iPhone help

Berenene

I'm hoping some people here have had more experience with the, ugh, iPhone.  I have one that was assigned to a former employee and they've registered their apple ID on it.  Now that we have it back, we are trying to reset the phone but it keeps prompting for the password for the apple ID.  The user in question failed to advise us of the password and Apple have said they will only assist if we can prove the we purchased the phone.

I was wanting to know if there is a way to perform a hard factory reset of the phone?  This would allow us to remove the account and return the phone to the state we need?

Thanks.

Morthif

Company should have proof of the purchase. 

Berenene

Thank you.  That was very helpful.  I know they should have proof of purchase.  However, it was purchased several years ago and there has been process changes in how invoices are retained, so it will be very difficult and time consuming to attempt to locate it.  It is an option in case there is nothing else to try, however, before I start spending hours trying to locate the invoice, if it does exist, I thought I might ask people who may have had experience or who might know of a way to do what I'm asking.

Morthif

No legal way exists. Do you have a business account through your carrier? Might be easy for them to find the invoice 

Szanthax

I have my iPad encrypted and to factory reset on too many wrong passwords. 

Melodie

This depends somewhat on your version of iOS and model of your phone.

If it was purchased several years ago, perhaps it won't run their latest iOS. If you can confirm that (you definitely want it to be before iOS 8, but you'd look to look around more for info on your actual iOS version information), and you really don't want to search for the old receipt or track down the guy (honestly I'd just track him down and punch him in the face), and it's a four number passcode, one kind of weird option is to purchase one of the iPhone crackers that are hanging around.

IP Box is one of them, and is relatively cheap (this isn't where you buy it, it just discusses it): https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/iphone-pin-pass-code/

Now, if it's not just a simple four digit passcode or if it's a later version of iOS, it gets more complex and more than likely, you'll need Apple to do it - later versions of iOS block you out from too many pass attempts, and the newest stuff actually has options to erase all the data on your phone after too many attempts (and still remain locked anyway). There's a lot of various slightly shady things you can do if the phone is old enough, but I would personally make sure you do a lot of research, and preferably find someone you know irl who is comfortable in handling this sort of stuff (an experienced guy at a repair shop, for instance). But that's just me and being over-careful about anything electronic.

Please note I am no expert, this is just from various research, stories and things I've seen online. 

Gonna tag @Severina who might have other info to contribute.

Good luck Bene!

Sobriquet

By the sounds of it, it's not the pin code he needs but the Apple ID associated with the account on the phone itself. Are you able to connect to iTunes, unlock, and factory reset or are you doing this purely from the handset itself?

Berenene

It is the apple ID.  I'm trying on the phone itself, but according to my colleague who passed it over to me, when trying to do the wipe from itunes, it's saying to turn off "find my iphone" feature, but to turn it off, we need to input the apple id username and password.

Aesi

Needs to be signed out of by the previous owner. Otherwise you are hooped.

credentials: have activated 200+ iphones for government contract and ran into this more than once

if you do a DFU restore (plug in phoe to computer while off and hold home button) -- it will just ask for it again.

Melodie

Yeah my bad, I sort of blurred over Apple ID, sorry!

Berenene

I figured it might have been the case, but was holding out hope there might have been a way.  Thanks anyway guys.

Szanthax

Aesi said:

Needs to be signed out of by the previous owner. Otherwise you are hooped.

credentials: have activated 200+ iphones for government contract and ran into this more than once

if you do a DFU restore (plug in phoe to computer while off and hold home button) -- it will just ask for it again.

just goes to show you... i've gotten no less than 5 ipads back that are associated with an employees work email. Call IT... have PW reset. Game over. Allowing an employee to use their personal stuff is just... not wise.

Antidas

Not sure if this has been fully answered yet, and I don't really wanna read through all the responses, but:

If you're being prompted to turn off "find my iPhone" before you restore it, there is no possible way to do so without getting the apple ID and password to turn it off. You're SOL if this is the case, unless you can get the previous employee. If that's not what its doing, you should be able to connect it to iTunes and restore it to put it back to factory settings.

Source: I work for an Apple Authorized Service Provider.