Hello all,
I just signed up here and look forward to discovering all the interesting stuff on here!
First, however, I'd like to share a mysterious, frustrating story with all of you, as I'm wondering if anybody else has had a similar experience or can perhaps shed some light on what is going on, as I honestly have no clue whatsoever...
So, here we go!
After having purchased a new iPhone 7 Plus a few weeks ago, I decided to sell my old iPhone 6s Plus on eBay. I had previously sold some other Apple products on there, one iPad Air 2, a first generation Apple Watch and an Early 2009 Mac Pro.
Before putting up those products on eBay, I always made sure to properly erase the device and ensure that it is no longer associated with my Apple ID, carefully following Apple's instructions at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201351.
Naturally, the iPhone 6s Plus was no exception. I had upgraded it to iOS 10, then disabled the "Find my iPhone" feature and then reset it to the factory defaults.
In addition, I had logged into both icloud.com as well as appleid.apple.com to verify the device no longer appeared in my account, which it did not.
Once the auction had ended, I shipped the iPhone immediately after receiving the funds.
At that point, I thought that the transaction was over, I had received the money and the guy who had purchased the device had received the device, so all was good.
However, shortly after receiving the new phone, the new owner contacted me, letting me know that the iCloud Activation Lock was still active on the phone, which made it impossible for him to activate the phone.
Understandably, I was really surprised when reading this, because of all the effort I had put into making sure that something like this would not happen!
So, I once again paid a visit to appleid.apple.com as well as icloud.com, confirming that the device was no longer linked to my Apple ID.
Thus, I decided to call Apple support, in order to have the situation resolved. Since by then it was already quite late here in Germany and the German Apple support was no longer available on that day, I chose to reach out to Apple support in the US.
I provided the support representative with the IMEI of the phone, my Apple ID and a support PIN that would allow her to access my Apple ID details.
After a few minutes of investigation, the friendly lady informed me that the device was in fact no longer linked to my account, but due to a system error the iCloud Activation Lock had not been removed.
In order to resolve the issue, she suggested that I upload the original invoice of the phone in order to prove my ownership, which would then enable Apple to manually unlock the phone.
Luckily, I still had a copy of the invoice, so sending that over to Apple only took me a few minutes.
I was then told that processing my request would usually take a few days, but that she would try her best to speed up the process.
The next day, I received a call from the German Apple Care team, informing me that my unlock request had been processed and that the phone had already been activated with a new Apple ID.
So, I thought that all was well, assuming that the new owner had already activated the phone with his Apple ID!
I sent him a message thanking him for his patience and letting him know how happy I was about the fact that he was now able to use the phone.
But then, well... A few minutes later, I received a very aggravated response from him, stating that he was still unable to use the phone, thus he was expecting me to take back the device and refund the money, as I was "obviously unable to resolve the problem". I replied with a kind message, informing him that I was sorry for the continued inconvenience, promising him that I would further investigate the problem.
I reached out to Apple support here in Germany, referencing the already existing case about this incident. I informed the representative about the buyer's response, asking him to confirm that the device in fact had been activated using a new Apple ID. Unfortunately, due to privacy reasons he was unable to tell me the new Apple ID to which the phone was now linked, but he confirmed that it was not my Apple ID. Because I really wanted to make sure that this was really the case, I once again contacted Apple in the US, who also confirmed that the device was associated with a different Apple ID.
Thus, I sent out another message to the new owner, letting him know about my findings and refusing his request that I take back the product.
In his response, he insisted that he had not been able to activate the phone, that it was totally useless to him in its current state and that he urgently needed a functioning cellphone. He stated that since I had sold him a useless phone and refused to take it back, he would be forced to take legal action against me if I did not change my mind about issuing a refund.
So, even though I was fully convinced that I was doing the right thing, I finally agreed to take back the phone and refund his money. However, I made clear that in case I discovered any physical damage to the phone, or that it was in fact associated with a new Apple ID, I would be returning the device to him without issuing a refund.
He agreed and 2 days later, the phone arrived at my home.
Once I had turned on the phone and connected it to my WiFi network, it quickly became clear that it was no longer associated with my Apple ID. It was locked, but it would not accept my Apple ID and password for activation. At that moment, it seemed crystal clear to me that the guy had lied about not being unable to activate the phone. However, I'm not the kind of person who easily accuses someone of having done something wrong.
So I reached out to Apple one last time, explaining the situation and asking what I should do next. The support representative advised me to ship back the device, as it was clearly not part of my account any longer. I almost went with that suggestion, but then decided to find out one more thing.
So, I asked whether he could check when the device was activated exactly and this is where things get extremely mysterious...
Basically, the representative was able to see the date, but wasn't allowed to tell me due to privacy reasons. Therefore, he asked me when the device was received by the new owner, so I told him. Well... He then told me that the device was in fact activated with the new Apple ID before the new owner had actually received the phone!
I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when I heard that... I honestly couldn't believe my ears!
Thus, even though I had asked Apple to manually unlock the phone using the phone's invoice, which they had apparently done, I was told that the phone had been activated before the new owner had even received it, using an Apple ID that isn't mine...
I have now refunded the unlucky guy, because according to the new details this whole mess obviously wasn't his fault.
I have issued a new request to have the phone unlocked by Apple and was told that this would happen during the next 3 business days. Once that's done, I will be auctioning the phone once again, in the hope that everything will go as smoothly as I would expect.
Still, this whole series of events makes absolutely no sense to me. I cannot possibly understand why this phone is now linked to an unknown Apple ID, which clearly isn't mine. Also, I totally don't understand how the phone could have become associated with the ID before I had even shipped it to the new owner and why the problem wasn't resolved when I first asked Apple to manually unlock the phone, which had apparently worked.
So I'm really wondering, am I the only one who's experienced a story like this? Has anybody here had similar issues and if yes, were you able to resolve them? Also, does anybody here have any other ideas on how I could get my iPhone unlocked, or do I really have to wait for Apple, hoping that it'll work this time?
Also, if anybody on here can put any sense into this, I definitely would love to hear from you as well!
Thanks for reading, any help would be very highly appreciated...
Best wishes,
Robin
I just signed up here and look forward to discovering all the interesting stuff on here!
First, however, I'd like to share a mysterious, frustrating story with all of you, as I'm wondering if anybody else has had a similar experience or can perhaps shed some light on what is going on, as I honestly have no clue whatsoever...
So, here we go!
After having purchased a new iPhone 7 Plus a few weeks ago, I decided to sell my old iPhone 6s Plus on eBay. I had previously sold some other Apple products on there, one iPad Air 2, a first generation Apple Watch and an Early 2009 Mac Pro.
Before putting up those products on eBay, I always made sure to properly erase the device and ensure that it is no longer associated with my Apple ID, carefully following Apple's instructions at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201351.
Naturally, the iPhone 6s Plus was no exception. I had upgraded it to iOS 10, then disabled the "Find my iPhone" feature and then reset it to the factory defaults.
In addition, I had logged into both icloud.com as well as appleid.apple.com to verify the device no longer appeared in my account, which it did not.
Once the auction had ended, I shipped the iPhone immediately after receiving the funds.
At that point, I thought that the transaction was over, I had received the money and the guy who had purchased the device had received the device, so all was good.
However, shortly after receiving the new phone, the new owner contacted me, letting me know that the iCloud Activation Lock was still active on the phone, which made it impossible for him to activate the phone.
Understandably, I was really surprised when reading this, because of all the effort I had put into making sure that something like this would not happen!
So, I once again paid a visit to appleid.apple.com as well as icloud.com, confirming that the device was no longer linked to my Apple ID.
Thus, I decided to call Apple support, in order to have the situation resolved. Since by then it was already quite late here in Germany and the German Apple support was no longer available on that day, I chose to reach out to Apple support in the US.
I provided the support representative with the IMEI of the phone, my Apple ID and a support PIN that would allow her to access my Apple ID details.
After a few minutes of investigation, the friendly lady informed me that the device was in fact no longer linked to my account, but due to a system error the iCloud Activation Lock had not been removed.
In order to resolve the issue, she suggested that I upload the original invoice of the phone in order to prove my ownership, which would then enable Apple to manually unlock the phone.
Luckily, I still had a copy of the invoice, so sending that over to Apple only took me a few minutes.
I was then told that processing my request would usually take a few days, but that she would try her best to speed up the process.
The next day, I received a call from the German Apple Care team, informing me that my unlock request had been processed and that the phone had already been activated with a new Apple ID.
So, I thought that all was well, assuming that the new owner had already activated the phone with his Apple ID!
I sent him a message thanking him for his patience and letting him know how happy I was about the fact that he was now able to use the phone.
But then, well... A few minutes later, I received a very aggravated response from him, stating that he was still unable to use the phone, thus he was expecting me to take back the device and refund the money, as I was "obviously unable to resolve the problem". I replied with a kind message, informing him that I was sorry for the continued inconvenience, promising him that I would further investigate the problem.
I reached out to Apple support here in Germany, referencing the already existing case about this incident. I informed the representative about the buyer's response, asking him to confirm that the device in fact had been activated using a new Apple ID. Unfortunately, due to privacy reasons he was unable to tell me the new Apple ID to which the phone was now linked, but he confirmed that it was not my Apple ID. Because I really wanted to make sure that this was really the case, I once again contacted Apple in the US, who also confirmed that the device was associated with a different Apple ID.
Thus, I sent out another message to the new owner, letting him know about my findings and refusing his request that I take back the product.
In his response, he insisted that he had not been able to activate the phone, that it was totally useless to him in its current state and that he urgently needed a functioning cellphone. He stated that since I had sold him a useless phone and refused to take it back, he would be forced to take legal action against me if I did not change my mind about issuing a refund.
So, even though I was fully convinced that I was doing the right thing, I finally agreed to take back the phone and refund his money. However, I made clear that in case I discovered any physical damage to the phone, or that it was in fact associated with a new Apple ID, I would be returning the device to him without issuing a refund.
He agreed and 2 days later, the phone arrived at my home.
Once I had turned on the phone and connected it to my WiFi network, it quickly became clear that it was no longer associated with my Apple ID. It was locked, but it would not accept my Apple ID and password for activation. At that moment, it seemed crystal clear to me that the guy had lied about not being unable to activate the phone. However, I'm not the kind of person who easily accuses someone of having done something wrong.
So I reached out to Apple one last time, explaining the situation and asking what I should do next. The support representative advised me to ship back the device, as it was clearly not part of my account any longer. I almost went with that suggestion, but then decided to find out one more thing.
So, I asked whether he could check when the device was activated exactly and this is where things get extremely mysterious...
Basically, the representative was able to see the date, but wasn't allowed to tell me due to privacy reasons. Therefore, he asked me when the device was received by the new owner, so I told him. Well... He then told me that the device was in fact activated with the new Apple ID before the new owner had actually received the phone!
I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when I heard that... I honestly couldn't believe my ears!
Thus, even though I had asked Apple to manually unlock the phone using the phone's invoice, which they had apparently done, I was told that the phone had been activated before the new owner had even received it, using an Apple ID that isn't mine...
I have now refunded the unlucky guy, because according to the new details this whole mess obviously wasn't his fault.
I have issued a new request to have the phone unlocked by Apple and was told that this would happen during the next 3 business days. Once that's done, I will be auctioning the phone once again, in the hope that everything will go as smoothly as I would expect.
Still, this whole series of events makes absolutely no sense to me. I cannot possibly understand why this phone is now linked to an unknown Apple ID, which clearly isn't mine. Also, I totally don't understand how the phone could have become associated with the ID before I had even shipped it to the new owner and why the problem wasn't resolved when I first asked Apple to manually unlock the phone, which had apparently worked.
So I'm really wondering, am I the only one who's experienced a story like this? Has anybody here had similar issues and if yes, were you able to resolve them? Also, does anybody here have any other ideas on how I could get my iPhone unlocked, or do I really have to wait for Apple, hoping that it'll work this time?
Also, if anybody on here can put any sense into this, I definitely would love to hear from you as well!
Thanks for reading, any help would be very highly appreciated...
Best wishes,
Robin
