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How to know if a phone is currently being financed? (looking to buy)

A

andyACEcandy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 11, 2008
863
14
So the common scam now is that people are financing phones for $30/month but then they sell it and stop making payments on the phone. Thus, screwing whoever bought it.

How do you confirm if a phone is fully paid off? (or not being financed)? The IMEI will always be clean... and I don't think has anything to do with a phone being financed.
 
Hal~9000

Hal~9000

macrumors 68020
Sep 13, 2014
2,150
2,075
IMO if the person wants to be dishonest then there isn't any way to know without their original sales receipt showing the IMEI# and payment made.

Lets say you ask them if they bought the phone through financing but they tell you they didn't and paid for it full retail... how do you know they're telling the truth? :confused:

Good luck finding a seller who keeps their original sales receipt, I know I never have.
 
T

threezero

macrumors 6502
Aug 22, 2008
381
1
andyACEcandy said:
So the common scam now is that people are financing phones for $30/month but then they sell it and stop making payments on the phone. Thus, screwing whoever bought it.

How do you confirm if a phone is fully paid off? (or not being financed)? The IMEI will always be clean... and I don't think has anything to do with a phone being financed.
Click to expand...

I don't understand how this scam work. If the person sign a cellular contract for the phone at say extra $30/month. They turn around and sell that phone, they would still be stuck with the $30/month. You cannot tell your cellular provider that you no long have the phone and thus will not be paying for the extra fee as that's what an contract is for.

The person he sold it to will have an iPhone lock to the contract provider cellular network but otherwise the new owner would not need to pay for the previous owner's $30/month as the contract was sign under the previous owners name for a their cellular plan.

So the scammer would be out of brand new phone, have couple hundred dollar in their pocket but still have to continue paying the $30/month. The new owner would have a locked phone which would be very obvious on the spot and he could choose to buy or not buy it. A very fair scam for both side I have to say so no scam actually occur.

Or maybe you are talking about taking out a loan from some third party creditor to finance the phone? In which case the financing contract would still be tie to the original owner (aka they can't stop paying if they break/lose/sell) the phone. So they still have to keep paying for it and the financing institution have zero legal rights to pursue the new owner to pay for an contract sign by the previous owner.

Add to that if it's financing they a creditor, they would not be able to perform imei lock.

Either way it seem like the buyer doesn't loose out on anything other than possibly getting a locked to provider phone. You can check this on the spot with your own sim card

I don't understand the scam. Please enlighten me. Seem like the buyer is scamming the seller because the seller obviously have the worse end of the deal here.

I think if they are trying to scam it's much easier to knock you out when they meet up with you and take your money so they have both the phone and the money.
 
P

Paddle1

macrumors 601
May 1, 2013
4,813
3,120
threezero said:
I don't understand how this scam work. If the person sign a cellular contract for the phone at say extra $30/month. They turn around and sell that phone, they would still be stuck with the $30/month. You cannot tell your cellular provider that you no long have the phone and thus will not be paying for the extra fee as that's what an contract is for.

The person he sold it to will have an iPhone lock to the contract provider cellular network but otherwise the new owner would not need to pay for the previous owner's $30/month as the contract was sign under the previous owners name for a their cellular plan.

So the scammer would be out of brand new phone, have couple hundred dollar in their pocket but still have to continue paying the $30/month. The new owner would have a locked phone which would be very obvious on the spot and he could choose to buy or not buy it. A very fair scam for both side I have to say so no scam actually occur.

Or maybe you are talking about taking out a loan from some third party creditor to finance the phone? In which case the financing contract would still be tie to the original owner (aka they can't stop paying if they break/lose/sell) the phone. So they still have to keep paying for it and the financing institution have zero legal rights to pursue the new owner to pay for an contract sign by the previous owner.

Add to that if it's financing they a creditor, they would not be able to perform imei lock.

Either way it seem like the buyer doesn't loose out on anything other than possibly getting a locked to provider phone. You can check this on the spot with your own sim card

I don't understand the scam. Please enlighten me. Seem like the buyer is scamming the seller because the seller obviously have the worse end of the deal here.

I think if they are trying to scam it's much easier to knock you out when they meet up with you and take your money so they have both the phone and the money.
Click to expand...
They stop paying the $30 then the carrier blacklists the phone making it useless.
 
Truefan31

Truefan31

macrumors 68040
Aug 25, 2012
3,587
835
threezero said:
I don't understand how this scam work. If the person sign a cellular contract for the phone at say extra $30/month. They turn around and sell that phone, they would still be stuck with the $30/month. You cannot tell your cellular provider that you no long have the phone and thus will not be paying for the extra fee as that's what an contract is for.



The person he sold it to will have an iPhone lock to the contract provider cellular network but otherwise the new owner would not need to pay for the previous owner's $30/month as the contract was sign under the previous owners name for a their cellular plan.



So the scammer would be out of brand new phone, have couple hundred dollar in their pocket but still have to continue paying the $30/month. The new owner would have a locked phone which would be very obvious on the spot and he could choose to buy or not buy it. A very fair scam for both side I have to say so no scam actually occur.



Or maybe you are talking about taking out a loan from some third party creditor to finance the phone? In which case the financing contract would still be tie to the original owner (aka they can't stop paying if they break/lose/sell) the phone. So they still have to keep paying for it and the financing institution have zero legal rights to pursue the new owner to pay for an contract sign by the previous owner.



Add to that if it's financing they a creditor, they would not be able to perform imei lock.



Either way it seem like the buyer doesn't loose out on anything other than possibly getting a locked to provider phone. You can check this on the spot with your own sim card



I don't understand the scam. Please enlighten me. Seem like the buyer is scamming the seller because the seller obviously have the worse end of the deal here.



I think if they are trying to scam it's much easier to knock you out when they meet up with you and take your money so they have both the phone and the money.
Click to expand...


You report it stolen after the sale.
 
C

C DM

macrumors Sandy Bridge
Oct 17, 2011
51,392
19,458
Paddle1 said:
They stop paying the $30 then the carrier blacklists the phone making it useless.
Click to expand...

The thing is the carrier financed it like any other loan at that point and should be going after the money and not disabling the device. They have the loan on the original owner and should be going after that to collect on it.

----------
Truefan31 said:
You report it stolen after the sale.
Click to expand...

That's a slightly different version of thst. But shouldn't be allowed to do that either. Carriers really need to work this system out. They've done it with cars they can surely do it with things like phones.
 
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