I had an iPhone I was fixing up. I backed up what was necessary, disconnected the old iCloud account, and created a new one to use when updating the OS. I created a spam-blocking address (mailgw) for this account. It created fine and I logged in from the phone without problem. I did the OS update, but then I got a dreaded error that it couldn't log in. I tried to log in with the account on the PC and it has been deleted. Apple deleted the account out from under the phone and now it's iCloud locked, all within less than half an hour. I called but they said I'd have to go to an Apple store and produce the original receipt. If this was really about theft, why couldn't I just regain control from the AppleID that had been logged in for years from the phone? I checked from that account but it had no option to report that the phone was fine. This was a many-year-old phone and the receipt was long gone. So Apple basically bricked the phone, with no recourse. I will never buy an Apple device again.