Buying from Facebook market place

ahfat41

Interested to buy an SE IPhone from the above. Very good price but how do I know the phone is figgy or has been stolen? Any aevicecpl. I have always bought on eBay. Thanks

soolin

ahfat41 said:

Interested to buy an SE IPhone from the above. Very good price but how do I know the phone is figgy or has been stolen? Any aevicecpl. I have always bought on eBay. Thanks

You have no guarantees and no way of tracing the seller if it goes wrong further down the line. You have a measure of protection if you buy using PayPal goods and services as you are covered against item not arriving or not being as described. However you can’t protect yourself if phone works for a while then gets blacklisted later.

Even if you collect and pay cash you could run into issues later down the line. 

I have bought items in the £50 range, nothing dearer, and then only from facebook groups where I know the members , I  am inclined to be over cautious, and perhaps miss out on bargains but I do like to have a back up plan if something goes wrong .

MikeJXE

I'm Apple user and my advice is collect it but don't hand over money until you have checked it out

It should have been set to Factory settings and the way to tell is if when it switched on the screen displays 

HELLO 

Then you need to go through the instructions on the screen to be sure it is not still registered to an old Apple ID 

If it doesn't don't buy it. Simple 

MalMonroe

Hi, I wouldn't buy from Facebook Marketplace. I've seen too many posts on this very site from people who have - but have been scammed/ripped off and are asking for help to retrieve their money. 

Sometimes bargains are not bargains at all if you end up being scammed.  

My advice would be to look elsewhere. It'd be awful to see your post on here asking for help to recoup your cash.

GadgetGuru

Ive purchased phones via FaceBook marketplace several times, usually around £350-450. I will only meet at the sellers house (take a couple of mates with you), not at any other location. 

I insert a sim card and switch the handset on. Go through the setup as normal (don't bother with restoring any backup etc) until you get to the home screen. If you get that far, then the handset has passed activation (hence isn't blocked) and you should be fine. 

This doesn't stop someone from having the IMEI blacklisted layer down the line of course, but as long as you meet and check at the sellers house then at least you have the sellers actual details should anything go wrong.....as I said, I've always been ok though and my daughters have had heir phones (purchased via Facebook marketplace) for several years now....

ahfat41

Thanks. All comments noted. I was thinking of asking the seller to give me the imei so that I can check it is not stolen.

km1500

It won"t stolen. It will be blacklisted once the seller stops paying O2

soolin

km1500 said:

It won"t stolen. It will be blacklisted once the seller stops paying O2

yep, that's the common one. There's a thread somewhere here or on the consumer right board in the last few weeks where this exact thing happened.