Hi,
Looking for some opinions regarding very suspicious circumstances around iPhone repair and data recovery.
Girlfriend's iPhone 13 started playing up one day with horizontal lines showing up across the screen, touchscreen not responding etc.
Initially, calls were still coming through but it eventually died. She tried to connect to her Macbook in the hope she may recover the contents of the phone, but that attempt failed.
Unfortunately, she had iCloud sync turned off so nothing was ever backed up to iCloud either.
After consulting with Apple Store and basically being told there's nothing they can do apart from offering a replacement phone at discounted price, she found a phone repair/data recovery guy and left the phone with him.
Initially she was told he will be able to get back to her with the findings and whether the recovery attempt will be successful within 2-3 days.
Then when she followed up after a few days, she was told that he confirmed water damage (she dropped the phone in the bathroom basin with water running and her screen was already cracked so I presume water got in) and that they attempted to repair and tested it but the phone turned off immediately so they have to work out what's wrong and re-test.
She followed up couple of times in the next 2-3 weeks but got told they were still working on it and to just wait patiently.
Fast track to today, she was told that they manage to repair it but there is zero data on the phone and he tried to convince her that she must have done a factory reset, which seems impossible given that nothing worked on the phone before she handed it over. She was obviously upset as she asked for their data recovery service, not simply to repair the phone back to working order. It appeared that they made a boo-boo and somehow did a factory reset. They also tried to convince her that they have no way of resetting the data without her passcode, which I don't think is true?(can someone confirm? I"m not an Apple person myself but quick search seems to suggest there are ways)
After the discussion got heated, she ended the conversation by saying she'll come back to him with what she decides to do. Then when she spoke to him the second time today to say she will meet him at his house (the repair business is run out of his home), he claimed that he is currently overseas and the phone is with him as well as they take all the phones overseas and gets them repaired overseas and then they are brought back to Australia. This rang alarm bells with me. At no point, he mentioned that repairs are not done on-site and taken overseas with no consent from the customers. He then said he will be back in the country in the next week or two so she could pick up the phone then.
A few key points of concern/to address:
1) He never informed her that phones are taken overseas for repair. He didn't seem to think this was a problem nor think that he is under any obligation to inform her this.
2) She left the phone with him for data recovery service, not a simple repair. Now they have somehow deleted all the data on it and just repaired the phone. What now? They still want to be paid the full quoted amount and basically saying either forfeit the phone or pay the quoted amount and pick up the phone
3) About a week ago, she had a suspicious transaction of small amount ($3-4) appear on her debit card, which is set up on her phone in Apple Wallet. She immediately contacted the bank and cancelled the card and transferred all money out of the account just in case. Is this just a coincidence? My gutfeel says otherwise. When she reported the fraudulent transaction to the bank, they asked if the card is set up on any device digital wallet and when she told the bank about the phone being with the repair shop, they recommended that she call them and check that the device is still with them and secure.
She called the repair guy right after this to confirm and he confirmed that the device is still with him (didn't say it's overseas) and just said the work should be completed in the next week or within the month at the latest.
What are the chance he's taking these phones offshore to steal data off the phones and doing something illegal? Maybe he wiped the phone clean after the hack?
4) Any recommended actions from here on? I think it's safe to say the data is gone permanently so the only decision is whether she just pays the guy and pick up the phone or forfeit it and just buy a new phone.
Phark me TLDR please