Sold iphone on Ebay, now buyer wants to return - plaese help

**woody123**

Hi all,


I know you are going to slate me for it, but I went ahead and sold my unlocked iphone4 on E-bay.


I sent it via recorded delivery and the buyer received it yesterday afternoon.


The seller wants to return the phone because she says it is locked to my icloud account and she can't log into hers because of that. I have never used icloud with that phone, but I said I would help her sort the problem anyway.


There are several free sites where you enter the imei number and it unlocks the phone from icloud.


Her reply to my offer of help was that she didn't want the hassle, and had already purchased a replacement phone for delivery today. I find this very unfair as I have offered help and she has sought a replacement within just a few hours of my phone not working and not given me a chance to intervene.


She says its for her son and she needs a phone asap, and I must pay return postage.


I know it will end up being my word against hers but do I have a leg to stand on here if I play hard ball. I don't know whether I should just accept the phone is going to be returned and look into the issue myself once I receive it.


Ebay have told me to escalate the claim if anything is wrong with the phone once returned.


Any help or advice is much appreciated. I have sold items before but I'm not an experienced seller.

bxboards

You have no chance to defend this, but if you do decide to escalate take a look at this: 'I sent it via recorded delivery and the seller received it yesterday afternoon.The seller wants to return the phone because she says it is locked to my icloud '

YOU are the seller. If you want to escalate to Ebay you need to be 100% on your communication with them. But I would say you'd be wasting your time. and you might as well accept the return gracefully.

**woody123**

bxboards wrote: »

You have no chance to defend this, but if you do decide to escalate take a look at this: 'I sent it via recorded delivery and the seller received it yesterday afternoon.The seller wants to return the phone because she says it is locked to my icloud '

YOU are the seller. If you want to escalate to Ebay you need to be 100% on your communication with them. But I would say you'd be wasting your time. and you might as well accept the return gracefully.

Thanks for that I've edited my post. Thanks for highlighting my error.


It's as I thought really then, I just think it's unfair when I'm not even sure there is an issue with the phone, and still she won't let me help regardless. I think that she changed her mind soon after receiving it and is looking for ways to return without incurring costs herself.


She actually messaged me and said that she no longer wants it regardless if I can sort the problem or not.


I'll agree to the return later when I get home then.

Polmop

Make sure it is your phone when you get it back, it could be a blocked phone that she bought somewhere else

mrcol1000

Not everyone is tech savvy and willing to follow instructions on a website to unlock a phone. If I brought one as unlocked and fully working I'd expect to be able to do everything with it.

I'd accept the return but just make sure the phone is one you sent. Unlock it yourself. Then resell. Block the original buyer so you don't have to deal with them again.

Also I don't know the value of a second hand iphone4 is, but are you sure it is fully covered recorded/signed for?

**woody123**

Hi,


The phone sold for just over £40.


It is certainly network unlocked, as I provided proof in a screenshot on my listing, but she is saying that she can't access her icloud because mine is still active on that device.



I was going to help unlock it for her by following instructions online and then the phone would have been working.

She later said that the phone was bought for her son.


The strange thing is I never used icloud on that phone!!


Thanks I will definitely check it's my phone. I do have the imei number so will check it's not a locked one she's sent back. That happens often but mostly to phones worth a lot more cash.


Thanks again for the input.

glentoran99

You probably did use icloud without realising as its the default setup, you remove from icloud legitimately and not through a dodgy site


https://support.apple.com/kb/ph2702?locale=en_GB

lstar337

mrcol1000 wrote: »

Not everyone is tech savvy and willing to follow instructions on a website to unlock a phone. If I brought one as unlocked and fully working I'd expect to be able to do everything with it.

Some people are really dippy though.

I sold my old iPhone on FB (thankfully), and I reset all of it to factory settings. I know what I am doing with this so I knew it would be trouble free. A couple of days later I get a message asking for the password. I told her there was no password on it because 1. I never had a password, and 2. I reset the phone to factory settings so there should be no trace of my account on it anyway. Anyway she wouldn't listen so I said to bring th phone to me and I would take a look at it.

As it turned out, she was going through the 'first run' setup and it was asking her to set a password for herself. :rotfl:

I pointed this out and she said still didn't believe me, but she would take the phone anyway. I'm guessing she was trying to save face.

RMS2

It's ebay. Prepare to bend over and be rogered. It you don't hand the money back, then ebay/paypal will do it on your behalf.

nzxt

This happened to me, only because I had, Find My Phone activated through icloud. you can log in from a browser and unlink it.

The buyer will then be able to input their icloud details and activate the phone.

**woody123**

nzxt wrote: »

This happened to me, only because I had, Find My Phone activated through icloud. you can log in from a browser and unlink it.

The buyer will then be able to input their icloud details and activate the phone.

This is what i thought the problem was originally. I logged into icloud and removed my current (new) phone from the account just incase as they are both named similarly.

I've never used findmyphone.

I'll get the phone back tomorrow hopefully, so i'll find out what the problem actually is. If it turns out to be my fault i'll apologise to the buyer and refund straight away.