“You’re Gonna Get Robbed” — Man Gives Warning About Find My iPhone Scam

A TikTok user who posts under the account @haveagreatpositiveday is warning folks of an iPhone scam he says two women tried pulling on him recently, so he decided to share his story as a PSA for anyone else to keep an eye out for in case they find themselves in a similar situation.

He goes on to state that this is a common "door to door" scam involving iPhones and wrote that folks should search for other instances of this scam being pulled online, presumably in a bid for folks to better educate themselves on the variations of this con job scam artists try to pull off.

He then detailed how he was headed to the gym and set his car into park in the parking lot of a local grocery store. Before getting out of his whip he decided to browse the internet for any good furniture deals because he earns some good money reselling furniture online, so he wanted to see what was for sale.

He added that he had enough wherewithal to know that the folks who were pulling up to him in their own car while he was seated in the parking lot probably didn't have the best of intentions. The TikToker goes on to state that he heard someone screaming at the top of their lungs and he rolled his window down just enough to listen to what the person was screaming about.

"Excuse me you have my iPhone," the woman said to the man and, just by virtue of knowing how the "Find My iPhone" feature works, said that even if the woman was able to pinpoint her iPhone to the parking lot, there's no way she'd be able to hone in on a specific person sitting in a specific car and know, for sure, that they were the one who took her device.

"So she's screaming and she says can you roll down your window all the way. And I'm like we're not playing that game. So I proceed to leave the parking lot. Just backed up...go scam somebody else."

Choosing to just extricate himself from the situation entirely, the TikToker thought he was in the clear, however, the con artists decided to pursue him. "They follow me and so I'm like okay...they're really on this. This is what happens when scammers, you know are not getting their way when the robbery doesn't go correctly."

He continued, "Either they retreat or they get really aggressive cause it didn't go their way. Especially some of these young girls they probably didn't think it was gonna go that way so they got upset. And then they're chasing me and I'm like, I was going pretty fast, I was going good speed and they're chasing me."

He couldn't believe that the thieves would go through such great lengths to try and pull the con on him, "These people really on it. And then I see a car behind them veer off to the left. So there was somebody in that parking lot waiting for them and so I say is what's happening is it that what's happening id that these people come up next to you, cause iPhone, they have the phone, and they'll come to your house and it'll show that it's there."

He explained the scam, stating that they'll hit the Find My iPhone option on a device that they already have in their possession and then show their unfortunate mark that their application is telling them their "missing" iPhone is in the area.

"It's in your car, it's around you, or they'll trap it slip it under your car but I was in my car so I didn't see them doing any of that. So they just got close enough to say they can show me and then they were either gonna proceed to rob me with somebody else or do whatever they had to do."

He went on, "I'm making this video for you to be aware, pay attention to your surroundings at all time, and if someone comes up to you and says they lost their iPhone it's in your car, number one just tell them to call the police cause that's their job to go look for it, right? It's not your job to go help them look for it and number two don't get caught up."

According to the TikToker the best thing to do is to get yourself out of that situation as quickly as possible and that trying to help a stranger is probably the worst thing you can do in that scenario. "There is a lot of people I tell this story to and they were like I would've helped them I'd have been trying to be nice and you would've got yourself robbed. That's exactly what would've happened. So be careful out there do not fall for this scam."

Numerous other folks on the application thanked him for his PSA with many stating that he handled the situation in the best way possible, however there was one person who thought of an even better idea, one that the TikToker agreed was probably the best option too: "I would have drove to the police station"