I just listed my iPhone on ebay and restored it and it is currently at the plug into itunes screen. I took out my sim and it says it needs a valid sim to activate. Should I be nice and go ahead and activate it with my old sim (new one in iPhone 4) or should I leave them to get an AT&T sim and activate it themselves? I would feel bad if the buyer bought it with all intention to use it as an iPod and find this out. What would you do/ did you do?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
selling iPhone on ebay, activate or not?
- Thread starter bumzo1
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Learned from experience
I sold one on ebay and left it sealed in the box and did not activate it. It sounds crazy, but AT&T seemed like they had no idea what they were doing. The person who bought my phone had an impossible time activating it. They were fortunate I was a nice person and helped give them some direction, because AT&T sure didn't. They went to the AT&T store that told them they could not help unless I activated the phone. Then they spent 2 hours on the phone with customer service and called me and told me they would need to deactivate my sim card in my phone to activate the phone I had sold.
Long story short, I sent the person back to the AT&T store and told them to get a blank Sim card from AT&T. They were able to then activate the phone, but what a pain.
Activate it - tell the buyer is is activated for them. Should not hurt the selling price and will save a lot of aggravation.
I sold one on ebay and left it sealed in the box and did not activate it. It sounds crazy, but AT&T seemed like they had no idea what they were doing. The person who bought my phone had an impossible time activating it. They were fortunate I was a nice person and helped give them some direction, because AT&T sure didn't. They went to the AT&T store that told them they could not help unless I activated the phone. Then they spent 2 hours on the phone with customer service and called me and told me they would need to deactivate my sim card in my phone to activate the phone I had sold.
Long story short, I sent the person back to the AT&T store and told them to get a blank Sim card from AT&T. They were able to then activate the phone, but what a pain.
Activate it - tell the buyer is is activated for them. Should not hurt the selling price and will save a lot of aggravation.
That all seems very unnecessary. If they already have AT&T then they just insert their current SIM. If not, AT&T will give them one when they sign up for service.
Just activate it, it takes 2 seconds.
This way they dont get confused or the runaround from AT&T.
This way they dont get confused or the runaround from AT&T.