01-08-2015, 12:27 PM
I wanted a 5 or 5s and just waited for a forum member to put one on the For Sale & Free Items, just because I would have a much greater level of trust with somebody that I knew from their postings on this site. That worked out very well for me.
I've bought a couple of things from Glyde and one from Swappa without any problems. They have a return policy that will protect you if a phone just doesn't work or doesn't activate. Beyond that, you have a credit card charge back protection that could be used if Glyde or Swappa or Ebay didn't refund money for a defective item.
But, the problem, particularly with a 5s, is that somebody might sell it while it is still under contract and they are current on their Verizon bill and so it would show as a clean phone and will activate on your account, but if they don't pay the final Early Termination Fee, Verizon would likely break the phone after several months, so a previously-clean phone could stop working and it could be too late to do a credit card charge back by the time that happened. It seems to me that it would be much less likely with a 5 since they are a year older and so more likely to be out of contract. This is why I didn't want to buy a used iPhone 5 or 5s from one of those sites. I would be much more confident buying used directly from Verizon or from Cowboom since they have records concerning the particular phone.
The issue of a phone without a sim card is likely that somebody simply took their current sim card from the iPhone and put it into their new phone to use on the network. So, that doesn't seem to be problematic to me. You'd have to get a new Verizon sim. You can get one on Ebay for $6 or so. I bought my PagePlus sim on Ebay without any problems. Of course you can get one from Verizon, as well for more.
I've bought a couple of things from Glyde and one from Swappa without any problems. They have a return policy that will protect you if a phone just doesn't work or doesn't activate. Beyond that, you have a credit card charge back protection that could be used if Glyde or Swappa or Ebay didn't refund money for a defective item.
But, the problem, particularly with a 5s, is that somebody might sell it while it is still under contract and they are current on their Verizon bill and so it would show as a clean phone and will activate on your account, but if they don't pay the final Early Termination Fee, Verizon would likely break the phone after several months, so a previously-clean phone could stop working and it could be too late to do a credit card charge back by the time that happened. It seems to me that it would be much less likely with a 5 since they are a year older and so more likely to be out of contract. This is why I didn't want to buy a used iPhone 5 or 5s from one of those sites. I would be much more confident buying used directly from Verizon or from Cowboom since they have records concerning the particular phone.
The issue of a phone without a sim card is likely that somebody simply took their current sim card from the iPhone and put it into their new phone to use on the network. So, that doesn't seem to be problematic to me. You'd have to get a new Verizon sim. You can get one on Ebay for $6 or so. I bought my PagePlus sim on Ebay without any problems. Of course you can get one from Verizon, as well for more.