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Similar story here, but instead of a phishing email it was a legit Find My iPhone email six months later saying her phone pinged from Morocco.

So yup, sounds like they’ve either resorted to stripping them for parts or selling them whole (and still firmware-locked) to innocent buyers in places where you’d have practically no legal recourse — who then become victims to the theft as well, ironically. And by then, of course, you’ve likely had a new phone for long enough to not lose much sleep over it.

Brian Krebbs covered phishing of users who lost their iPhones, although he doesn't talk about how the "thief" managed to retrieve phone number from the the stolen phone.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/03/if-your-iphone-is-stolen...

My wife's phone has been the same. I have left a "lost" message on it with my number just in case, that's probably where they have got it from.

> To this day I have no idea how they were able to get her phone number. From the SIM maybe?

Emergency contacts (accessible while the phone is locked) + Facebook?

> To this day I have no idea how they were able to get her phone number

Guessing here but maybe using "emergency call" and another phone to get the caller ID?

How would that work? I though you can only call emergency numbers from that mode?