Iphone - how to remove 'lost phone please contact ...' message because not lost

M271

I have just upgraded my iphone. However when I erased my previous iphone from my icloud account (through 'find my phone')it asked me to add a contact number, it erased and is now not on my icloud 'find my phone' account, I also has an imessage confirming that the phone was being erased, no message about being lost. I also have knocked back the setting on the phone to factory setting ready to sell.

However the 'This phone is lost please contact .....' message appears on start up (I never entered that it was lost just wanted to erase off account), you can slide to open and then start new set up but will the person that I sell it to be able to set up the phone with the 'lost phone' message?

As I previously said it is not now showing on my icloud account and have deleted all content on the phone so I can't see how I can correct the incorrect 'lost' status.

When I try and sell the phone I don't want the new owner not be able to set up the phone.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Sharon87

Sounds more of a problem with the phone than your icloud. Where did you get the phone? It sounds like someone's reported that particular phone 'lost'

If you bought the phone from a retailer I would go back and ask for advice.

M271

Sharon87 wrote: »

Sounds more of a problem with the phone than your icloud. Where did you get the phone? It sounds like someone's reported that particular phone 'lost'

If you bought the phone from a retailer I would go back and ask for advice.

It is showing the phone number which I entered when erasing the phone off my icloud account. No one reported it lost, it must have picked up the info when I went throught the erase procedure.

InsideInsurance

Ok, so you did a remote erase rather than just removing the phone from the account?

Removing a phone from iCloud doesnt require the entry of another phone number. I've never remote erased a phone, and am not willing to experiment, but I am guessing that this is designed for when you lose the phone and dont believe you'll be getting it back or are overly concerned about the data on it, then it would logically ask for the phone number

Sounds like you used the wrong solution for what you needed. Normally with lost phone mode its cleared next time you log in to the phone but dont know if that does a call back to iCloud or not. If you have reset the phone and/ or removed it from the iCloud account it could be locked into lost mode and not able to lift it.

Guess if you restored the phone and added it back to iCloud you could then remove the message and then deal with resetting the phone in the correct method but i am guessing

M271

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Ok, so you did a remote erase rather than just removing the phone from the account?

Removing a phone from iCloud doesnt require the entry of another phone number. I've never remote erased a phone, and am not willing to experiment, but I am guessing that this is designed for when you lose the phone and dont believe you'll be getting it back or are overly concerned about the data on it, then it would logically ask for the phone number

Sounds like you used the wrong solution for what you needed. Normally with lost phone mode its cleared next time you log in to the phone but dont know if that does a call back to iCloud or not. If you have reset the phone and/ or removed it from the iCloud account it could be locked into lost mode and not able to lift it.

Guess if you restored the phone and added it back to iCloud you could then remove the message and then deal with resetting the phone in the correct method but i am guessing

How do I get into icloud account rather than the 'find my phone' function. I thought that was the only place to see which devices that I have. Sorry for being thick but I haven't used icloud much.

I thought that I read on line that for double safety it's best to Erase via 'find my phone' and then back to factory setting on the phone. May be I misread and should just have deleted from icloud account rather then through find my phone.

M271

In summary now that I have icloud erased the phone and reset the phone to factory settings I have 2 main issues:

1) How do I remove the 'this phone is lost .....' message
2) Has the phone been 'cleared' so that a new owner can set it up.

I presume the easiest way might be to set it up again to my account and go through the process again, if it allows me to do that. Will it recognise the previous history to allow changes to be made i.e. not lost.

InsideInsurance

M271 wrote: »

I presume the easiest way might be to set it up again to my account and go through the process again, if it allows me to do that. Will it recognise the previous history to allow changes to be made i.e. not lost.

My assumption is that this is what you need to do but DONT use the "erase phone" on Find My Phone or iCloud, this is for lost phones hence its triggered the message. The iTunes reset option is for deleting data etc on phones that you still have in your possession but presumably wont ever clear the Lost Phone type message otherwise this would totally devalue the capability to warn others its a nicked phone.

Mr_Toad

M271 wrote: »

I have just upgraded my iphone. However when I erased my previous iphone from my icloud account (through 'find my phone')it asked me to add a contact number, it erased and is now not on my icloud 'find my phone' account, I also has an imessage confirming that the phone was being erased, no message about being lost. I also have knocked back the setting on the phone to factory setting ready to sell.

However the 'This phone is lost please contact .....' message appears on start up (I never entered that it was lost just wanted to erase off account), you can slide to open and then start new set up but will the person that I sell it to be able to set up the phone with the 'lost phone' message?

As I previously said it is not now showing on my icloud account and have deleted all content on the phone so I can't see how I can correct the incorrect 'lost' status.

When I try and sell the phone I don't want the new owner not be able to set up the phone.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I think you need to visit an Apple store and see if they can sort this out. The 'find my phone' feature does two things, it wipes your data off the phone and it renders the phone useless to anyone that steals it or finds it and decides to keep it.

There may well be ways round this but I don't know any.

Also be prepared to prove to Apple that the phone is actually yours. It wouldn't be much of a feature if all a thief had to do was wander into the nearest Apple store to get round it.

M271

Mr_Toad wrote: »

I think you need to visit an Apple store and see if they can sort this out. The 'find my phone' feature does two things, it wipes your data off the phone and it renders the phone useless to anyone that steals it or finds it and decides to keep it.

There may well be ways round this but I don't know any.

Also be prepared to prove to Apple that the phone is actually yours. It wouldn't be much of a feature if all a thief had to do was wander into the nearest Apple store to get round it.

I'm going to try and restore on my itunes account (which it was on before) and see how it goes. The added complication is that I also knocked the phone back to factory setting as well. I'll try restoring tonight and see how it goes. Hopefully the Find My Phone Erase function only deleted sensitive information and not all phone iD etc..
The system seems good for security but if you find the phone it's pretty dumb if you can't ligitimately get it running again.

InsideInsurance

M271 wrote: »

I'm going to try and restore on my itunes account (which it was on before) and see how it goes. The added complication is that I also knocked the phone back to factory setting as well. I'll try restoring tonight and see how it goes. Hopefully the Find My Phone Erase function only deleted sensitive information and not all phone iD etc..
The system seems good for security but if you find the phone it's pretty dumb if you can't ligitimately get it running again.

The lost phone mode you can, you just enter your pin to unlock it and its removed. Wife has left her phone in numerous places and it works really well as within a few minutes each time the shop/ airline etc have called her back saying they have it.

I am not sure fully how Remote Erase works as never needed to use it and the fact you did a factory reset before removing the lost mode just adds complication

M271

UPDATE:

Problem solved. Simply set up phone again via itunes restore and Lost message has gone and can be set up as normal. It must recognise the last account signon, passcodes etc before it was put in 'Erase' mode and even the reset back to factory settings on the phone.

Anyway I have reset the iphone back to factory settings again ready to sell and no message, so it seems to have worked.