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bought an iPhone 5 declared as lost (not stolen or insurance claim)

marcellen
2: Seeker
2: Seeker
I bought over ebay this phone, almost destroyed (broken screen, not turning on) as a project to replace pieces and bring it back to life. But then I found out that it was declared lost to Vodafone. Now, I would like Vodafone to contact the user who declared it lost , to ask him if he wants the phone back, or if he can set it back to imei 'clean' for me.
Do you think it's possible to do this?
3 REPLIES 3

SynthFG
Community Champion (Retired)
Community Champion (Retired)

Presuming you mean it's blacklisted after being reported as lost

No voda won't do this for you

Your best bet is to hand the phone into a local police station as technically it belongs to either the original owner or his insurance company, and being as someone sold it to you it is technically stolen property even if its not been reported as such

 

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Note I do not work for voda, My advice comes from experience and my opinions are my own

 

mmmhh, I'm not sure.. The checkmend report says two things, 1) it was declared lost by the carrier, 2) it was not declared lost or stolen by the police.
So why should the police do something about it, and not vodafone?

GojuSuzi
16: Advanced member
16: Advanced member
Vodafone can't because they'd need the owner's permission to access their stuff (yes, they'd need their permission to find out how to ask him for permission). Plus, there's no reason why they should.

You can report it to ebay, since whiever sold it was doing so fraudulantly, although if it was sold as nonfunctional it's more gray area if you'd get refunded, but the one who sold it needs a clip round the ear.

Even if the owner didn't file it as stolen, the fact there's a blacklist could mean they reported it to vodafone but didn't have insurance so didn't follow it up; the phone was stolen from a shipment or lost in transit so Vodafone blocked it; it was taken out as part if a fraudulent account so blacklisted by Vodafone when they couldn't get it back from the criminal; it was lost, not stolen, so no need for police intervention, but simeib found it and decided to make a quick few quid. Many reasons, all of which end up with whoever sold it to you having no right to do so.