someone hijacked iphone? how to get it back?

[luv2liv]

aunt got her iphone 4s in Israel years ago.
somehow, some reason, it's wiped clean. she swore she didnt do anything out of the ordinary.
she gave it to me to "fix" it, putting contacts n other stuff back in. problem is, it's asking for apple ID and password. we tried all the combo and none of them worked. resetting apple ID and pw on icloud.com doesnt work. not even her birthday and other personal info is matching. reset can be done over email to fsorin@gmail.com. but here's the problem, she doesnt recognize that email. and answering security questions for fsorin@gmail.com also fails.

what can we do? can apple store help? remember, this phone wasnt bought from an apple store in Israel.

 

[GTRagnarok]

I think that's Apple's anti-theft system, and you're kinda out of luck unfortunately. That email probably belongs to the original owner who set up the phone with their own account. They would have to login to icloud and remove the phone from their account. So unless your aunt knows who she bought it from in Israel and can contact them, there's not much that can be done.

 

[Fardringle]

Did she buy it used from someone else? If so, it might have still been linked to the previous owner's Apple account. Since it has already been wiped, I say do a factory reset and link it to your aunt's Apple ID.

edit: If you can, that is. GTRagnarok is correct that you might not be able to do it without removing it from the original owner's account first.

 

[luv2liv]

she bought it from a legit store in Israel brand new. it was working fine when i saw her 3 months ago too. now it's just sitting here on my desk as a paper weight. cant even use it as an mp3 player.

 

[pm]

she bought it from a legit store in Israel brand new. it was working fine when i saw her 3 months ago too. now it's just sitting here on my desk as a paper weight. cant even use it as an mp3 player.

I don't think any of us can help you. Apple's anti-theft system is somewhat confusing and you can't work around it that I know of. I recommend you call Apple customer service, or - more ideally, making an appointment with a genius at the Apple Store.

 

[isekii]

Apple should be able to reset it for you if you. You need the original receipt of purchase.
I don't think it matters where it's bought from as long as you can prove that you own it.

I've had 2 devices unlocked this way (corporate devices) where people that were let go were uncooperative.

 

[luv2liv]

she might not have the receipt.
is there any other way to prove her as the owner? she has a bunch of photos that synced to her dropbox account. would a photo have a serial number from which iphone it was taken from?

 

[zaza]

Rianbows.