The order matters. Each step below is cheap and rules out a specific way of losing money, and doing them in this order means you rarely pay for the later ones.
Ask for the IMEI first
Before travelling anywhere, ask the seller to dial *#06# and send you the number, ideally photographed on the screen next to the phone. A seller who will not send it has told you something useful for free.
- Check the number is well formed. A format check is free and catches a transposed digit before you pay for anything else.
- Check the model behind the number matches the listing. The first eight digits identify the model, so "iPhone 15 Pro" in the advert and something else in the result ends the conversation there.
- Check the blacklist. This is the one that turns a working phone into a paperweight weeks after the sale, and it is the report worth paying for.
- Check the carrier and lock status. It tells you whether the phone works on your network as-is, and if not, what an unlock would cost.
- Check the activation lock before money changes hands, not after.
Run the checks against the number the seller sends, then check the phone in your hand shows the same number before you pay. Substituting a clean IMEI for a dirty handset is the oldest trick in this market.
What to do with the phone in your hand
- Dial *#06# yourself and compare it with the number you checked, and with the number printed in Settings and on the SIM tray where the model has one.
- Ask the seller to sign out of their account and factory reset the phone in front of you, then set it up from the welcome screen. If it asks for someone else's account, the sale is over.
- Put your own SIM in and make a call before you hand over money.
- Ask for the receipt. It is what a network asks for if the handset later turns out to be under a finance agreement.
The four answers that should end it
| What the seller says | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| "I cannot send the IMEI" | The number would not survive a check |
| "It is iCloud locked but that is easy to remove" | It is not removable, and the phone is not usable |
| "Reset it after you buy it" | It will ask for an account you do not have |
| "No receipt, it was a gift" | Nothing to show a network if a finance claim appears later |
The blacklist and carrier reports are the two worth running before you travel to see a phone.
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