Purchase used iPhone on Amazon?

December 23, 2013 7:18 AM

My iPhone was stolen and I need to purchase a new one. I am considering saving myself the hassle of a craigslist interaction by purchasing a used one through an Amazon retailer. Has anyone done this? Would you recommend it? Anything I should look for specifically besides carrier compatibility etc.?
posted by Packy_1962 to Shopping (7 answers total)

I haven't purchased on Amazon but have used Swappa for buying multiple used phones for the family and have been really pleased with the quality of the results.

The big thing to make sure you can do with any used phone purchase is verify the MEID/ESN. You can check you are getting a clean ESN at http://swappa.com/esn.
posted by JuliaKM at 7:50 AM on December 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Also check craigslist for a local transaction. I got a good iphone 4 on ebay... YMMV...

(It was in a different iphone box which added confusion to the esn check, get the esn directly off the phone, sigh)
posted by sammyo at 8:11 AM on December 23, 2013

I did it and it was super easy. I just picked a vendor that had been around a long time and had a lot of positive reviews. I was a little worried about it but it was fine.
posted by bq at 9:14 AM on December 23, 2013

Use eBay. You need pictures.
posted by oceanjesse at 10:30 AM on December 23, 2013

Use swappa. You need pictures of the phone you're actually buying.
posted by sexyrobot at 10:56 AM on December 23, 2013

I just bought one on eBay for a 15-year old who's rough on phones. The camera didn't work, and the seller emailed me a shipping label, replaced the camera, and returned the phone within a week. Look for a seller who offers returns.
posted by Linnee at 1:31 PM on December 23, 2013

I've bought and sold used phones on eBay. My experience with multiple sellers is that they tend to vastly overrate the condition of their phones. Make sure you have detailed photos of the actual phone or really overbuy the condition of the phone.
posted by cnc at 6:52 PM on December 24, 2013