While Apple has yet to publicly acknowledge the iMessage exploit that has gotten increased attention over the last few months, a report from The Next Web details a consumer's difficulties following the theft of her iPhone that eventually end with Apple issuing her a free iPod touch for her troubles. It took a long time to get to that point, however — after losing her phone, she did not wipe it with Find My iPhone, but she did have the SIM card deactivated. Unfortunately, friends continued to send iMessages to her that were marked as "delivered" despite there being no iDevice in her possession to receive them on. After six weeks of back and forth with Apple and attempted solutions like changing the Apple ID password and swapping her new SIM into an Apple Store's test phone, Apple finally was able to "remotely push code" out to the stolen iPhone that stopped the problem — and this solution only came about after Apple's engineering team intervened.

While the technical troubles were over, this unnamed user sought restitution from Apple's legal department — not for the loss of her iPhone, but for the lost time and privacy of her messages being sent to her old phone for over a month. After intially balking, Apple relented and gave the consumer an iPod touch, so she'd at least have a device with which to receive her iMessages. The Next Web reportedly has seen the AppleCare order for the iPod touch in question, with it referencing the victim's case number. While it seems Apple is dealing with this issue on a case-by-case basis, we're hoping that the company has an official response and fix out before any more customers have to go through an experience like this.