Buying Mobiles on Ebay - Spoilt Christmas..

Well Christmas is only a few weeks away and the mad rush is on to buy that new mobile phone you have had your eye on all year. Christmas tends to be a VERY busy period for us here at unlox and we will of course be open throughout the holidays.

Christmas is also the time when unscrupulous people try to "sell off" "dodgy" mobile phones on Ebay. Last Christmas we had 7 customers who bought handsets on Ebay that when they received it, it turned out to be a stolen phone or had been reported as lost. We had a further 10 who bought mobile phones advertised as "Unlocked" only to find that they were not.

Now we are certainly not saying that all mobile phones sold on Ebay are dodgy, all we are saying is please take adequate precautions before ordering. Verify with the seller that the handset is indeed unlocked or not, if it is not, then ask if there has been any previous unlock attempts. As for stolen phones, there are a couple of things you can do to call the sellers bluff:

1. Ask if they can provide photographic proof of purchase i.e. a receipt.
2. Ask if the handset will come in its original box
3. Ask if they will provide you with the IMEI so you can check with the "stolen Handset Database" to see that it is legit
4. Ask Where the phone came from

The answers to the above will normally set off any alarm bells depending on what the answers are. So please don't let the minority of "Dodgy Dealers" spoil your Christmas, mobile phones are expensive enough without buying one that is only going to be useful as a "Paper Weight".

Mon, 28 November 2005 13:10:00 +0000