It is unfortunate to lose a device whether it is your iPhone or any other smartphone. As you stored most of your information such as sensitive files, photos and contacts as you go. That’s why you have to be careful while commuting or going out somewhere. Similarly, while buying a second hand phone, you have to careful that you are getting a device which could have been stolen.
Apple has addressed the issue of finding your iPhone in case you have kept in somewhere or it had been stolen; by releasing a feature ‘Find My iPhone in 2010’. However, thieves found a work around as they can turn off iPhone or erase data of it to get away with it. Apple made another attempt by releasing a feature Activation Lock in iOS 7. With this feature live, it was impossible to use an iPhone with new Apple ID, unless you don’t know the Apple ID which was used to activate it the first time. This dropped iPhone theft attempt to quite a number.
However, it was of no use to people who bought used iPhones as there was no way to check Activation Lock status in advance. A thief can play the customer and lure him into buying a useless iPhone and he would not be able to know until he gets its hands on the device. So, what to do?
Well, in this post, we have discussed how to check if your iPhone is stolen.
How To Identify If Your iPhone Is Stolen?
You can check the IMEI number and MEID number to detect whether your iPhone is stolen or not. To do that, follow these steps:
Go to the settings icon (gear symbol) on the home screen.
- On the Settings window, look for General.
- Click About.
- Under About, you need to locate IMEI. Under IMEI heading. Check the Phone’s IMEI and MEID numbers.
Once you get your hands on IMEI and MEID numbers of your iPhone, you need a website such as IMEI Pro, Swappa or Stolen Phone Checker.
IMEI Pro
- So go to the website and click on lMEI Blacklist. Enter IMEI number in the search field and put a checkmark beside “I’m not a robot” box.
- Click on Check button. This will search the stolen/lost blacklist against the IMEI number. The website keeps a list of reported missing or stolen iPhones.
- If the blacklist status comes out Clean, then you are good to go.
- If not, then “Blacklist status” indicates that your iPhone has been stolen or lost.
You can also use another website, Swappa to check iMEI and MEID numbers of your iPhone to be sure that you are not using a reported lost or stolen iPhone.
Stolen Phone Checker
Another way to check if iPhone is stolen or not, is by checking it on ‘Stolen Phone Checker’. The website works for both iPhone and Android.
- Open Stolen Phone Checker website on your web browser. The website is developed to help and decrease the number of stolen devices. However this website works only in the United States of America.
- You will see three options, Commercial, Consumer and Law Enforcement.
- Click Consumer.
- You will get a box to search iPhone IMEI number. Enter the device’s IMEI number, below Check a Device here.
- Checkmark beside , “ I am not a robot” and then hit Submit.
Note: You can enter upto 5 IMEI numbers to check in a single day.
Once the website searches and gets you the results, check if your iPhone is blacklisted
Look under “Device Status”, located at the upper side of the website page. If it comes to be “Not reported lost or stolen”, then the device is clean.
- You can also check MEID number of your iPhone, as it might the record available in the database of lost or stolen device.
- Click Consumer
- You will get a box to search iPhone MEID number. Enter the device’s MEID number.
- Checkmark beside, “I am not a robot” and then hit Submit.
- Check the results.
Swappa
To check if the iPhone is stolen, go to the website of Swappa, as it is another way to identify it. Swappa is a website that keeps a blacklist iPhones or other phones stolen or lost records.
Note: With Swappa, you can run free checks for 10 devices a day.
- Once you are on the website, enter iPhone’s IMEI number in the search field saying “ESN/IMEI/MEID”.
- Hit the Check ESN button. Now the website will check the IMEI number against the database of missing and stolen iPhones.
- Once you get the results, check the Blacklisted heading. If the result is, “Not Indicated” then your iPhone is not stolen or lost.
- You can also check MEID number, MEID number is IMEI’s first 14 digits, and you can enter it to double-check the database.
- Enter the MEID number into the “ESN/IMEI/MEID” search box.
- Hit Check ESN
- Once you get results, you can check whether the iPhone is blacklisted or not.
So, these are the ways to check if your iPhone is Stolen or lost. Now before buying a used iPhone, don’t forget to check IMEI or MEID number for lost or stolen devices.