USED iPhone , sold as NEW

Sherif789 wrote:

is it possible to purchase a new iPhone 6 (in a sealed box) and to find inside it a SIM card (AT&T) and the lifetime is 20 hours ?!!!, that's what happened with me yesterday when i get my new iPhone 6 from Saudi Arabia (Jarir bookstore)

want your respond ASAP,

I'm not sure who you want a response from. This is a user-to-user technical support forum, it is not a way to communicate with Apple. It's obvious you did not get a new phone. It is easy to reseal boxes, so the fact it is a sealed by doesn't prove anything. You got a gray market phone that originated most likely in the US.

Sherif789 wrote:

is it possible to purchase a new iPhone 6 (in a sealed box) and to find inside it a SIM card (AT&T) and the lifetime is 20 hours ?!!!, that's what happened with me yesterday when i get my new iPhone 6 from Saudi Arabia (Jarir bookstore)

want your respond ASAP,

You can want a response ASAP, but you need to understand you aren't talking to Apple. You're talking to other Apple users, and most of us don't take kindly to orders being barked from other people.

However... what is the model number of the device, found under Settings > General > About?

And according to [https://locate.apple.com/sa/en/], there are no authorized sellers of iPhones in Saudi Arabia other than the wireless carriers, I believe. And I doubt a bookstore is a wireless carrier.

In the U.S., phones intended for specific carriers are sold with the SIM pre-installed. If you restored your phone from a back up, it could show usage from the previous phone.

Jarir Bookstore sells grey market phones and is not an official reseller of Apple products. That is probably a US iPhone locked to AT&T.

No need to report back to any of us. When you deal with gray market devices, you get what you get. Your complaint is not with us or with Apple, it is with the unauthorized retailer that sold you the device. I suggest as you said, to go back there and do your demanding to them. Demand a refund. Not much an AT&T phone can do for you in Saudi Arabia. You would not be able to get it unlocked, except for a hack, and your warranty would only be good in the US. Return it, get your money back and get a device designed for your location and purchase it from an authorized sales person.

Sherif789 wrote:

Dear, Sorry for the way i had introduced the matter, please consider my situation, i had just purchased a new iPhone from one of the biggest markets in Saudi Arabia ,,,, but when i opened i had shocked

anyway i will visit that shop @ morning and i will let you know

highlighting that is not my first Apple device i purchase from Saudi Arabia, spicialy from same Shop (iPhone 4, 4S, 5, iPad 2 , new iPad , iPad Air, Macbook pro, Apple TV , and Now -- iPhone 6)

Yeah, I notice that in all of that you never answered my question: What is the model number of the device, found under Settings > General > About?

Yes, that is an AT&T silver US iPhone, 64GB.

I do have the same issue. i purchased an iPhone 6 128GB Space Grey (MG6D2LL/A) in an online shop in Kuwait (kuwait.souq.com). it was sealed with plastic after opening. Everything was clean. No fingerprint and the protector was intact. i just came to know that there was a Sprint Sim inside when im going to put my sim and no sim tool.

I think they purchased it from a carrier US and unlock it. Upon reading some forums. They only need IMEI (which is shown on the box) to unlock. So the Unit is still sealed and new but the pre installed sim is still there. Unlock or sim free iPhones 6 have a sim tool pin. With carriers iPhone 6, they don't have since the sim tool because they already have their own sim inside.

Hope this will help you.

remfpage wrote:

I do have the same issue. i purchased an iPhone 6 128GB Space Grey (MG6D2LL/A) in an online shop in Kuwait (kuwait.souq.com).

You bought a gray market phone from the US. Return it and buy one from an authorized source. Sprint will not unlock the phone unless you are a current Sprint customer in good standing. The phone must be active on the Sprint network for them to unlock it.

You bought a grey market iPhone that was not intended for sale in your area. Therefore, it's not uncommon for a grey-market iPhone to have been tampered with in some way and sold as 'new'.

In other words, it was smuggled into your country and sold illegally to you. Why are you surprised that you've encountered some problems?

remfpage wrote:

They only need IMEI (which is shown on the box) to unlock.

Wrong. The IMEI is not sufficient to legitimately and permanently unlock an iPhone. The cooperation and approval of the carrier it is locked to is required.

I Dont know how they got this. That online site was well known here in kuwait. They are not selling 1 or 2 iPhones. They sold maybe thousand. Anyway. Im just also curious and find some answers in the web. If you think that this is illegal. Then let apple question them. I gave already the site were i bpught it and he gave already where he bought it. your comments are highly appreciated.

Grey market products are not necessarily illegal. What is illegal is reselling devices that have FaceTime on them in countries where it is banned. Apple is not a law enforcement agency, it's not up to them to monitor the gray market trade. Your government does that.