What happened to icloud.com/activationlock page? I'm working in a pawnshop and when people attempt to sell or pawn an iDevice, I used to check its serial number or IMEI in icloud.com/activationlock. Now, without that tool, I'm concerned about activated phones that bypassed the activation lock with third party solutions.

Once a co-worked bought an iPhone 5 with iOS 7 apparently without iCloud account, when she tried to reset the phone, the activation lock asked for the owner's Apple ID, then I found the Apple's official tool to check phones IMEI and since, it has been very useful.

First, I want to know why Apple got rid of that page? And there is another alternative to check the activation lock status of an iDevice?
Apple removed it.  It was being used as part of a hack (a very detailed hack) to allow people to get around Activation Lock.