Old phone is bricked at the Apple Store

TidBITS Talk
1

I went back to the Apple store to wipe my old phone and get it off iCloud. Somehow over the weekend, it drained the battery and is now stuck in what they call a “boot loop”.

They tried to restore it via iTunes, and could barely access it. The phone will not boot at all. (I never had issues like this before, just the draining battery since the iOS 12 update).

In iCloud on the new phone, I can still see the old phone and also see my credit card in Apple Pay. I’ve been trying to remove the credit card for 45 minutes and it keeps coming back.

They’ve assured me that the phone is being sent to the recycling center and will be melted down. Do I have any reason not to believe this?

I assume I should get a replacement credit card anyway.

Thanks
Diane

2

That seems overly cautious to me. Credit card information is stored on the Secure Enclave on an iOS device and cannot be accessed from the device itself (you only see the last four digits of the card number within the Wallet app). In order to spend with the iPhone using Apple Pay, somebody would have to unlock the device with your passcode or TouchID. Assuming that you can use “Find iPhone” from iCloud.com (or another device) to remotely erase the device, that should be more than enough. And, yes, if it were me, I would trust Apple to properly take care of wiping the device.

3

They turned off "Find iPhone” before taking it back to do the battery.

It’s currently showing as “Offline” - what happens if I hit Erase iPhone at this point?

I do have a password and TouchID setup on the old phone.

Thanks - I do expect it will be destroyed and I also expect there is a large pile of devices going through the same process.

Diane