Not my email.
October 31, 2014 1:59 PM Subscribe
Recently got a new iPhone 6 from Sprint. Today I went to the Find My iPhone app for the first time and someone else's email address is in the email field although it is not logged in. Why is that? No one has had access to my phone. The email address in question is timberlakejs@gmail.com if it matters. Maybe I'm dumb and this is standard, but I couldn't find any answers on Google.
Response by poster: It was not refurbished, supposed to be brand new.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 2:08 PM on October 31, 2014
posted by MaryDellamorte at 2:08 PM on October 31, 2014
Response by poster: What things should I look for to see if it was a possible refurb?
posted by MaryDellamorte at 2:09 PM on October 31, 2014
posted by MaryDellamorte at 2:09 PM on October 31, 2014
My guess (and that's all it is) is that the phone was a store display or the like and someone was playing around with it in store. If it's cosmetically perfect you could do a hard reset on it and be assured there's nothing else on there, or you'd be in your rights to take it back and exchange it.
posted by randomkeystrike at 2:10 PM on October 31, 2014
posted by randomkeystrike at 2:10 PM on October 31, 2014
Response by poster: If it matters, I restored my new phone from an iCloud backup from an iPhone 5.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 2:18 PM on October 31, 2014
posted by MaryDellamorte at 2:18 PM on October 31, 2014
That really does look like a test email address somebody might have entered ... unless you think Justin Timberlake has been hacking your cloud backups.
posted by yogalemon at 2:29 PM on October 31, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by yogalemon at 2:29 PM on October 31, 2014 [6 favorites]
What things should I look for to see if it was a possible refurb?
Any photos in there, calendar entries, contacts, bookmarks or browser history, any of the less likely to be deleted stuff, but being as you restored it from an old back up I am baffled how that wouldn't wipe it all out unless your old iphone backup had that email in it somewhere. Did you use find my iphone before and logged in with your apple ID?
Other than that I am stumped.
posted by Brockles at 2:33 PM on October 31, 2014
Any photos in there, calendar entries, contacts, bookmarks or browser history, any of the less likely to be deleted stuff, but being as you restored it from an old back up I am baffled how that wouldn't wipe it all out unless your old iphone backup had that email in it somewhere. Did you use find my iphone before and logged in with your apple ID?
Other than that I am stumped.
posted by Brockles at 2:33 PM on October 31, 2014
Justin Timberlake is in some of the new iPhone 6 commercials. Is it possible that this is some kind of built-in Easter Egg or something?
posted by Rock Steady at 2:56 PM on October 31, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by Rock Steady at 2:56 PM on October 31, 2014 [4 favorites]
I would return and get a brand new one.
I wouldn't trust a supposedly brand new phone that has been touched by someone else (no matter how many clean installs I did)
Call me paranoid but if I bought a new phone, I'd want a new phone and I'd want Sprint to have clean enough practices to guarantee me a new phone.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 2:56 PM on October 31, 2014 [4 favorites]
I wouldn't trust a supposedly brand new phone that has been touched by someone else (no matter how many clean installs I did)
Call me paranoid but if I bought a new phone, I'd want a new phone and I'd want Sprint to have clean enough practices to guarantee me a new phone.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 2:56 PM on October 31, 2014 [4 favorites]
There's a Yelp reviewer with the username timberlakejs.yelp.com in your city. It seems likely to me that he (and not the other Justin Timberlake) bought that phone and returned it. And it was then repackaged and sold to you. So maybe not a refurb but just a return without significant use.
posted by Beti at 3:33 PM on October 31, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by Beti at 3:33 PM on October 31, 2014 [5 favorites]
Exact same thing happened to me (but a different email address). I upgraded from a 4S, restored my iCloud backup and was momentarily weirded out. Cancelled out of it, entered in my password when it prompted for my email address and all's been fine since then.
posted by Twicketface at 3:36 PM on October 31, 2014
posted by Twicketface at 3:36 PM on October 31, 2014
Email that email address explaining this and asking. What if that is Justin Timberlake's email? That would be a good story.
The real answer though is that I would return it. That shit isn't new if someone else's email address is loaded in it.
posted by AppleTurnover at 5:10 PM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]
The real answer though is that I would return it. That shit isn't new if someone else's email address is loaded in it.
posted by AppleTurnover at 5:10 PM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]
When a recent update failed and crashed my iPhone 5 so I had to restore to factory settings, I had the same issue of a completely random email address showing up and asking for authentication after I had restored from iCloud backup.
Having talked this over with some very smart people, we figured out that the email address was the authenticated user in iTunes of one of the mp3 files that I used to have loaded on that phone. I think someone sent me a disk of files, and I imported them to my music library ages ago. They had played fine for years without issue, but for some reason it tried to load that email address as mine, probably because it was alphabetically before my own. Like for wicketface, once I had signed in to my own Apple account again, the prompt disappeared and hasn't come back.
posted by gemmy at 6:07 PM on October 31, 2014 [2 favorites]
Having talked this over with some very smart people, we figured out that the email address was the authenticated user in iTunes of one of the mp3 files that I used to have loaded on that phone. I think someone sent me a disk of files, and I imported them to my music library ages ago. They had played fine for years without issue, but for some reason it tried to load that email address as mine, probably because it was alphabetically before my own. Like for wicketface, once I had signed in to my own Apple account again, the prompt disappeared and hasn't come back.
posted by gemmy at 6:07 PM on October 31, 2014 [2 favorites]
I had two friends who upgraded recently. Both were on AT&T, one upgraded to an iPhone 6 and one upgraded to an iPhone 5. They both restored from a backup on their computers via iTunes. When they looked at the health app in iOS 8 they both had the same issue that you did. They both had a different email address and name listed in the Health app as the owner of the iPhone. However, in both cases they recognized the email that was there, which means they knew the person.
It turns out that in both cases, the iPhone had decided that one of their contacts was the owner of the iPhone, and use that information to auto fill all of the places the owners ID information would go. They did not have a contact saved in their phone with their own information in it. Once they added a contact with their own information and tagged it as the owner of the iPhone, everything auto filled correctly.
I would check to see if you have that email address saved as one of your contacts. Don't forget to check and see if your have linked to Facebook contacts to your own contacts. It may be a Facebook friend's email address. Also make sure you have a contact saved in your phone that is your information. You should be able to mark it as "me" or something like that, then iPhone would recognize that contact as the owner of the iPhone.
posted by MultiFaceted at 12:14 AM on November 1, 2014 [1 favorite]
It turns out that in both cases, the iPhone had decided that one of their contacts was the owner of the iPhone, and use that information to auto fill all of the places the owners ID information would go. They did not have a contact saved in their phone with their own information in it. Once they added a contact with their own information and tagged it as the owner of the iPhone, everything auto filled correctly.
I would check to see if you have that email address saved as one of your contacts. Don't forget to check and see if your have linked to Facebook contacts to your own contacts. It may be a Facebook friend's email address. Also make sure you have a contact saved in your phone that is your information. You should be able to mark it as "me" or something like that, then iPhone would recognize that contact as the owner of the iPhone.
posted by MultiFaceted at 12:14 AM on November 1, 2014 [1 favorite]
In addition, my iPhone did not have that problem when I upgraded to I OS 8. I have always had a contact saved that has my contact information in it. Somehow it knew that was me and auto filled that information into my phone after I upgraded and restored from a backup.
posted by MultiFaceted at 12:15 AM on November 1, 2014
posted by MultiFaceted at 12:15 AM on November 1, 2014
I mean, you could go back complain that your new phone wasn't wiped, or you could just wipe it yourself. It's a phone, and it works. What would you expect to get from that ordeal, a free iPad for your struggle? You'd probably just get a different wiped phone. Do it yourself and save everyone the fuss.
posted by oceanjesse at 7:27 AM on November 1, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by oceanjesse at 7:27 AM on November 1, 2014 [2 favorites]
I had the same problem! Same email address too! I was totally freaked out. I didn't do anything about it.
This happened on my iPhone 4S - which, I actually got as a replacement from T-Mobile. My iPhone 4S had some weird issues with the microphone, so I got a new one from the warranty. They sent it to me in the mail and the package was just the iPhone, not in the original case - so I'm guessing it was refurbished.
Now, my best guess is that this is some sort of data left over from a refurbishing/wiping process that they do for iPhone.
posted by carmel at 6:57 PM on November 1, 2014 [1 favorite]
This happened on my iPhone 4S - which, I actually got as a replacement from T-Mobile. My iPhone 4S had some weird issues with the microphone, so I got a new one from the warranty. They sent it to me in the mail and the package was just the iPhone, not in the original case - so I'm guessing it was refurbished.
Now, my best guess is that this is some sort of data left over from a refurbishing/wiping process that they do for iPhone.
posted by carmel at 6:57 PM on November 1, 2014 [1 favorite]
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posted by Brockles at 2:07 PM on October 31, 2014