What was the word? Ah, disinformation.
The nicest quote is possibly
The thieves then used a phishing attack to get his iCloud password.
Fishing against whom? The victim did not have their iPhone anymore. And at that point, the thieves were supposed to have added their own “authorized” number, and to do that they must have already been logged in the “victim’s” AppleID.
Anyone going back home after a robbery would probably NOT click on any suspicious message from Apple.
And they didn’t unlock their phone, did they?
IDK, this sounds like a lot of contrived BS.
Account recovery DOES need an overhaul, but fake news stories are probably not the best way to expedite one.
EDIT: I just remembered where I heard this story first. It was a Reddit post from a few weeks ago. The poster was evidently a troll and was downvoted into oblivion.