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Original poster

Please can you help? Been ripped off with DS Christmas Gift.

111 replies

Gossipmonster · 17/11/2013 17:02

Last resort is to ask here dear Mumsnetters.

Can anyone offer me some advice please?

OH bought DS an iphone 4S from Gumtree yesterday for £140 for Christmas. We could not afford to buy him a brand new one.

It has been updated to ios 7 and restored to factory settings. Problem is that it is already linked to an apple account. Person we bought it from is refusing to communicate with us and seems unable to remove the device from the iTunes account. Meaning it is useless and the money I had put by for DS present has gone :( We have 5 other kids to buy for.

I have contacted the police who were really helpful and say it is not registered as stolen but was checked a few months ago at a cash converters suggesting the person we bought it from has experienced the same issues and just passed it on to us.

Police have suggested contacting Apple (which we did yesterday and then can't help) or taking it to a phone unlocking shop. We have reported the seller to Gumtree but that is not going to get us a refund.

Does anyone have any experience of this and know of any solutions?

TIA

OP posts:
MaidOfStars · 17/11/2013 22:11

My understanding is that the OP is faced with the activation lock feature enabled by a previous owner via Find My iPhone, and now a default setting in the new iOS7. There is NO WAY to access the phone without the setup email/password. It's not like you can sign in with a different account.

In the most generous situation, the person who sold the phone to the OP has updated to iOS7 and performed a factory reset while neglecting to deactivate the activation lock setting in Find My iPhone. In this case, there is still hope that the OP may hear from the seller, who can unlink his account from the device.

Less generously, he robbed the phone. Or bought it as stolen (perhaps innocently).

Caitlin17 · 17/11/2013 22:18

Did you pay through PayPal? You might be able to set up a claim through them if seller won't help.

DrinkFeckArseGirls · 17/11/2013 22:19

Threaten the seller with reporting him to the police. Or maybe indeed do that.

Original poster
Gossipmonster · 17/11/2013 22:23

Have reported to police is not stolen :(

OP posts:
Original poster
Gossipmonster · 17/11/2013 22:26

But police think he got it from a cash converters and faced same prob and has just passed it in to us :(

OP posts:
IAlwaysThought · 17/11/2013 22:47

It might be reported as stolen in the next few weeks.

Have you any info on the guy that sold it to you. You could text him that you need him to return the money otherwise you are going to have to give your CTV footage of him ( Confused ) and his car to the police.

EirikurNoromaour · 17/11/2013 22:58

I know this doesn't help now, but for future reference (and anyone else thinking about it) never pay cash for anything like this on gumtree. eBay and PayPal protect your transaction, I bought an unlocked iPhone on eBay that ended up being locked to a network, paypal refunded no questions asked. Gumtree is free to advertise on and attracts all kinds of low life who are out to rip people off.

tiktok · 17/11/2013 23:31

Unlocking an iPhone for a new user is a nightmare. I have just done it, but because the phone was previously locked to Orange I had to pay £20, and I made several calls to the Orange tech helpline, who then have to liaise with Apple. It has taken 2 mths. I needed the previous owners Apple ID to do all this, and to erase the phone of all her previous stuff in order to make it mine.

My understanding is this can only be done if you know the previous owner's login details....and all this is why on ebay, you see iPhones as 'unlocked'. Anything else is useless.

Gossip I think this is a case of buyer beware - a bit of research online 'how to buy a used iPhone' would have helped, sorry :(

Hope you get fixed up somehow.

IAlwaysThought · 17/11/2013 23:33

Another problem with buying on gumtree is that sellers will report phones as being stolen after they have sold them so they can get your cash and claim on their insurance.

You end up with a blocked phone and no cash.

roses2 · 18/11/2013 08:08

Yet another reason why I'll never buy an Apple product....

SoupDragon · 18/11/2013 08:20

Really? Personally I'm pleased that there is this protection should my phone get stolen. It isn't Apple's fault that there are unscrupulous bastards out there.

SoupDragon · 18/11/2013 08:21

The problem here is with the seller, not Apple.

Joysmum · 18/11/2013 08:27

This is exactly why we have iPhones, their security is fab. We can also block a duck content on DDs phone and find her phone when she is out.

HyvaPaiva · 18/11/2013 08:29

Exactly what SoupDragon said.

EirikurNoromaour · 18/11/2013 08:33

I'm over the moon with this feature. I'd love to know that if some cunt bucket steals my phone it's useless to them. However it needs to be better known about when considering legitimate sales of second hand items.

Chattymummyhere · 18/11/2013 08:34

We has this with an iPod..

The guy soon remembered the password when dh said he would be back in 15mins with the phones and dogs and he was to unlock or money back.

It could be innocent have you tried ringing the guy your brought it off?

JohnnyBarthes · 18/11/2013 08:41

Apple are the problem here if after a reasonable period during which the phone isn't reported stolen, they refuse or cannot unlock it.

The original owner might not have known to disassociate themselves from it (and given that this feature had been imposed on people in the recent automatic update, that's understandable), they could have died, they might have stopped using Apple.

If the bottom falls out of the 2nd hand iPhone market, having a negative impact on the sale of new phones (people buy new knowing their phone has a resale value), they might just change their policy.

34DD · 18/11/2013 09:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NicknameIncomplete · 18/11/2013 09:04

As the police think he might have bought it from a cash converters could you contact them? They might have the original owners details. Not sure if they would pass them on to you though.

SoupDragon · 18/11/2013 09:11

Apple are the problem here if after a reasonable period during which the phone isn't reported stolen, they refuse or cannot unlock it.

Rubbish. The fault lies with the (supposed) thief and the person who sold it on. If a person sells on the phone of a "dead relative" then they need to ensure it is unlocked - if they sell it and refuse to refund when it is unusable that is their fault, not Apple's.

SoupDragon · 18/11/2013 09:13

This would have stopped the wanker who stole DS2's iPod Touch and continued to use it despite being offered a reward and being given contact details multiple times via a messaging service.

JohnnyBarthes · 18/11/2013 09:24

How do you unlock a dead person's iPhone?

GhostsInSnow · 18/11/2013 09:26

I also think the handset will be reported stolen in the next few months.

A cautious tale, and I'm sure you now know why not to buy a second hand iphone but can I just say the same actually applies to any second hand handset.

What can happen is you buy from gumtree/eBay etc, phone works, you are happy then 6 months down the line the handset is reported as stolen so they can obtain a replacement handset and profit from the sale. By this time they are banking on you no longer having contact details.

This happened to DH some years ago with an Android phone sold as 'unwanted upgrade'. Fortunately for him we collected it and I'm quite anal about text message deleting so I still had all his details in a text message. We paid him a visit, he was visibly shocked to see us on his doorstep, mumbling and stuttering about reporting the wrong phone as stolen. It was reasonably clear he was new to this and thought he could pull a fast one. We insisted he call T-Mobile and un-report the phone as stolen and actually register ownership to DH's account who was also on T-Mobile. He did, phone was unblocked and we went away having learned a lesson to never buy a second hand handset from anyone who we didn't know well.

SoupDragon · 18/11/2013 09:27

How do you unlock a dead person's iPhone?

I have no idea but you don't act like a wanker and sell it on.

If you can prove it is not stolen by providing the death certificate of the registered owner, who knows - Apple may actually be able to unlock it. They should not unlock a phone you can not prove isn't stolen.

SoupDragon · 18/11/2013 09:29

I thought it was common sense/knowledge that you should leave a note of any passwords etc with, say, a will in the event of your untimely demise.