I’m thinking of buying an iPhone X, but listing says ‘cannot be unlocked’..[emoji848]

sushilover1981 · Aug 19, 2018

Hi all, I am hoping someone can assist me w this: I am an ATT customer and have been seriously looking at buying an iPhone X off of eBay. however I have noticed that almost all of the listings say “clean IMEI. for use on the ATT network only. Cannot be unlocked”. After doing some reading up on this I believe the cannot be unlocked part means that while the phone hasn’t been reported lost or stolen, it means there is a balance still owed on the acct/device. Can anyone confirm this?

Obviously if that’s the case I do not want to take a chance on buying one then for whatever reason the previous owner decides to stop making payments and I end up w an unusable, expensive brick.

So can anyone confirm this is what that means if it’s mentioned in a listing? Any help would be appreciated! TIA!

scifan57 · Aug 19, 2018

You’d be better off looking for an iPhone without this potential problem.

bear7962 · Aug 20, 2018

sushilover1981 said:
Hi all, I am hoping someone can assist me w this: I am an ATT customer and have been seriously looking at buying an iPhone X off of eBay. however I have noticed that almost all of the listings say “clean IMEI. for use on the ATT network only. Cannot be unlocked”. After doing some reading up on this I believe the cannot be unlocked part means that while the phone hasn’t been reported lost or stolen, it means there is a balance still owed on the acct/device. Can anyone confirm this?

Obviously if that’s the case I do not want to take a chance on buying one then for whatever reason the previous owner decides to stop making payments and I end up w an unusable, expensive brick.

So can anyone confirm this is what that means if it’s mentioned in a listing? Any help would be appreciated! TIA!

It means the iPhone is still within the subsidized contract period or there is money owed to AT&T. Once that is resolved, their customer can apply to have it unlocked. That’s a whole lot of problems for you and why the phone is listed at a price you think is attractive. Wait until fall and get the lower priced new model.

Bkdodger · Aug 21, 2018

Swappa is a good site for buying phones if you have time take a look.. Plenty of good sellers with reviews and unlocked phones...

sushilover1981 · Aug 21, 2018

Thank you all so much for confirming what I had already suspected. [emoji4][emoji4] I’ve bought and sold phones for a long time on eBay so I’m pretty familiar w how things go but of course seeing as how the X is still considered a “new” device, I was concerned that bc of that, it wld be possible that the device cld still be tied to an account or have a balanced owed on it which wld not end up very good for me if I got one and they decided to stop making the payments.

I will definitely check out Swappa though and also see what types of new releases they come out with this fall as well. I am in no hurry currently, my 7 Plus still works great...I am just a geek when it comes to new phones and love switching up to something newer every year or so.