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A friend of mine found an iPhone 6 in a festival but she didn't have a way to charge the phone for a couple weeks. She is a maid here in Brazil and didn't have the proper charger neither knew how to use the phone. When she finally gave the phone to me to charge and try to find the owner, I've found out that the phone had an iCloud activation lock.

We took the phone to the carrier but they said that the sim card was deactivated already and belongs to a corporate account with more than 100 numbers associated.

Is there a way for me to contact the owner via Find My iPhone or iCloud? If I wipe the phone, start over and try to activate will that notify the owner via Find My iPhone? If that happens maybe I could just put another valid sim card and wait for the person to text me via iCloud and I can text him back to see how I can return.

I don't want to take it to the police because I'm pretty sure they will just sell the parts (the Brazilian police are super corrupt) and I really want to return this phone because I lost mine already in the past and I was very glad that the person who found returned it to me.

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    If it belongs to a corporate account, why not just return it to the company in question?
    – nohillside ♦
    Mar 31, 2015 at 16:08
  • Normally when a Company hands a phone to an employee they log the individual phones s/n company tag number ..etc to that employee. I would try as @patrix suggests.
    – markhunte
    Mar 31, 2015 at 16:41
  • The carrier said they cannot provide the company name neither who is the responsible for the account for privacy reasons which is just stupid. Since I don't trust the person at counter to return the phone as well I think I'm just gonna put another sim card and wait to see if I get a response from the owner.
    – danielvlopes
    Apr 1, 2015 at 20:47

2 Answers 2

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If the SIM card is deactivated, replace the SIM card with one that is functional and will provide the device with a data connection. This will allow the phone to communicate its location to Find My iPhone which the original owner can use to locate the device.

You can't restore a device with an active Activation Lock (except DFU and that just puts it back in Activation Lock), so “wiping the phone” isn't a possible avenue.

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    Might be helpful to add that there is no way to communicate with the owner of the phone. So if he decides to call the cops once the phone shows up in Find my iPhone, you might get to answer some questions...
    – nohillside ♦
    Mar 31, 2015 at 16:13
  • Also just to mention it wouldn't show the full email address of the owner. Unless they set a message through Find My iPhone. Which would only show if there was wifi or data. With a passcode you could give the phone wifi by resetting but it might make you look suspicious.
    – Tre S
    Feb 15, 2016 at 17:20
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Little know fact is that Apple has a program to return lost devices to the original owner. Bring it to the Apple Store, you get a receipt and Apple should take care of it.

Alternatively if the store is too far away, you can call Apple Support and they'll send a courier over to pick it up on their expense (or give you a shipping tag). This might only be valid in selected countries though; I'm not sure for Brazil.

There is an Apple Store in Rio:

Apple Store Village Mall

Avenida das Américas 3.900

Barra da Tijuca

Rio de Janeiro

RJ 22640-102

PHONE (21) 3179-3700

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