iCloud activation lock occurred despite iCloud being signed out of beforehand

[DukeAlaric]

Hi everyone,

I loaned a customer money against their iPhone 6 a month back (I run a second-hand pawnbroking business) and they defaulted on the loan and never came back today which was their due date.

Naturally in a case such as this, I wipe the phone for the retail cabinet and make sure that everything is working.

Here is the catch: Upon resetting the phone I was greeted by the "unlock your iPhone" screen during setup and I KNOW for a fact that both the passcode was removed AND the iCloud signed out. I checked this during purchase last month AND today when I assessed the phone for the retail cabinet.

Just to clarify, nobody has access to pawned items except myself, and they are sealed in special boxes and kept in a security cage.

Any advice will be appreciated on how to avoid this in the future. I am not going to even bother trying to unlock this phone by the way, I have been in the pawnbroking business almost a decade to know that trying to get an icloud account out of an iPhone is futile.