phone scam

[1xsculler]

Whenever you buy a phone from other than a national carrier, i.e. craigslist, ebay, etc., there are two things you must do.
1. Verify that the IMEI is good and activate the phone by calling your cellular service provider.
2. Get WRITTEN PROOF from whoever you are buying the phone from that the phone is paid for IN FULL. Your carrier may, or may not, provide you with that info.

Ebay has a 30 day buyer protection plan and Paypal's is 180 days.

I bought a new S9+, called Verizon about the IMEI which they said was good and they activated the phone for me and I used it for four months only to have Verizon brick it because there was money owing on it which was not being paid. Verizon said it usually took about 120 days to finally cut somebody off when the phone was, in effect, stolen from them because it was obvious it wasn't going to be paid off.

Fortunately Paypal stood by their Buyer Protection Police and refunded my $770.

I now, after considerable research, don't even think the guy I bought it from knew that it was a stolen phone.

Caveat Emptor! I think that means buyer beware.

 

[Mikestony]

Holy crap! Four months and you found that out?! That sucks, but good thing PayPal got you sorted.

Just when you think all is on the up-and-up, a curveball gets thrown at you.

 

[psionandy]

Caveat Emptor! indeed......

 

[Hadron]

Actually it's only with CDMA carriers like Verizon that you need to activate a phone at all. With the vast majority of networks worldwide you just stick a SIM in.

Anyway yes, thanks for the PSA - hopefully it will save someone else the hassle or cost.

As for whether the seller knew, who knows? I find it hard to believe that there are people so ignorant that they would believe that they could get a subsidised phone from a corporation, break the contract and that the corporation would just say "ok, that's fine, keep the phone", but experience says that a lot of people really don't think any more than they are forced to...

 

[joe71]

Never bought a phone off eBay, Amazon. Etc. All my phones were either purchase at brick and mortar carrier building (I have had service with the big four) or I purchased them at Kmart, target or Wal-Mart.
Only one phone was purchased online and that was my Nexus 6 order through the T-Mobile website.
Order in November of 2014 received January 2015