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question about buying iphone off ebay
- Thread starter AndrewR23
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Always a risk the seller might report it as stolen at some point. Also a risk if the seller breaks their contract and doesn't pay the ETF which can get the carrier to blacklist the phone.
The problems remains is how you know if the owner paid it off or not.
You're right, and with a 6 or 6+, it's unlikely that the contract has been paid off, unless the seller cancelled the account and paid the ETF and all other amounts due.
What about with Verizon's iPhone ? Doesn't that come unlocked whether it's contract or not ?
It's unlocked by default. It still won't change much if the seller stops paying or reports it as stolen. You might find another network where it might not be blacklisted in a situation like that, but it might not be the network you want or can use, for example. It's not to say those things will happen or happen a lot, just that they can potentially happen.
Correct but if he's lying it will only be blacklisted on Verizon then. I'll be using it on att. But I'll return it or open PayPal claim first.
I recall that the blacklists are shared these days, so that might not work either (not a guarantee, but certainly possible).
Thank you for helping. Yeah if that were to happen I will 100% be opening a claim on Paypal and should win that case pretty easily.
Yeah, although if the seller had a year left he could put you in peril after the six month PP seller protection period ends.
Frankly, this discussion is a little difficult. Theoretically, all kinds of horrible things could happen, it's true. In real life, you probably stand a better chance of getting hit by lightning - twice in a row. Honestly, I've sold iPhones that were within my two year contract period several times and it would simply never occur to me to do that to someone. I know that stuff happens - people get fired, have catastrophic medical expenses, things like that, and have to ditch their phone contracts, but it's a very slim probability that it will ever cause you a problem with a phone.
I have a Verizon iPhone 6 that I use on AT&T. The advantage to this is that the phone is unlocked to GSM carriers. So if you travel overseas, just pop out your AT&T SIM and insert a local SIM card to use. Also, you can get more money for the phone being unlocked when you decide to sell it.
Based on my research, T-Mobile and possibly AT&T are not good to buy used because of their policies that basically treat the original buyer as the owner forever so they can blacklist it whenever they want. That, and, T-Mobile doesn't disclose any financial information so unless you can walk in the store with the person you can't tell if it's not paid off. That's assuming you trust the person in the first place.
Verizon/Sprint appear to have some measures in place to remove the original account and they cannot just blacklist the phone later on. They also will tell you if the phone is financed according to what people say.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-how-to-buy-a-brick-on-ebay.1893407/
Verizon/Sprint appear to have some measures in place to remove the original account and they cannot just blacklist the phone later on. They also will tell you if the phone is financed according to what people say.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-how-to-buy-a-brick-on-ebay.1893407/
Awesome thread, This guy sold me a Verizon 6 I'm going to use on ATT. I checked the IMEI which came up whitelisted but now I'm going to call Verizon to assure no contract is tied to the device.
Okay well I just called Verizon and the phone I just bought is linked to an account even though the guy said it was paid off and not tied to any contract.
WOW..have to open paypal claim.
EDIT-Will a blacklisted iPhone 6 Verizon still work with AT&T?
WOW..have to open paypal claim.
EDIT-Will a blacklisted iPhone 6 Verizon still work with AT&T?
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Thanks for checking my thread out. Before you open a paypal claim see if Verizon can authorize a transfer to your name.
Then I think the best way is to make sure the original owner's account is no longer tied to the phone (if it's paid off I don't think there's a reason it should be)
There's a risk, but it's hard to say that it's huge or even significant really.
As far as warranty (as in actual warranty that comes with the iPhone), that is attached to the device, so there would still be warranty on it from Apple.
Just an educated guess. But I think no more than 10% of iPhone (in USA) are purchased "full price" up front. ATT is saying 65% of their users are on ATT NEXT plans (installments). Plus you got people on 2 year contracts as well. So very few customers are paying "full price" up front for their iPhones.
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story...ans-q1-making-65-all-smartphone-us/2015-04-22
What's huge is the overstatement here. There is a clearly identifiable risk. The likelihood of actually getting burned is tiny.