, it *may* be better as instead of her hearing a ping, she'd hear your voice. Could also try jailbreaking her phone assuming she's on 7.0.6 or under, then there would have to be something you could install/tweak to remotely listen to her microphone. But these all require physical access to her phone.

 

[wenrob]

I'm really confused by what you mean by "respond to the pings." If you have her iCloud user ID and password, she doesn't have to respond to anything, you just log into Find My Phone with her ID and you can see where she is. I do this with my teen and husband all the time when they are late from work or like right now my kid is on a bus to Disney so I'm having fun watching her progress.
Better yet, change her iCloud password and do not give it to her. Set things up so she can't turn them off and you should not have an issue finding her.


Sent from my iPhone using iMore Forums mobile app

 

[wenrob]

I wanted to add that you can also go into restrictions and switch off "delete apps," so she cannot delete Find My Phone or Find my Friends etc. The apps will wiggle but there won't be any x's to hit to delete them.


Sent from my iPhone using iMore Forums mobile app

 

[M7Navy]

The ICloud User Account worked. Thank you. She was set up with a GMail account.because of that, she had to respond to any requests (pings) as to where she was. When she was switched over to an ICloud account, with a password she couldn't access, it worked great.

Thank you so much for all the suggestions. Hopefully we can try and help steer her away from the places we know put her in bad situations.

Its nice to have a whole community of people who get using technology to help with today's real situations.

 

[SwitchBeach]

I use Find Friends with my husband all the time and there are no pings he needs to respond to. As said above just turn on restrictions and turn off the ability to delete apps and the ability to turn off location services.

Yes, I think the OP may be confusing "Find Friends" and "Find My iPhone" which as you have indicated are two different things.

Once Find Friends is set up and locked down on the phone, that should work.

 

[pkcable]

The ICloud User Account worked. Thank you. She was set up with a GMail account.because of that, she had to respond to any requests (pings) as to where she was. When she was switched over to an ICloud account, with a password she couldn't access, it worked great.

Thank you so much for all the suggestions. Hopefully we can try and help steer her away from the places we know put her in bad situations.

Its nice to have a whole community of people who get using technology to help with today's real situations.

Hopefully a year or two of growing will help too. They DO grow out of this phase!

 

[George Armstrong1]

Your situation sounds exactly like ours, only our daughter is 14. This is a living hell to be sure but we are determined to get us and our child through it. We took her iphone 5c and locked the restrictions with our own password. We are able to track her very accurately without her even knowing it. No "ping" that I am aware of and I have played around with my ipad and iphone quite a bit. I think you may be seeing the "locate my iphone" option in the "find my phone" app, and this does emit a ping. You only need to enter your daughters itune email address and password to find her phone. All that being said, I am not sure if she were to change her itune password and email if the find my phone app would still work using her old info? Someone out there may know and be able to shed some light. Good luck with your daughter and God bless!

George

 

[gina7474]

Ok in reference to. Find my iPhone ..problem is is that the daughter or the hubby would get a message pop up and email message that ur phone is been found...
I used this program and boy what crap it can create.and let me say it is very accurate! And no life raft when caught!

 

[twilite2000]

Well that's funny. There are 6 of us and we all use find friends and find iPhone and no one gets pinged, pop ups or emails telling them they are being tracked. We all either have iCloud Id's or gmail Id's. Doesn't matter what you set iCloud up with it just works.