Question about buying a warranty replacement iPhone

[andyx3x]

I'm probably going to buy a warranty replacement Verizon iPhone 4 tomorrow from a guy on Craigslist. He just got it a week ago and I asked him if iOS 5 was on the phone and he said it was iOS 4.2.10

This may be a dumb question but does that tell me whether or not the phone would be a refurb? He said it didn't come with a new box or accessories but I do know that replacement phones(new or refurbs) come like that so that doesn't tell me anything.

Thanks for any help here.

 

[scaredpoet]

I would ask the buyer where he got the replacement from: Apple store or Verizon store?

If it's Apple, you're getting either a new phone or remanufactured phone, which is just as good (if not better in some ways) as new. If it's Verizon, then it's a crapshoot what you could be getting: maybe it's new, maybe it's someone else's returned iPhone that went through who-knows-what. Or maybe it's someone else's defective iPhone that might have been serviced by Apple, or could've been serviced by an in-house Verizon tech, or maybe even by a third party repair depot like Solectron or Flextronics. And as you can guess, the quality of the repair (if not done by Apple) can vary widely.

 

[andyx3x]

Thanks for the tip. The person told me he swapped it a Verizon store. If I have the serial number, could Verizon tell me if the phone is new or not?

 

[scaredpoet]

you could try, but no guarantees. They might not even know for sure.

 

[andyx3x]

I think I'm going to buy it anyway. I've talked the guy down to $250 which is a great price. The warranty is good until 10/4/12 so if something goes wrong with the phone I can always take it to an Apple Store and get a real refurb.