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Any reason why iPhone 7 won't work with headphones?

DavidLeblond

DavidLeblond

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 6, 2004
2,360
769
Raleigh, NC
So I just sold my iPhone 7 to someone on eBay. Well I say just, it was about 2 weeks ago. Today they told me that they just tried out my iPhone and the sound won't work over the headphones. Said everything else is fine, charges and everything, just won't play sound over the headphones. Now I listened to sound from the headphones pretty much every day of the 2 years I had the phone, so I told him to try to adjust the volume and asked if it was recognizing that headphones were even attached. He got defensive and said he was taking it to the Apple store.

I realize I could be getting scammed because, well, eBay. But is there something else I could suggest the guy do? He tried it on 2 pairs of headphones (I had shipped it with the set that came with my iPhone XS since I didn't think he'd want headphones that had been in someone's ears.) The phone had literally no issues before it went to him. I babied that thing.
 
Who knows. User error. Damage in transit.

If the last message was "Im going to apple store" then just don't reply, and hope he doesn't lodge an eBay return.
 
So he responded with “the lightning port is corroded. I need $60 to fix it.” I told him it’s awfully suspicious that he gets the iPhone, waits 2 weeks to test it, and it suddenly has what sounds like water damage after 2 years of never being submerged in water. But yeah, looks like he’s doing a return since I won’t pay $60 to fix it. I’ll be checking that water indicator if I receive it though.
 
It's possible that the purchaser tried cleaning out the charge port and damaged the pins. Take a close look with a jewelers loupe to see if there is any physical damage inside the port. The other thing I would inspect closely is the pentalobe screws holding the screen in place (on either side of the charge port). Look for indications that it may have been opened like scratches to the surface or grip marks inside the screws.

One thing to keep in mind is that the iPhone 7 series of devices have proven to be very unreliable, suffering from flex-based issues similar to the iPhone 6 Plus (Touch Disease). On the iPhone 7, the fault line runs along the top of the SIM card reader and affects the Baseband CPU and Audio IC. The repair community has repaired thousands upon thousands of these devices.

These phones have an inherent weakness and it can be exacerbated by drops or other forms of impacts. It's quite possible that is was manhandled during shipment and that may have been the proverbial drop...

The Audio IC issue tends to have several well recognized symptoms like:
  • Voice Memos app / Loudspeaker on call - greyed out
  • Siri doesn’t hear you / Caller can’t hear you
  • Most other Audio related issues that aren’t solved by modular replacements
  • Long boot times (3-5 minutes)
When you get your phone back, do a thorough test of the device. If your phone does suffer from this Audio IC glitch, the symptoms above will continue to develop and get worse over time.
 
Now that I told him no repairs just send me the phone, he's been quiet. A quick scan of his eBay feedback sees a lot of activity, some saying "enjoy the phone!" I'm guessing he's trying to repair a different phone. So this should get interesting.

I do still have the UDID of that phone since I'm a developer. So I'll know if he sends back a different phone.
 
Just thought I'd wrap this up. For the hell of it, I contacted as many people that he bought from that eBay would allow. Every single one told me he did they same thing to me (some of them paid him.) I had every single one contact eBay. So hopefully that is the end of that.
 
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DavidLeblond said:
Just thought I'd wrap this up. For the hell of it, I contacted as many people that he bought from that eBay would allow. Every single one told me he did they same thing to me (some of them paid him.) I had every single one contact eBay. So hopefully that is the end of that.
Click to expand...

Wow...that takes some nerve :eek:

You (and the others) should rate him/her appropriately so that others don't get caught up in the web of lies.
 
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Minho said:
Wow...that takes some nerve :eek:

You (and the others) should rate him/her appropriately so that others don't get caught up in the web of lies.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, but you see there is a problem with that. He only initiated the scams after the seller had left positive feedback (hence the "oh silly me, I've been traveling for 2 weeks and just now opened the phone!") Once you leave feedback, you cannot change it. I thought I was missing something so I actually called eBay. They said despite the fact that me (and now several others thanks to me emailing everyone I could) have reported the dude he still has 100% positive feedback because eBay feedback cannot ever be changed, no matter what.
 
DavidLeblond said:
Ah yes, but you see there is a problem with that. He only initiated the scams after the seller had left positive feedback (hence the "oh silly me, I've been traveling for 2 weeks and just now opened the phone!") Once you leave feedback, you cannot change it. I thought I was missing something so I actually called eBay. They said despite the fact that me (and now several others thanks to me emailing everyone I could) have reported the dude he still has 100% positive feedback because eBay feedback cannot ever be changed, no matter what.
Click to expand...
Kind of makes feedback like that fairly worthless. Can new/additional feedback be added to old feedback, or on its own even?
 
DavidLeblond said:
Ah yes, but you see there is a problem with that. He only initiated the scams after the seller had left positive feedback (hence the "oh silly me, I've been traveling for 2 weeks and just now opened the phone!") Once you leave feedback, you cannot change it. I thought I was missing something so I actually called eBay. They said despite the fact that me (and now several others thanks to me emailing everyone I could) have reported the dude he still has 100% positive feedback because eBay feedback cannot ever be changed, no matter what.
Click to expand...

It always amazes me that scammers always know all the angles :mad:
 
I'm adding to an old thread...'cause I'm that guy.

I recently tried to sell an iPhone on eBay and to paraphrase Steve Jobs: eBay is a bag of hurt.

Below is a story in email form. I will preface the story with: I listed a 128GB iPhone7 with a $274 starting bid and a $335 buy-it-now price.

So, our story begins:

The phone sold at the last moment with a flurry of bids. The last 3 over $900 (for a $335 buy-it-now iPhone). The winning bid was $999! Yay! <I'm in the money! I'm in the money!>
sold.jpg

Needless to say I was immediately skeptical. Let's just chalk that up to my natural pessimism because the next morning I got great news!

The buyer had sent me money! The full $999 PLUS $110 to ship the phone. Quick, fast and in a hurry!
email1.jpg

But something doesn't quite seem right. The buyer is a Br**** ****ne in Massachusetts (I checked the eBay profile which is curiously gone now) but the phone should be shipped to a De***** *****ne in Missouri. I guess it must be a very generous gift. Because another email is waiting with more great news!

Br**** emailed with an exhortation that s/he was overpaying for shipping because the phone 'to be receive before on Saturday evening'. Of course. I'll just look up 'before on Saturday evening' on my calendar.

Or maybe I should just get a priority mail box and make sure Br**** is not disappointed. I don't want a bad eBay review.
email2.jpg

But wait: there are a couple of problems. First Br**** paid for a 32GB Verizon iPhone 7 Plus but I only have a 128GB Unlocked Jet Black iPhone 7. Maybe I should reach out to clear that up? But then I notice another problem. Br***** only paid $418.75! Where's the rest of my $$ Br***?

But before I could dash off a testy email, another email arrived with comforting news. The full $1,109.00 had been received by PayPal. And for the correct iPhone. I guess Br***** was just confused and sent me the wrong confirmation. She must be buying a lot of phones to get confused about that!
email3.jpg

After taking a moment and having an early-morning cocktail (it was that kind of morning) I decided something might be fishy.

I mean PayPal says money has been received but it won't show up in my account due to a new eBay policy. I thought eBay and PayPal were different companies now. And why is eBay Europe (remember I'm in Manhattan) sending me email? And why are they sending email for PayPal?

Maybe I should check with eBay. What do y'all think?

Now, kids, this is where the Monty-Python-level silliness starts.

I contacted eBay by phone (oddly using an iPhone) and after holding for about 25 or so minutes a very kind young man confirmed that perhaps -- just perhaps -- something might not be completely above-board about the transaction. He did think that a bid of almost $1000 for a $335 phone seemed suspicious.

Excited by his keen perception I asked if he could just cancel the transaction and I would relist the phone. His recommendation was that I send a payment reminder. Yep. That's what he recommended not 30 seconds after stating that something seemed amiss.

Just ask the criminal for the money. You never know they might pay.

Long story short (too late right?) I sent the payment reminder (why not?) and waited until that evening before deciding to share what was going on with eBay. I dug around in the labyrinth of a website and finally found a way to send a note of concern.

So I sent them a note outlining my concern and they immediately thanked me for it. So nice.
report.jpg


3 days later I got a WARNING from eBay about attempting to do sell outside eBay!

I got the warning.

Not the guy/gal who's been trying to scam me out of a phone!

I'm the bad guy!
warning.png


I knew then I was done with eBay forever.

TL;DR: eBay is useless. It's way worse than Craigslist. And, yes I got $350 cash from an odd fellow from Craigslist who insisted on pairing with his old phone and beginning the migration before he would give me $$. But he didn't ask me to ship it to Missouri first.

UPDATE

Got my account closure email from eBay this afternoon. Again, since this is a story in email...
closed.jpg


DavidLeblond said:
Just thought I'd wrap this up. For the hell of it, I contacted as many people that he bought from that eBay would allow. Every single one told me he did they same thing to me (some of them paid him.) I had every single one contact eBay. So hopefully that is the end of that.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
jakebrosy said:
I'm adding to an old thread...'cause I'm that guy.

I recently tried to sell an iPhone on eBay and to paraphrase Steve Jobs: eBay is a bag of hurt.

Below is a story in email form. I will preface the story with: I listed a 128GB iPhone7 with a $274 starting bid and a $335 buy-it-now price.

So, our story begins:

The phone sold at the last moment with a flurry of bids. The last 3 over $900 (for a $335 buy-it-now iPhone). The winning bid was $999! Yay! <I'm in the money! I'm in the money!>
View attachment 797751
Click to expand...

You completely missed that the first email from 'PayPal' actually came from some random email address.

You almost got scammed.

PayPal will list your pending transactions - yes even those held pending successful sale.

To clarify - you almost got scammed, by not paying attention, and falling for a typical online scam. Be careful!
 
Nah. I saw that first. The whole thing was an exercise in following the scam.

tehStickMan said:
You completely missed that the first email from 'PayPal' actually came from some random email address.

You almost got scammed.

PayPal will list your pending transactions - yes even those held pending successful sale.

To clarify - you almost got scammed, by not paying attention, and falling for a typical online scam. Be careful!
Click to expand...
 
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