Can a VZW Rep Tell You How Old a Phone Is?

[ayh127]

I am looking into a buying a used phone off of CL. There is a guy about 1 hour away from me that I found that says he used a phone for 1 day and then he won a Galaxy Nexus in a contest. I was wondering if I meet him in a VZW store if there is a way a rep could tell me if the phone had in fact been used for only 1 day?

[jarrett178]

The could probably tell you when the phone was first activated. Write down the phone ESN and call customer service

[ak1sdr]

The could probably tell you when the phone was first activated. Write down the phone ESN and call customer service

Eh... actually, telling you the activation date on a device that's not on your account would breach privacy policy because it's account specific information.

[ayh127]

So there is no way to really know?

[veriztd]

At best, they might be able to determine the phone's manufacture date. Don't forget that some phones sit on a shelf for several months prior to the date of activation so even that might not be useful.

The only other thing a rep could do is verify if the phone is already active w/ another mobile #, but they will not tell you what mobile # it may be associated with.

Your options in this matter are very limited.

[ayh127]

Seems like carriers need to have a better services for those buying used phones!

[veriztd]

It all comes down to privacy issues and fear of getting sued for disclosing such information. Not the carrier's fault or responsibility in this case. Simply too many instances of fraud when it comes to CL for the carrier to get involved.

[zapjb]

Can't you go into phones menu & look up lifetime minute usage?

[veriztd]

Can't you go into phones menu & look up lifetime minute usage?

Sure, but it won't show how long the phone was used. Could be 1 day, could be 1 year.

[Vatothe0]

Someone with 15 minutes of airtime used probably hasn't had the device long.

[ayh127]

Can't you go into phones menu & look up lifetime minute usage?

Great idea!

[veriztd]

15 minutes of use could be used over several days, but not likely over a year's time. There was no indication from the OP that only 15 minutes of use were shown on the phone. It all depends on the user. My point was that it is no true indicator of how long ago the phone was activated or how many days it was actually used.

[lemew]

Wirelessly posted (Tour: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.4; en-us; ADR6400L 4G Build/GRJ22) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

Isn't there a warranty date and manufacture date in the programming menu?

[Vatothe0]

15 minutes of use could be used over several days, but not likely over a year's time. There was no indication from the OP that only 15 minutes of use were shown on the phone. It all depends on the user. My point was that it is no true indicator of how long ago the phone was activated or how many days it was actually used.

I understand that. I was just saying that if they had a lifetime minute counter, and it was really low, the phone was probably pretty new.

[Guest 214]

you could check the warranty on apple's website. it should expire around a year (maybe plus a few days/weeks) after the phone was purchased.

How would Apple help if its not an Apple phone?