A man in Washington, D.C. last month was the victim of an armed robbery in which the thieves stole “everything...

Thieves return Android phone when they realize it’s not an iPhone::A man in Washington, D.C. last month was the victim of an armed robbery in which the thieves stole “everything…

  • soulfirethewolf@lemdro.idEnglish
    805·
    11 months ago

    That’s actually interesting since an android is probably a lot easier to sell off than an iPhone given activation lock

    • 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏@lemmy.oneEnglish
      30·
      11 months ago

      If you plan on running Google services, it won’t let you reset because of FRP…

      In the unlikely event that the thief managed to bypass FRP, it will be reinstated by GMS as soon as there’s a network connection, assuming the IMEI or Android device ID haven’t been spoofed (either of these on a Samsung would trip the Knox hardware fuse and disable a lot of features, making the device worthless to anyone who isn’t a power user)

      On my older Fairphone though I think there’s some documentation on how to bypass FRP, but you need to get authorization from Google for your specific device on your specific account otherwise GMS will not work

      • PeWu@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        On some Nokia’s there’s no problem when bypassing FRP, it’s works, but only when phone is disconnected from internet, as the update would patch installer, and bypass wouldn’t work.

  • MeanEYE@lemmy.worldEnglish
    363·
    11 months ago

    Site is 9to5mac. Did people seriously expected objective reporting? Yes, we stole a device with less inflated retail price. Oh gosh whatever should we do… I know lets go back and incriminate ourselves even more.

  • Jeena@jemmy.jeena.netEnglish
    221·
    11 months ago

    Once my Sailfish OS phone has been stolen, sadly they didn’t bring it back but I’ve always wondered how it looked like when they tried to sell it.

  • faintwhenfree@lemmus.orgEnglish
    7·
    11 months ago

    So the way these thieves work most of the time, they don’t know what to do with stolen items or how to liquidate them, so they’ll sell everything that they have to a bit more sophisticated criminal who knows how to liquidate stolen items and knows buyers of everything. Ideally when they steal a phone they don’t care what phone it is, they’ll sell it to their middleman, middleman will pay probably pennies on the dollar since it’s not an iPhone and street level thief wouldn know it’s value, middleman will probably sell it to someone that will gut it and take components out.

    In this case, thieves just be new to the game or amateurs.

  • nyan@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    51·
    11 months ago

    I’m just surprised they took the time to check before getting the hell out of there. Perhaps not the sharpest knives in the drawer, these thieves.

    • BossDj@lemm.eeEnglish
      51·
      11 months ago

      Possibly they have the knowledge/understanding to disable and erase iPhone but not an Android and don’t want to be tracked.

      Or their middleman they sell to only takes iPhones

  • LainOfTheWired@lemy.lolEnglish
    3·
    11 months ago

    Well I’m very happy with my degoogled OnePlus 5. And I’m glad this person got their phone back so easily