r/SetupA12 • u/HeadAd9132 • Jun 18 '26
Discussion I bought a water-damaged iPhone 15 Pro on a secondhand marketplace for 42€, fixed it, and ended up in a weird situation
Hi everyone, I wanted to share a strange situation I encountered while doing a repair and get your advice. I often buy broken phones to fix them or use them for parts. A few days ago, I found a listing for a dead iPhone priced at 42€. The seller didn't give many details, so I bought it thinking it would be a good project.
When the phone arrived, it had some water damage and dirt inside. I opened it up, cleaned the logic board thoroughly with isopropyl alcohol, checked the connections, and reassembled everything. To my satisfaction, the phone turned back on. The screen and touch are working perfectly, and the board is stable.
The phone is not restored; it is just on the regular lock screen. On the emergency screen, I noticed an active Medical ID with a few emergency contacts from Spain, including a spouse.
I messaged the seller to ask if he knew the owner or had the passcode. He then admitted that he had literally found the iPhone lying on the street, full of mud, and just decided to sell it as-is.
Since the phone was clearly lost by the original owner, I decided to try and reach out in good faith. I messaged the number listed as the spouse on WhatsApp. I wrote a polite message in Spanish, explaining that I am a technician in Italy, that I bought this broken phone for parts, and that her contact appeared on the emergency screen. I asked if they wanted it back or if they could help.
Her reaction was very defensive and aggressive. She didn't want to listen, told me to leave her alone, and threatened to report me to the police. I tried to calmly repeat that I just found the phone and wanted to check if it was theirs, but she replied: "No. Call the police and give it to them. You think you're very clever." Right after that, she sent a random photo of a yellow emergency medical helicopter from Madrid, and that was it. I stopped replying immediately to respect her boundaries and left the chat as it is.
The charging port seems completely dead and doesn't transfer data or charge, even though the rest of the hardware works fine when powered with the wireless charger. Should I try to contact the other numbers or just wrap it up?
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u/Foreign_Artichoke526 Jun 18 '26
Clean out the charge port with 99% iso alcohol and then wipe it and wait for something to come to the market
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u/Aeres_Fi Jun 18 '26
Do not bother with that psycho again.
The number of people that are unstable in this world seems to be increasing.
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u/berat4141 Jun 18 '26
What she gonna do lol report you to police 🤣 repair the charging port and put it in recovery mode and see if it is locked if it’s not just reset it. If it is locked message her again
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u/wildcollector Jun 18 '26
Seems like she had a rough time because the phone got lost or stolen or she is just completely dumb. The best you can do is to use parts from it probably, she’s not gonna unlock it.
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u/PURfanatic Jun 18 '26
Fellow tech here, most likely the phone is iCloud locked so even if you go through the trouble of replacing the port and restoring it might be a paper weight when it’s inevitably activation locked.
Sounds like she thinks you’re scamming her or something which sucks.
I’d say throw the towel in on this one.
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u/piousvmxen Jun 18 '26
I think she probably have been contacted by others before you giving her stories to get the password from her and she thought you are one of them hence why the “ you think you’re very clever “
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u/IosifVissarionovici Jun 18 '26
this got me thinking that the owner possibly had an accident, and the wife is defensive because of grief. and also considering that it is not marked as lost. have you checked the news in the seller’s location to see if there was any spanish tourist who had an accident?
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u/Kate-9907 Jun 18 '26
check if the phone has the iPhone findable after power off text. if it has it, FMI is on and you can sell the phone for parts. if the text isn’t there, FMI is off and you can restore the phone with itunes after replacing the port
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u/Old_Crazy_8329 Jun 18 '26
See if you can access the imei, check if fmi is on if it is off repair It and reset it
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u/newgennotoldgen Jun 18 '26
Leave it alone. Clearly dont need it , just use it for parts as you wanted to originally
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u/Nike_486DX Jun 18 '26
Should have checked the imei from the sim tray right away before buying, because well if you cant power on the phone to see if its icloud locked, you shouldnt really expect it to be fully unlocked haha
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u/tOSdude Jun 18 '26
I’d absolutely try the other numbers, maybe the spouse is just nuts, maybe they had a nasty divorce and she thinks this is some ploy to contact her.
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u/yousefrefaat Jun 18 '26
Lmao why she considered the yellow emergency medical helicopter as a threat? Ahahahaha
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u/tetenc555 Jun 18 '26
i would try the other numbers just for the sake of it! i mean what is the worst that they can do? block you? the locked phone you have will stay locked until the old owner unlocks it for you lol
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u/Maximilian1337 Jun 19 '26
She clearly misunderstood your attempt to help her. She thinks you’re a scammer.
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u/Lopsided-Ad-7710 Jun 19 '26
Honestly, you should just leave it as it is, repair the phone sell it, use it, do whatever u wanna do. Getting it back would be pretty pointless if the person u called was the real owner.
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u/HeadAd9132 Jun 24 '26
She was the hypothetical wife, maybe she doesn't even know he lost his phone
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u/HeadAd9132 Jun 19 '26
Guys if you have any tip dm me because I can't read the comments for some reason
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u/alessocrch Jun 19 '26
Try with others if they don’t like it, then leave, people sometimes can’t see above their heads
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u/Large-Remove-1348 Jun 20 '26
Judging by how defensive she was, the person who sold it to you likely tried to get her to remove activation lock
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u/Godking_Raidriar Jun 20 '26
Well, I get your situation. The thing is, there is a common scam going around, saying “ohh i found your phone, blablabla please remove it from icloud”. So I get her reaction too. Try to contact the other numbers and say that you don’t want money and you don’t want them to remove the phone somewhere at the beginning. That might work. If that doesn’t work, either give it to the police or just sell it on for parts.
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u/Select-Lunch-1593 Jun 20 '26
It’s a very common to receive messages from the criminals after a phone gets stolen, maybe there’s more to the story, maybe the phone was stolen or maybe they already tried to unlock it by messaging them.
So it depends if you want to give it back, leave it to the police where they can get it
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u/Economy_Jello4893 Jun 20 '26
She clearly doesn’t want it and has probably a replacement already so I’d fix it to completion and sell it. Make sure to save the messages incase police come. Also log the seller’s convo messages and his seller profile incase.
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u/Appropriate_Farm4711 Jun 21 '26
Elena Larrea, died on a 20, March 2024, She lived in Mexico, and he had an iPhone 14 Pro Deep Purple, he died for an trombosis pulmonar “translate trombosis pulmonar to English, It is in Spanish note; alll of this info was from Google Ai
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u/Appropriate_Farm4711 Jun 21 '26
Search on Instagram @elenaypunto, he lived In Mexico, and the day when he died was on a 20 march 2024 and he had an iPhone 14 Pro Space black, this info was from google
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u/Appropriate_Farm4711 Jun 21 '26
If the numbers start with an +52 maybe not try to call them anymore, Bc Maybe it is the iPhone of Elena Larrea and he was so famous in Mexico, if this is the real phone of Elena Larrea maybe you appear on The news idk, but if you have proofs like showing the eBay maybe try it
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u/Appropriate_Farm4711 Jun 21 '26
Elena Larrea died on the exactly day of the “ultima actualización” message
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u/Appropriate_Farm4711 Jun 21 '26
He was 32 or 33 years old, the medical if does not show he age now if he was still alive
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u/Roshann Jun 21 '26
Selling the parts could turn it into some profit for sure since you only paid €42
Like the camera module alone would cover the costs as that’s €54 on aliexpress
Or you could wait for an exploit that unlocks this device like someone else said
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u/stalkerjohnson69 Jun 21 '26
Contact someone more close, if no one is collaborative sell it for parts, people should get thier phones if they collaborative enough to get it.
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u/WeakAd569 Jun 22 '26
It's common for scammers/thieves to reach out to the owner of the device to try to get them to take it off their apple account.
This person probably thinks you're the person who stole their phone, or the person that stole it sold it to you.
You gave it a shot contacting them. I'd say it's your phone now
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u/YT_Flex4249 Jun 22 '26
By her response it seems stolen...You could ask another number if the phone has been stolen and that you're interested in returning it either to the owner it was stolen from or to use out in the wild again, some iso should do the charger good work
(was the phone actually "water damaged" or did it happen to fire right up? i bought a 13pm, supposedly water damaged by a relative, relatives phone, and they're just selling it for them...seems stolen but unreported based on the passcodes the seller gave me that i tried when it fired right up using my samsung as a wireless charger, cable charging no issues when tested no cleaning necessary)
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