OT: What on Earth is going on with my eBay iphone auction?!?
 

I'm selling an iPhone 4 on eBay, unlocked, 32gb, heavily used otter box with 7 months of Applecare Plus left and one replacement and the bidding hit $400 with 6 days to go. This makes absolutely zero sense to me and I'm concerned that there is a data theft potential that I am unaware of, or people who pay with bad credit cards and stick you. Why would my used iPhone sell for $400?!? I've noticed that nearly all bids are international...do these go higher over seas?

I tend to worry when things are too good to be true, especially with intl. bidding, and this seems too good to be true.

I've no idea but what are completed listings for your model?

Intl buyer for something like that would scare me.

The iPhones are not as widely available overseas AFAIK.
Also without the contract those phones are still 500 or so

And since it's eBay, the bidder will probably just blow you off and not pay anyway. Seems to be the norm these days, and there's not much sellers can do about it.

It scares me too, but I forgot to change the setting and I'm Used to inter national bike transactions. This just seems weird to me.

I've heard horror stories about people mining data from used smart phones, just be careful it's really wiped (not that I know how to do something like that).

I've got a drawer full of old phones because I'm too paranoid to sell them...

That's one of the things I'm worried about. I did some brief research and it seemed to indicate that blackberry and iPhones are safe while google and the windows OS aren't.

Yes, they do go for higher overseas.

There's only one way to ensure that the data on your iPhone is safe though -> http://youtu.be/qg1ckCkm8YI

Cancel the auction and relist for domestic bids only.

That's what I was looking for. I did some checking and this doesn't seem THAT out of line for one that's unlocked. The unlocked ones seem to go for a LOT more, which also doesn't make much sense since there are so many people who can unlock them at low prices.

Umm...it makes some sense that unlocked phones are still priced higher. I recall about 1.5 years back when I was scouting for unlocked phones, I realised that the iphone 3 and previous iterations were relatively easy to jailbreak/unlock. However iphone 3GS onwards, the process to jailbreak was made slightly more involved. I have no idea how much more complicated, but I have it on credible sources that it needed some rough-handed work like cutting the SIM card to an apt size, etc in addition to the software manipulations. This did go some way to dissuade the non tech-savvy, imprecise, free-loaders who were charging money to run a free software on a lazy customer's phone, and hence the increased price of an unlocked iphone 3GS onwards.

On a related note about data protection on the iphone, only yesterday I came across information from an industry expert that the iphone (definitely 5) is the only phone on the market to be using ECC to maintain the privacy of the file system. This in essence implies that all the information on your iphone can be immediately destroyed by destroying just 200 bytes of information i.e. your ECC key, which I presume can only be accessed via a software functionality since ECC in itself is an arcane mathematical crypto implementation which no end-user needs to know in detail. The easiest way to identify which iphone models are capable of this feature is to perhaps do a search of iphone+ECC, etc. Hope this helps.

I sold a 3G and a water-damaged 4 about 18 months ago. Both went to overseas buyers and both went for much more than I would have expected. I wiped both before listing. Received payment in full and never had any issue since. My understanding is that the iPhone is not universally available and out-of-contract phones are in demand. My hunch is that if you limit your listing to domestic sales you'll see the bids come in substantially lower.

Prices for unlocked iphones overseas are out of control. You could be looking at a big sale.
Use common sense.

i used to wait in line for the latest, greatest iPhone, and then turn around and sell it for about 1,000 online to someone in china, anyone in china. never had a problem.

several times i've had iPhones, used them, and then had them replaced because of issues with the phone...then used them a little, and sold them as little used...and still got big bucks....$400 and more.

just make sure to do a system reset to erase all personal data before selling

Probably you have a chinese sucker wanting to have the real thing instead of the fake one, and thats why the thing is going to the roofs.

Makes me think if its a good deal to flip phones at ebay tho... 100 to 300 bucks earnings looks sweet if you actually can get the buyer to pay for the phones.

i sold a used iphone 4S with only 16GB for over $300.

the math is simple...a new iphone without the subsidy from the carriers is still more expensive...

lots of peeps on contract that want to upgrade but don't want to pay full fare

the international component is also true...hot commodity in china

there was a line around the GM building (mostly chinese from my observation) that were in line for the ipad mini launch on friday

Thanks folks...I feel a lot better about it now. 5 days to go and the price is double what I expected.

I'm stunned...$721 for a used phone that was 2010's model.

can you link to your listing? did you get paid yet?

They said Dave Thompson would forward the money...

http://forums.thepaceline.net/attach...1&d=1145579027

We'll see, but it looks like a legit buyer, and there were other pretty legit looking buyers who bid far more than I understand.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/330824009685...84.m1423.l2649

Buyer just informed me that he thought it was a 4. Do people read?

Check used prices on Amazon if you are concerned. iPhone 4's seem to fetch a real nice price. Heck, even used iPhone 3's can go for over $200

Isn't that what you posted in your OP, that it's a 4?

It was very clear that it was a 4...he's either a moron or has buyer's remorse. In his possible defense, he is international, perhaps it was miscommunication.

Whoops - I typo'd...he thought it was a 5.

You mean a 5, right?

Correct...buyer claims he thought it was a 5.

Really annoying, but...in the scheme of things...it's not that big of a deal. I'll re list and move on (probably blocking international bidders).

It takes two morons to bring the price up to that level.

There were three bidders over $700 - either a lot of folks misread the ad, or it's worth more than I thought.

Second chance offers or going to run the auction again?

I'm going to try "2nd chance, but IME they rarely work.

A common scam is for a bidder to open a couple of accounts and have one low bid and then come in with a very high bid. They back out last minute and all of their bidds vanish and they get it for their low bid.

Not the case here where a bidder backs out after the sale goes through. I would email the other 2 and see if they want it.

I'm trying that now, but I've found it rarely works. Not sure what the psychology is, but once the auction is over, the other bidders move on.

How in the world you can back out a bid? how is done? never seen a way to do that in a matter of fact the couple of times i had regrets sent like 5 bucks to the seller to wasting his time...

Which is what he should have done, but didn't offer to do. It's just not worth getting too upset about...life is annoying at times and hell is other people.

A used iphone 4 go for around 3000 sek here in good condition. Thats abit more than 400 usd. I wouldent pay that for electronics that you cant inspect and will ship overseas but the dollar amount dont seem so strange if it was sold here.

edit: oh 700+ that just seems weird!!

It's called Bid Retraction: http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?RetractBidShow

Why don't you sell it via local Craigslist?

I sold my wife's 2010 unlocked iPhone 4 for $280 with zero fuss. So it was a $10 upgrade to the iPhone 5.

I met the buyer at a Starbucks. He brought cash and it couldn't have been easier. I suspect he will just turn around and sell it to other country.

Your phone will be clean once do a factory restore (which you need to do to unlock from your carrier anyway.)

If you want less work nor risk then you can take it to your local Gamestop. But they will pay about $130 for it.

It seems like its real value is around $500ish...and I think I'll go for the green.

I'm currently unlocking 2 16GB iPhone 4 phones (not 4S) to sell since my wife and I both upgraded to the 5 this week. In all the completed items searching I've done, it appears the average is about $250; you see some go for $300, you see some go for $200. So I think that, offering worldwide shipping, you'll see the higher end of that range, maybe just over.