Thread: Locked iPhone 7

Ok I'm an idiot. I bought an iPhone 7 plus off Craig's List that the seller claimed was a factory unlocked phone. Turns out it was a T-mobil locked and Blacklisted (stolen) phone. So now I have a $450 paperweight. My questions for the Mojo crowd are:
1) should I just turn it in to the police since it is clearly stolen property?
2) is there any way to get it unlocked and usable?
3) I should not be surprised since there was a major scam going on when the 7 first came out. People would use fake ID's and get free iphones by signing up for a long carrier service contract and then disappear. But I guess I did not realize that the unlock function the media was talking about was not getting past a users password it was getting past the lock that the carriers put on the phone until the service contract has been completed. The way to check if you are thinking about buying a used phone is to take a paperclip, stick it in the small hole on the side and pop out the SIM card. If a SIM card comes out don't buy it. You can also look up the phone serial numbers on a website that will tell you if it is locked, blacklisted (stolen) or both.

Originally Posted by Manster

The way to check if you are thinking about buying a used phone is to take a paperclip, stick it in the small hole on the side and pop out the SIM card. If a SIM card comes out don't buy it.

I always sell my old phones, with SIM cards...and mine are just fine.

When I buy anything on craigslist that involves big $$$s for things that are high potential theft items I always get a photo of the person holding the item and a related vehicle tag, or street address.

Originally Posted by Manster

The way to check if you are thinking about buying a used phone is to take a paperclip, stick it in the small hole on the side and pop out the SIM card.

So are you saying that you could actually turn the phone on and run it all the way thru setup?....but it just won't connect to cell service (via your SIM card)? I've bought a few phones off CL and I always turn them on and then run thru setup to see if its iCloud Unlocked. But I'm unsure if this would determine if it was actually 'stolen' from a carrier as new?

-CJB