remote lock

[willy yeut]

i lost my iphone and immediatly remote locked it with icloud find my phone. i tracked it somewhere before it was turned off. so my question is: can it be restored to new by the thief even when remotely locked
please help me

 

[kch50428]

I believe if someone tries to use iTunes to restore the phone as new, they'll won't be able to do so without your unlock code... and if they do, you'll should be able to have the phone's location.

 

[John Yester]

[NOTE]If you have lost or found an Apple product, please contact your local law enforcement agency to report it. Although Apple does not have a process to track or flag lost or stolen product, you can use My Support Profile to find a list of serial numbers that have been purchased or registered with your Apple ID.

Go to My Support Profile*.
Sign in with your Apple ID.
View your purchases in "My Products".

* Currently available only in certain languages.

Note: If you need help remembering your Apple ID(s), go here.
Additional Information

If you have already configured the iCloud Find My iPhone service on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac you can use it to locate your missing device, display a message on its screen, make it play a sound at full volume (even if on mute), remotely lock it, or remotely wipe (erase) it to protect your privacy. Please see the following articles for more information:

iCloud: Find My iPhone overview
iCloud: Troubleshooting Find My iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac

If your mobile device is lost or stolen, see this article to find your iTunes-purchased files.[/NOTE]

 

[bamf-hacker]

Yes it can be restored as new. Once the phone is in DFU mode it can be restored. We get phones in all the time from departed employees and most of the time they are locked. We DFU them and restore them to stock and re-deploy them.

 

[willy yeut]

SO even when remotely locked by me with icloud after it was stolen and the phone was turned off soon after by the thief it can be restored by them as new?

 

[kch50428]

SO even when remotely locked by me with icloud after it was stolen and the phone was turned off soon after by the thief it can be restored by them as new?

If someone really, really knows what they're doing... perhaps... but most thieves are not that savvy.

 

[John Yester]

At the moment if somebody wants to prevent somebody from using "Find my iPhone" they just need to power off the device. They can then boot it up in recovery mode and restore it and set it up as new..

It would be great if you could provide an option so the iPhone or iPad can't be powered off in any way before entering the pass-code. It would also be good if when then the device is in lost mode and is plugged into iTunes (e.g. To restore it) iTunes would automatically record the location and refuse to restore so when the rightful owner logs into find my iPhone they can easily find it and hopefully get it back.

 

[Ipheuria]

You should definitely call the police and report it stolen then Apple. This will prevent the thief from taking it in yo an Apple store and having it serviced or swapped. Apple now checks the serial numbers before doing any servicing and I heard they were starting that stolen devices database. However I believe when you call to report it stolen to Apple you need the police report info.