A Surrey woman was furious after her stolen iPhone surfaced at an Apple repair store and even though it was registered under her name, neither she nor the police could get it back.

When Nicky Olson's iPhone was stolen at a house party last Halloween she reported the theft to the RCMP. Months later, in February, she received an email from the Richmond Apple store saying her missing phone was in for repairs.

"I was ecstatic because I thought, wow, they found my phone. Someone turned it in, I could finally get it back. How often do you get to recover a stolen piece of property like that?" said Olson.

But when she went to the store to pick up the phone, Apple refused to hand it over to her, even though it was clearly registered to her.

"They basically said we can't turn it over because of privacy issues. They had to contact their legal department," said Olson.

So a Richmond RCMP officer went to the Apple store hoping to get Nicky's iPhone back. But when he arrived, staff there said they didn't know where Nicky's cell phone was.

"It would have been ideal if we had been notified. We could have attended to the store and hopefully made an arrest, and returned the phone to Ms. Olson. Unfortunately, that's not what we were able to do," said Cpl. Sherrdean Turley of the Richmond RCMP.

CTV consumer reporter Lynda Steele tried to get Apple on the phone to explain what went wrong in Nicky's case and what it's doing to help prevent future thefts. The calls went unanswered, but CTV did receive an email from Apple's PR department saying "Unfortunately, Apple does not comment on matters of security."

Nicky Olson thinks Apple could protect consumers and catch potential thieves simply by demanding ID when phones are brought in for servicing to compare them to the registration information.

The good news is, after five long months and several angry emails and phone calls to Apple, Nicky was finally given a replacement iPhone.

Richmond RCMP say iPhones are popular items for thieves to steal. They've already received 35 reports of stolen iPhones in the Richmond area alone since January.

Here are some ways to protect your iPhone:

  • record the serial number
  • install an app that lets you track the phone or remotely shut it down
  • password encode your Smartphone
  • don't keep sensitive information on the phone
  • report the theft to police
  • cancel the account immediately if it's stolen or missing

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Lynda Steele