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Explaining the dangers of buying used phones is not "fearmongering."
I bought used phones for years and never had a problem...until I did. Just because you never had a problem with "swappa" doesn't mean anything at all unless you're going to personally guarantee this man's money if someone rips him off. No? Didn't think so.
I've never been ripped off here and I would buy a phone from a member here if I saw a good deal and the interaction felt right. But that doesn't mean I walk around ignoring the dangers while telling people that they don't exist.
Swappa, [H], even the carriers themselves can't guarantee a customer's account is in, or will remain, in good standing. The best a 3rd party or carrier can do is verify that the phone doesn't still have money owed against it--but that's not enough information anymore to ensure the device can be connected to carrier.
If you guys think back to cell phones when they only had SIM cards and if you removed that card and put another one in, that phone was pretty much free and clear from the previous carrier. That's one of the reasons people wouldn't buy CDMA phones along with the difficulty of unlocking them--the carrier controlled the device. Then online tools developed to check the status of CDMA phones. I can't be the only person who remembers this...
In any case, now they all have those chips in them including the GSM phones if GSM phones even exist anymore in the way that used to mean. One of the reasons was to reduce theft, but the end result is that all carriers can now control all devices in ways that they couldn't when a phone was simply GSM and the SIM card could be replaced and untether the device permanently from the carrier. So that means, aside from being able to shut a stolen phone off, a carrier can shut it off for any "legitimate" reason up to and including their customer refusing to pay them for phone service.
I bought used phones for years and never had a problem...until I did. Just because you never had a problem with "swappa" doesn't mean anything at all unless you're going to personally guarantee this man's money if someone rips him off. No? Didn't think so.
I've never been ripped off here and I would buy a phone from a member here if I saw a good deal and the interaction felt right. But that doesn't mean I walk around ignoring the dangers while telling people that they don't exist.
Swappa, [H], even the carriers themselves can't guarantee a customer's account is in, or will remain, in good standing. The best a 3rd party or carrier can do is verify that the phone doesn't still have money owed against it--but that's not enough information anymore to ensure the device can be connected to carrier.
If you guys think back to cell phones when they only had SIM cards and if you removed that card and put another one in, that phone was pretty much free and clear from the previous carrier. That's one of the reasons people wouldn't buy CDMA phones along with the difficulty of unlocking them--the carrier controlled the device. Then online tools developed to check the status of CDMA phones. I can't be the only person who remembers this...
In any case, now they all have those chips in them including the GSM phones if GSM phones even exist anymore in the way that used to mean. One of the reasons was to reduce theft, but the end result is that all carriers can now control all devices in ways that they couldn't when a phone was simply GSM and the SIM card could be replaced and untether the device permanently from the carrier. So that means, aside from being able to shut a stolen phone off, a carrier can shut it off for any "legitimate" reason up to and including their customer refusing to pay them for phone service.