Selling a phone without losing your data or your money
The short answer
Back up, sign out of every account, then factory reset. In that order. Resetting before signing out leaves the phone tied to your account and worthless to the buyer. Then meet somewhere public, take payment that clears before you hand it over, and write down the IMEI.
Preparing it, in the order that matters
- Back up and check the backupVerify the last backup date rather than the switch. A backup that silently stopped is the thing people find out about afterwards.
- Move your two-factor codesAuthenticator apps tied to one device will lock you out of accounts. Do this before anything is wiped.
- Unpair a watch and any accessoriesFrom the phone, not by resetting the watch. It is a different and worse job the other way round.
- Sign out of every accountManufacturer account first, then email, then anything else. Check the device shows no account at all afterwards.
- Then factory resetOnly then. Reset before signing out and the phone stays tied to your account and is worth nothing.
- Remove the SIM and any memory cardObvious, and it happens weekly.
- Note the IMEI*#06#. Write it on the receipt so there is a record of which handset you sold.
Why the order is not negotiable
A factory reset does not remove the account lock. The device wipes, restarts, and on setup asks for the account it was signed into. Nobody but you can clear that, and if you have moved on it becomes a problem for both of you.
It is the single most common reason a sale falls apart at the counter or at a meeting, and it is entirely avoidable by signing out first.
If it has already happened, you can still remove the device from your account remotely from any browser, in about a minute. That is why keeping the buyer's contact details until they have set it up is worth doing.
Selling privately without getting caught out
A buyer who resists any of that is a buyer worth walking away from, and an honest one will expect all of it.
- Meet somewhere public and busy, in daylight. A bank foyer or a shopping centre is ideal
- Take payment that has actually cleared before the phone leaves your hand. A screenshot of a transfer is not a cleared transfer
- Be wary of an overpayment followed by a request to refund the difference. That is a scam with a long history
- Do not post a phone before payment clears, whatever the story about a courier already booked
- Write a receipt with the IMEI, the date, the price and both names, even a handwritten one
- Do not hand over a phone still signed into anything
Selling to a shop instead
Less money, no meeting, no scam risk, and the transaction is done in ten minutes with a record of it. Whether that trade is worth it is a personal call and it depends on how much the gap actually is.
Here, trade-in credit against another device is worth more than cash, because a phone that stays in the shop is worth more to us than one that leaves as money. Both offers are real and we show both.
We check the IMEI and the account before buying, which means we will not take a device somebody cannot sign out of in front of us. That is the same check protecting you when you buy from us.
Common questions.
Yes, and sign out of every account first. Resetting before signing out leaves the phone tied to your account and worth nothing to the buyer.
Remove the device from your account remotely from any browser. It takes about a minute and it is why keeping the buyer's contact details until they have set it up is worth doing.
It can be. Meet somewhere public and busy, take payment that has cleared before the phone leaves your hand, and write a receipt with the IMEI on it.
Move them before you wipe anything. Authenticator apps tied to a single device will lock you out of accounts, and recovering from that is much harder than preventing it.
It buys you no meeting, no scam risk, a ten minute transaction and a record. Whether the gap is worth it is your call, and here trade-in credit narrows it considerably.
Where this leads.
Something actually broken? Bring it in.
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