Phone Selling Scam

[VHG]

If you are thinking of buying a mobile phone off ebay (or similar site) I heard about this scam recently.

A man saw a new mobile phone on ebay for £350 (unwanted upgrade they said).

He offered £350 cash and they dropped it off at his house and he paid the cash.

After 2 days the phone stopped working so he rang his phone company and they said the phone had been reported stolen so the phone was now "blocked".

He tried to phone the seller but could not contact them.

Seems what MAY have happened is that the person took out a phone contract, got the phone, sold it on ebay, then either reported the phone stolen, or cancelled the contract, or just never paid the monthly payments.

Either way the poor guy who paid £350 cash for a phone has now got an unworkable phone with little chance of getting his money back.

So buyers beware if you are thinking of buying a second hand mobile phone for cash !

[fiction-factory]

Isn't it the SIM that gets blocked? Can you just buy another SIM? I'm a bit unsure on this

[Old_Geezer]

Surely the service provider has the contract/credit details ? They may not wish to unblock the handset considering it stolen property, in which case why aren't they demanding their stolen property back ? But if it's considered sold and thus no longer theirs, they could unblock it and pursue the real bad guy through the credit details ?

[douglas9401]

A fool and his money.

[Old_Geezer]

Stolen handsets get their IMEI number blocked on UK service provider networks. Will probably work in other countries.

[VHG]

>>>Surely the service provider has the contract/credit details ?

He is on one service provider, and the phone contract was taken out on another service provider so there is only so much he can find out from the other service provider (data protection and all that).

Of course if the phone contract was taken out on a dodgy bank account or stolen bank card there is not much they can do.

This was discussed on another forum so I don't know ALL the details, but it is just a heads up really for anyone thinking of buying a second hand phone.

[Old_Geezer]

For sure, but the scammed individual shouldn't need to know that much were the providers to play fair. (Yeah, I know, fat chance.) He tells his provider, then they liaise with the scammer's provider.

[EDDIE51]

The moral here is NEVER pay cash always use PayPal. If he had done that PayPal would have refunded his money instantly.

[Canary42]

A useful heads-up VHG, even though ebay warn against cash payment transactions.

[TheChair]

This might help, although it can only tell if the phone is already marked as stolen, if it's a genuine model, and if there's outstanding finance.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/mobile-phone/how-check-whether-uk-secondhand-phone-is-lost-stolen-or-blocked-3628651/