service to replace your faulty/broke/no service iphone

He's scamming especially where he is asking for serial numbers. He's checking to see if phones are stolen or ineligible for warranty service. If they are eligible for warranty service, he does the con I explained in the previous post.

If they aren't eligible for warranty. He replaces the damaged part from the pile of scavenged broken phones that he already has.

Again, why wouldn't you just make an appointment at the Genius Bar which is free rather than pay a con artist.

Because his phone may have a sketchy background and he doesn't want to directly deal with Apple.

Just to make sure I've got everything straight here, you've been scammed once so now you think by being scammed again you can fix the first scam. Sounds like a well thought out plan 😉 .

bob786 wrote:
Im trying to get the phone sorted or may sell it on ebay. Why would this service be available on ebay if its a scam?

Hang on,

You were scammed by buying a barred phone on ebay, and you are now asking how is it possible that this service, that is on ebay, could be a scam?

And once you have been scammed twice, you are thinking of scamming someone else?

Message was edited by: actionmarker

Scam. He's getting iPhones that have been blocked (because they are lost or stolen), using a method (I won't go into here) to get them unlocked by the network then doing a warranty swap with Apple (who don't check lost/stolen) then sending you the replacement and charging you £40 for the 'service'.

If you ever get caught, assuming your original iPhone was stolen and you use this guy, the offence is Converting Criminal Property under the money laundering section of the Proceeds of Crime Act.

If you think any of the contact details will link to his genuine identity you deserve to be scammed!

Assuming you haven't left it too long (and thus made your 2nd big mistake) you file a dispute over the phone with eBay to get the payment reversed. What you don't do is go and sell the phone and pass the problem onto somebody else.

Wait seriously, there is a way of unblocking these phones? How?

I inadvertently became a victim of this.I bought the iphone4 from a respected forum member who had plenty of feedback.2-3 months after recieving the phone it became blocked.Turned out he had bought it off ebay and not from an Apple store as implied in his advert.I argued with the seller for a refund but eventually had to resort to selling the phone back to the person that my seller bought the phone from.Basically the phone becomes blocked you send the phone to this ebay seller he gets a warranty repair phone from apple with new IMEI and unblocked.
But as in my case does it become blocked again 2-3 months down the line when Apple realise their mistake.

I just got my phone exchanged from the guy in the ebay link. Was all fine. I can understand why people think it's a scam, and it may well be. I just figured the guy probably worked in an Apple store or something like that.

@Tamara How can he get a repair order from Apple with a bogus credit card and get a replacement phone? Surely if the phone is registered the bougs credit card would have to match and I'm not sure they even replace phones by mail in this country..I'm not saying it's not a scam(I bloody hope so seeing as I paid for his service and got my phone changed!)but I don't think it works that way!

Oh and I remember taking an iphone in once to a Store for repair and mentioned something about blacklisted phones to one of the Geniuses. She said they don't check that, although I find that highly unlikely..