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eBay- source of stolen iPhones

Tsuchiya

Tsuchiya

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 7, 2008
2,310
372
Since when did eBay get so lax about this kind of stuff? There are dozens of these phones listed, attracting bids and seemingly avoid any scrutiny from eBay.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_t...ged&_nkw=iphone+5s+damaged&_sacat=0&_from=R40

Pretty much all have iCloud activation issues, and this one in particular made me laugh:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Iphone-5s...67547?pt=UK_Mobile_Phones&hash=item3a9585a79b

The seller openly admits that he just found the phone and immediately sought to list it:confused:

You can't even report suspected stolen items because their stupid customer support thing will only accept allegations from the police.
 
eBay doesn't care. They make money off of this filthy criminality and can claim plausible deniability.
 
Yeah, ebay could care less. They sit back and relax under the pretense of not being able to monitor it...
 
eBay doesn't care nor do they have the manpower to monitor millions of listings for things that may be from questionable sources. Buyers have to pay attention to what they're buying.

In terms of legality they probably require police because who are you to determine whether or not an item is stolen? Things could get pretty messy if they start letting regular users accuse each other of having stolen goods.

Plus eBay is making money of those sales so there's even less incentive to police them.
 
My sister got caught on Gumtree buying a iCloud locked 5. She reported it to the police and they told her to hold on to it.
I told her to sell it for parts on eBay
 
JayLenochiniMac said:
Since when? More like they've always been that way. Stolen iPhones will continue to be hot commodities until ebay and our legislature do something about it.
Click to expand...

It really sucks. I'm guessing a lot of people who willingly buy these iCloud blocked iPhones know what the deal is :confused:
 
Tsuchiya said:
It really sucks. I'm guessing a lot of people who willingly buy these iCloud blocked iPhones know what the deal is :confused:
Click to expand...

eBay could change their policy and not allow sales of locked and bad ESN phones but choose to ignore the issue. As long as there is any market and people are willing to purchase obviously stolen phones for parts the theft problem will continue.
 
eBay- source of stolen iPhones

EDH667 said:
eBay could change their policy and not allow sales of locked and bad ESN phones but choose to ignore the issue. As long as there is any market and people are willing to purchase obviously stolen phones for parts the theft problem will continue.
Click to expand...


Exactly.

Carriers have webpages that allow you to see if an ESN is reported stolen. eBay could tie into these websites to automatically check for bad ESNs. They could work with Apple to weed out iCloud-locked devices. eBay appears to just look the other way.

IMO eBay is complicit in this lawless filth of black market thieves dealing in stolen phones.
 
EDH667 said:
eBay could change their policy and not allow sales of locked and bad ESN phones but choose to ignore the issue. As long as there is any market and people are willing to purchase obviously stolen phones for parts the theft problem will continue.
Click to expand...
Not all blacklisted phones are stolen
 
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