Purchasing a stolen iPhone can spell a lot of trouble for you even if it doesn’t create problems for you initially. The small phone from Apple has been thieves’ choice target as hundreds of thousands are reported stolen or lost by users around the world. Apple has been conscious of this fact and has tried to rectify the situation before with its Find MY iPhone service from 2010.
But there was a simple downside of the new system as a complete system reinstall defeated it. Afterwards, Apple clearly understood the shortcomings of the system and came up with the activation lock in iOS 7. It made it impossible for the iPhone users to activate an iPhone using a new Apple ID without entering the original Apple ID and password use by the purchaser himself. Since it is highly unlikely that the user will also have the original ID and password for his victim’s iPhone, this step helped reduce the device’s appeals to thieves. But, as a downside of this step, the users buying used iPhone were left in a quandary about the ID and password after they had purchased the phone and the seller had disappeared. Now Apple has created a simple tool that will allow you to check the phone’s Activation Lock status with the help of the device’s IMEI. It is a unique identification module assigned to every phone.
So in order to do that, go to the iPhone’s
Settings > General > About
Now scroll down to the bottom and find out both the IMEI and serial numbers.
Once you’ve got both numbers, go to Apple’s activation lock status website and type IMEI into the box. Enter CAPTCHA and continue. The feature will tell you whether the iPhone Lock feature has been enabled or not. If its turned off, it means that the phone is good to go and you have nothing to worry about. The iOS hasn’t been reinstalled. On the other hand, if it is turned on, it means that lock feature is enabled and the new user has no idea about the original ID and password. Now an honest user who isn’t aware may have enabled the feature unknowingly. Ask him to disable it and if he successfully does that, you can buy the phone. However, it only works on iOS 7 onwards only.