Category: Verification & Safety

How to Check if a Phone Is Stolen or Blocked Before You Buy
08/02/2026

How to Check if a Phone Is Stolen or Blocked Before You Buy

Post By Emran Ahmed Verification & Safety , , , , No Comments

The phone worked at the meetup. It worked for six weeks. Then, on an ordinary Tuesday, it stopped registering on the network — full Wi-Fi, no signal, no calls, no explanation.

That gap between “works fine now” and “stops working later” is where most people get hurt, and it’s why checking a phone’s status is a different job from inspecting a phone’s condition. Condition you can see. Status you have to look up.

Three different problems that all look the same

People use “blocked” to mean any of these, and the fixes are completely different.

Stolen and reported. The original owner told their carrier or the police. The IMEI goes onto a blacklist, and networks refuse to register it. Sometimes this is regional; sometimes it propagates internationally through shared databases.

Blocked for non-payment. No theft involved. The phone was bought on a carrier instalment plan, the seller stopped paying after selling it, and the carrier blacklisted the IMEI months later. This is the delayed-fuse version and it’s the one that catches careful buyers, because the phone genuinely is clean on the day you check.

Blocked by a regulator. In some countries a device has to be registered with a national system before it can use local networks at all. Pakistan’s DIRBS works this way — an unregistered imported phone gets cut off from calls, SMS, and mobile data after its grace period, while Wi-Fi keeps working normally. Nothing was stolen; the paperwork just wasn’t done. Our PTA approval guide covers that system in full.

A fourth thing gets confused with these and isn’t a block at all: an account lock, where the phone is tied to a previous owner’s Apple or Google account. Different mechanism, different fix, covered separately.

Run these checks, in this order

1. Get the IMEI, and get it from the phone

Dial `*#06#` on the keypad. The IMEI appears without unlocking the phone on most devices, which matters when you’re standing next to a stranger holding something you haven’t paid for.

Then match it against Settings and against the etching on the SIM tray or back panel. Three places, one number. A mismatch means a swapped board, a swapped housing, or a reprogrammed identity — and any of those ends the conversation.

Dual-SIM phones have two IMEIs. Check both. A device can be clean on one and flagged on the other.

2. Run it through the right database for your region

There isn’t one global blacklist, which is the part most guides skip.

In the United States, the CTIA operates Stolen Phone Checker, which queries the major carriers’ shared list. In Pakistan, text the IMEI to 8484 or use the PTA’s Device Verification System. Most other countries run either a carrier-level lookup or a national register — search for the one covering the network you actually intend to use, because a phone clean in one country can be blocked in another.

If you’re buying an imported phone, check both the country it came from and the one you’ll use it in.

3. Ask the financing question out loud

This is the check that costs nothing and catches the delayed blocks.

Ask whether the phone was bought outright or on an instalment plan, and if it was financed, ask to see that the balance is settled. A carrier account screenshot showing a zero balance takes the seller thirty seconds.

What you’re listening for isn’t really the answer. It’s whether the question makes them uncomfortable. An honest seller finds it a reasonable thing to ask; someone offloading a phone they’re about to stop paying for does not.

4. Ask for the box and the receipt

Underrated, and close to conclusive when it works.

A seller who produces the original box with a matching IMEI, plus a purchase receipt in their own name, is almost certainly not selling you a stolen phone. Thieves have the phone. They rarely have the packaging, and they never have the paperwork.

The absence of a box isn’t proof of anything — plenty of legitimate owners throw them out. But its presence is strong evidence in the other direction, and it’s worth paying slightly more for.

5. Complete setup yourself before paying

An account lock only surfaces at setup. Watch the seller erase the device, then walk it to the home screen on your own account with your own SIM in it. Anything wrong reveals itself in that window, while you still have the money.

What each check can and can’t tell you

CheckCatchesMisses
IMEI matched in three placesCloned or reprogrammed identityEverything about ownership
Regional blacklist lookupReported theft, existing blocksTheft not yet reported; future non-payment blocks
Regulator status (e.g. PTA)Unregistered importsTheft outside that country
Financing questionMost delayed-block riskA seller willing to lie outright
Box and receiptMost theftNothing much — it’s a positive signal, not a negative test
Setup on your own accountAccount locksNetwork-level blocks

No single row covers the field. Together they cover nearly all of it, and they take about six minutes.

The gap nobody can close

Here’s the uncomfortable part: a phone stolen last night hasn’t been reported yet, so it checks clean on every database you can reach.

There’s no lookup that fixes this. What reduces it is the pattern around the sale — a seller who meets you somewhere sensible, has the box, answers questions without irritation, and lets you take as long as you need is behaving like an owner. A seller pushing for speed, meeting somewhere odd, carrying the phone without a case or accessories, and vague about where it came from is behaving like someone moving inventory.

Trust that read. It’s imprecise and it’s still the best tool available for the one risk databases can’t cover.

Why a phone can be clean in one country and dead in another

Worth understanding, because it explains most of the confusion around imported devices.

There’s no single worldwide blacklist. What exists is a layered arrangement: each mobile operator runs its own equipment identity register, and those registers sync against a shared national or international database. A device reported stolen in one country gets written into that country’s register, and whether the flag travels depends on whether the operators involved participate in the international exchange.

In practice this produces three situations a buyer runs into.

The phone is blocked at home and clean abroad. Someone exports a blacklisted device to a market whose operators don’t receive that country’s list. It registers on the local network and works indefinitely. Legal exposure aside, the risk here is that participation expands over time — lists that don’t currently sync sometimes start syncing.

The phone is clean everywhere but unregistered locally. Nothing was stolen. It simply hasn’t been declared to a national device register, which is a paperwork problem rather than a theft problem, and it’s usually solvable by paying whatever duty applies.

The phone is blocked locally and clean on its home network. The reverse case, usually a registration failure or an identity that failed validation.

The practical instruction that falls out of all this: check the database that governs the network you will actually use, and if the phone was imported, check the origin country as well. One lookup is half a check on an imported device.

What a legitimate seller can show you

If you’re on the buying side and want to raise your confidence quickly, ask for things rather than assurances.

A genuine owner can usually produce some combination of: the original box with a matching IMEI, a purchase receipt or an order confirmation email, a carrier account showing the device with no outstanding balance, and a phone that isn’t tied to anyone’s account when set up.

None of these is individually conclusive. Together they describe someone who bought a phone and is now selling it, which is the situation you want to be in.

If you’re on the selling side, the same list is your best negotiating asset. Buyers discount uncertainty, and every document you produce removes a reason for them to push the price down.

If you’ve already bought a blocked phone

Move fast, because your position weakens with time.

Contact the seller first. If the block came from unpaid financing, the seller can clear it, and many will when confronted, since the alternative is a dispute with a paper trail. Keep the listing, the messages, and the payment record — this is exactly why paying in a traceable way matters more than the convenience of cash.

If the phone turns out to be reported stolen, understand the position clearly: possession of a stolen device is not something you can resolve by reselling it. Passing it to another buyer moves the problem to someone else and makes your situation considerably worse. Report it, cooperate, and pursue the seller.

Carriers and regulators will not lift a block for the buyer. They deal with the account holder or the person who filed the report, which is a frustrating answer and a consistent one.

Check twice: at agreement, and at handover

A detail worth building into your routine.

Status lookups return a snapshot. If you check on Monday and meet on Saturday, five days have passed in which a theft could have been reported or a registration could have lapsed. The window is small and the check costs thirty seconds, so run it again at the meetup with the phone in your hand.

This also protects against a specific trick: a seller shares a genuine screenshot of a clean status for a phone they own, then sells you a different device. Checking the number dialled from the handset in front of you closes that gap entirely.

Common mistakes to avoid

  • Checking one database and assuming it’s global. Blacklists are largely regional.
  • Skipping the second IMEI on a dual-SIM phone. Half a check.
  • Treating a clean result as permanent. It’s a snapshot, and financed phones fail later.
  • Paying before setup completes. Account locks only appear at that screen.
  • Buying an imported phone without checking local registration rules. In some countries this alone will kill the phone within weeks.
  • Assuming a low price means a good deal. Blocked and locked phones are precisely why prices get low.

FAQ

Can I tell if a phone is stolen just from the IMEI?

Only if the theft has been reported and the report has reached the database you’re checking. A blacklist hit is conclusive; a clean result is reassuring rather than definitive.

Does a stolen phone work on Wi-Fi?

Yes. Blocks operate at the network registration level, so a blacklisted phone browses, streams, and messages over Wi-Fi perfectly. Sellers use this to demonstrate that a phone “works fine.”

What if the seller says the phone is clean but won’t show a receipt?

Plenty of honest sellers don’t have one. Weigh it against everything else — if the box is missing, the price is unusually low, and they’re pushing for a quick handover, the absence starts to mean something.

Can a blocked phone ever be unblocked?

Sometimes, when the block came from unpaid financing and the account holder settles the balance. Blocks arising from theft reports are not lifted for a subsequent buyer.

How long does a stolen report take to appear in a database?

It varies by carrier and country, from hours to several days. That lag is the reason a clean result can never be treated as proof, and the reason the seller’s behaviour is worth reading alongside the lookup.

Is it illegal to buy a stolen phone unknowingly?

Laws vary by country, but in most places you have no valid title to stolen property regardless of what you paid, and you can be required to surrender it. That’s the real financial risk, and it’s why the checks are worth the six minutes.

Before your next viewing, save two links in your notes app: the blacklist checker for your country, and the regulator lookup if your country has one. Having them open at the meetup is the difference between meaning to check and checking.

When you’re ready to shop, browse listings on ExploreFrag and take our fifteen-point inspection list with you.

About the author

Emran Ahmed is the founder and CEO of ExploreFrag, a marketplace for buying and selling used phones and accessories across every brand. Delayed blocks from unpaid instalment plans are the complaint he finds hardest to help with, which is why he now treats the financing question as non-negotiable. He reviews listings most days and has learned to read the absence of a box as information rather than an accident.

IMEI Check Explained: What It Tells You About a Used Phone
08/02/2026

IMEI Check Explained: What It Tells You About a Used Phone

Post By Emran Ahmed Verification & Safety , , , , No Comments

Most buyers treat the IMEI as a password to a stolen-phone database. Type it in, get a green tick, move on.

It’s considerably more useful than that, and considerably more limited. The number itself encodes what the phone claims to be, which means it can expose a device lying about its own model before you’ve looked up anything at all.

What the fifteen digits actually contain

An IMEI isn’t random. It has structure.

The first eight digits are the Type Allocation Code. This identifies the make and model — not the individual phone, but the model line it belongs to. Every unit of the same model shares the same TAC.

The next six digits are the serial portion, unique to that individual device within its model.

The final digit is a check digit, calculated from the preceding fourteen using the Luhn algorithm — the same checksum scheme used on payment cards. It exists to catch typos, and it means a randomly invented IMEI will almost always fail validation.

Two practical consequences fall out of that structure.

First, you can sanity-check an IMEI without any database. Most free IMEI validators do the Luhn arithmetic instantly, and a number that fails it was made up rather than mistyped.

Second — and this is the useful one — a TAC lookup tells you which model the number belongs to. If the TAC decodes to one phone and you’re holding a different one, the IMEI has been reprogrammed. That’s a check that costs nothing and catches a whole category of fraud that a blacklist lookup sails straight past.

Where to find it, and why you check three places

Dial `*#06#`. Works on essentially every phone, usually without unlocking it.

Settings. iPhone: General > About. Android: About phone > IMEI.

The hardware. Etched on the SIM tray on many models, printed under the back cover on older ones, and on the original box.

You check all three because they come from different places. The dialled code reads the modem. Settings reads the operating system. The etching is physical and can’t be edited by software. When those agree, the phone’s identity is consistent. When they don’t, something has been swapped or reflashed.

Dual-SIM devices carry two IMEIs, and eSIM slots have them too — a phone with one physical slot and one eSIM still reports two. Check both. Regulators increasingly validate that a device’s multiple IMEIs actually belong to the same handset; Pakistan’s system runs exactly this check against manufacturer records, and mismatches get held or rejected.

Checking the check digit by hand

You’ll never need to do this manually, but understanding it explains why invented numbers fail.

The Luhn calculation works from the right. Take the fourteen digits before the check digit, double every second one moving leftward, and where doubling produces a two-digit result, add those two digits together. Sum everything. The check digit is whatever value makes that total reach the next multiple of ten.

Try it on a made-up number like 490154203237518 and you’ll find the arithmetic either resolves or it doesn’t. Real IMEIs resolve. Numbers typed from memory, guessed, or generated carelessly usually don’t.

Why this matters to a buyer: a seller quoting an IMEI over messages that fails validation has either mistyped it or invented it, and you’ve learned something before travelling anywhere. Any free IMEI validator does this arithmetic instantly.

IMEI, serial, MEID, EID — which is which

These get used interchangeably and shouldn’t be.

IMEI identifies the device to mobile networks. Standardised across manufacturers, fifteen digits, one per SIM identity.

Serial number is the manufacturer’s own identifier. This is what warranty and coverage lookups want, and it’s usually what resolves to a purchase date and a precise model configuration.

MEID is the older identifier used on some networks, fourteen hexadecimal characters. You’ll occasionally see it listed alongside the IMEI on devices that supported those networks.

EID identifies the eSIM chip itself, not the phone. Thirty-two digits. It matters when a carrier is provisioning an eSIM profile and almost never otherwise.

For used buying, you want the IMEI for blacklist and regulator checks, and the serial for manufacturer lookups. Asking a seller for the wrong one wastes a round of messages.

What happens to the IMEI when a phone is repaired

A question that comes up constantly and has a clean answer: the IMEI lives with the logic board.

Replace a screen, a battery, a camera, or a housing, and the IMEI is unchanged. Replace the logic board — which is what happens in some manufacturer service swaps — and the device now reports the identity of the new board. That’s legitimate, but it means the IMEI etched on an old SIM tray or printed on the original box may no longer match.

So a mismatch between the etched number and the dialled one isn’t automatically fraud. It’s a question. The good answer involves a documented board-level repair or a manufacturer service exchange. The bad answer is a shrug.

Manufacturer replacement units are a related case: a device swapped under warranty is a different physical phone with a different identity, and its serial usually reflects that in the coverage lookup.

The four questions an IMEI can answer

Is it blacklisted? Through a regional database — the carrier or national register covering the network you’ll use. Covered in depth in our guide to checking whether a phone is stolen or blocked.

Is it the model it claims to be? Via TAC lookup, or by running the serial through the manufacturer. Apple’s coverage lookup resolves a serial to a specific model and its warranty state; most large Android brands offer an IMEI equivalent.

Is it under warranty? Same lookup. This also tells you when the coverage clock started, which is how you verify an open-box claim.

Is it registered where registration is required? In countries with a national device register, the IMEI is the key to that status.

One more use worth mentioning: insurance and police reports both want the IMEI, not the serial. Recording both numbers somewhere off the device, the day you buy a phone, takes a minute and is the difference between a report that can be acted on and one that can’t.

The three questions it can’t answer

Worth being blunt about, because over-trusting an IMEI check is its own failure mode.

Whether the seller owns it. The IMEI says nothing about who’s standing in front of you. A phone stolen yesterday and not yet reported returns a perfectly clean result.

Whether it’s about to be blocked. A device on an unpaid instalment plan checks clean right up until the carrier flags it, which can be months after you buy.

Anything about condition. No repair history, no battery health, no water damage, no screen state. The IMEI is an identity, not a health record. Those checks are physical and live in our fifteen-point inspection list.

A word on paid IMEI checking services

There are a lot of them, and quality varies enormously.

Free and authoritative beats paid and vague, every time. The manufacturer’s own lookup, the national regulator’s portal, and the carrier blacklist are the three sources actually connected to the systems that matter. A paid service is reselling access to some subset of those, sometimes with stale data, sometimes with none.

Where paid checks occasionally earn their fee is carrier-lock status on specific networks, and even then the reliable test is putting your own SIM in at the meetup and watching it register. My honest position: run the free authoritative checks first, and only consider paying if there’s a specific question none of them answers.

Also worth knowing: entering an IMEI on a random site is not risk-free. It’s not secret information, but there’s no reason to feed it into services you haven’t heard of.

For sellers: share it early

Worth flipping the perspective, because most advice here is written for buyers.

Putting the IMEI in your listing, or offering it in the first reply, does three things. It filters out buyers who were never serious, since the ones who run checks are the ones who intend to buy. It removes a round of messages. And it signals that you have nothing to hide, which is worth real money in a market where buyers discount uncertainty heavily.

Mask the final digits publicly if it makes you more comfortable, and share the full number once someone is genuinely interested. The information isn’t sensitive — it’s printed on the box — and treating it as a secret reads as evasive rather than careful.

Cloned IMEIs, and why they’re the nasty case

A cloned IMEI is one copied from a legitimate device onto another. Two phones, one identity.

This is genuinely difficult for a buyer to catch, because the number checks out — it belongs to a real, compliant, unblocked device somewhere. The lookup comes back clean because it’s describing the other phone.

What catches it: the TAC-versus-model comparison, the three-location match, and the manufacturer serial lookup returning a model that doesn’t match what you’re holding. In countries running multi-IMEI validation against manufacturer records, cloning also tends to surface at registration.

This is also the argument for the box and the receipt. A phone whose packaging, paperwork, and etched IMEI all agree is very hard to fake convincingly.

Common mistakes to avoid

  • Checking only one IMEI on a dual-SIM device.
  • Reading the IMEI only from Settings. The one screen easiest to alter on a compromised device.
  • Treating a clean blacklist result as proof of ownership. It isn’t close to that.
  • Paying for a check the manufacturer offers free.
  • Skipping the TAC-versus-model comparison. It’s the check that catches reprogrammed identities, and almost nobody runs it.
  • Assuming an IMEI check tells you anything about condition. Separate job entirely.

FAQ

What’s the difference between an IMEI and a serial number?

The IMEI identifies the device to mobile networks and is standardised across manufacturers. The serial number is the manufacturer’s own identifier and is what you use for warranty lookups. Most phones have both, and they’re not interchangeable.

Why does my phone show two IMEI numbers?

Because it supports two SIMs — two physical slots, or one physical and one eSIM. Each SIM identity has its own IMEI, and both should be checked.

Can an IMEI be changed?

It can be reprogrammed on some devices, which is illegal in many countries and is the mechanism behind cloned identities. Comparing the dialled IMEI against the etched one on the tray is the practical defence.

Is it safe to share my IMEI with a buyer?

Generally yes — buyers need it to run checks, and it’s printed on the box. Mask the last few digits in a public listing if you’d rather, and share it in full once someone is seriously interested.

Does a free IMEI check tell me if a phone is carrier-locked?

Sometimes, unreliably. The dependable test is inserting your own SIM at the meetup.

Should the IMEI on the box always match the phone?

Usually, and a mismatch is worth asking about rather than panicking over. A logic board replaced through a manufacturer service changes the device’s identity while leaving the original packaging unchanged, which is a legitimate explanation. An unexplained mismatch is not.

What does it mean if the IMEI returns nothing at all?

Usually a fake or heavily modified device. A phone that shows no IMEI, or a string of zeros, when you dial the code is not one to buy.

Next time you’re looking at a listing, ask for a photo of the dialled IMEI screen and run the TAC through a model lookup before you agree to meet. If the number says one phone and the photos show another, you’ve saved yourself a trip.

Ready to shop with the checks in hand? Browse what’s listed on ExploreFrag.

About the author

Emran Ahmed is the founder and CEO of ExploreFrag, a marketplace for buying and selling used phones and accessories across every brand. He got interested in the structure of IMEI numbers after seeing a listing where the dialled number belonged to an entirely different model than the phone in the photographs. He reviews listings most days and considers the TAC lookup the most underused free check available to buyers.

PTA Approval Explained: How to Check if a Phone Is PTA Approved
08/02/2026

PTA Approval Explained: How to Check if a Phone Is PTA Approved

Post By Emran Ahmed Verification & Safety , , , , No Comments

A phone sold in Rawalpindi last year at a price that made sense only if something was wrong with it. Nothing was. It was a genuine, unrepaired, perfectly good device — approved by PTA on one of its two IMEIs.

The buyer used it happily on the first SIM slot. The second slot never worked, and when he went to register it he found the tax bill on the outstanding IMEI ate the entire discount he thought he’d negotiated.

That’s the local version of the used-phone trap. Elsewhere buyers worry about blacklists. Here you also have to worry about paperwork, and the paperwork has a clock attached.

What PTA approval actually means

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority operates DIRBS — the Device Identification, Registration and Blocking System. Its job is to make sure only legally imported, registered devices operate on Pakistani mobile networks.

The mechanism is the IMEI. Every device using a Pakistani network has its IMEI checked against the register. Compliant devices work normally. Non-compliant ones get cut off from calls, SMS, and mobile data.

The part people find confusing: a blocked phone still works on Wi-Fi. Completely. It browses, streams, and runs messaging apps exactly as before. This is why sellers can hand someone a blocked phone that appears to work, and why “I’ve been using it at home, it’s fine” deserves a follow-up question.

Approval has nothing to do with whether the phone is genuine, stolen, or in good condition. It’s an import and tax status. A phone can be PTA-approved and stolen. It can be non-approved and completely legitimate — brought back from abroad by someone who hasn’t registered it yet.

Three ways to check, all free

By SMS. Text the 15-digit IMEI to 8484. You get a status message back within seconds. This is the one to use at a meetup, because it works on any phone with any SIM and takes no setup.

On the web. The official Device Verification System sits at dirbs.pta.gov.pk. Enter the IMEI, get the status.

In the app. PTA publishes a DVS app for Android and iOS. Useful if you check devices often.

Get the IMEI by dialling `*#06#` on the phone itself, not from a screenshot the seller sends you. A screenshot proves nothing about the device in your hand.

Reading the status

The wording varies slightly between the SMS reply and the portal, but the meanings sort into four buckets.

StatusWhat it meansWhat to do
Compliant / approvedRegistered and legal. Works normally.Proceed with your other checks
Valid but not registeredGenuine IMEI, tax not paid. Grace period running.Find out how much time is left and who pays
Non-compliantRegistration missing or refusedTreat the tax cost as part of the price
BlockedBarred from networksWalk away

The second row is where most negotiation happens, and where most confusion lives. A “valid but not registered” phone is not fake and not stolen. It’s a device whose duty hasn’t been paid. Whether that’s your problem or the seller’s is a price conversation — but it has to be a conversation, because the clock is running whether anyone discusses it or not.

The 60-day clock

International travellers bringing a device into Pakistan are required to register it within 60 days of arrival. Miss the window and the IMEI gets blocked, and the free first-device allowance available to travellers within that period is lost too.

For a used-phone buyer, the practical translation: if you’re looking at an imported device that isn’t yet registered, find out when it entered the country. A phone that arrived last week is a different proposition from one that arrived four months ago.

Registering a device

The route depends on who you are.

CNIC-based registration is the standard path for residents registering a device for their own long-term use.

Passport-based registration is for travellers and overseas Pakistanis who brought a device from abroad. Overseas Pakistanis get one device per calendar year registered free under the baggage rule, provided it’s done within the window. Foreign visitors can register a device temporarily — around 120 days — for the duration of a visit.

The process runs through a DIRBS account on the PTA portal. You submit the IMEI and your details, the system generates a Payment Slip ID, and you pay the assessed duty through a bank, ATM, or online banking. Payment slips expire if unused, so generate one when you’re ready to pay rather than in advance.

On the tax itself: the amount depends on the device’s value and is revised periodically, including at each federal budget. I’m not going to print a figure here that will be wrong within months. Use the official calculator on the PTA portal with the specific model in hand, and check it the same week you’re buying.

Also worth knowing: filer status affects what you pay. Being on the Federal Board of Revenue’s active taxpayer list generally means a lower total than the non-filer rate.

The dual-SIM trap

The single most useful thing in this article for a used-phone buyer.

A dual-SIM phone has two IMEIs. Both must be registered. Some sellers register only one — the tax on a single IMEI is lower — and then sell the phone as “PTA approved,” which is true in the narrowest possible sense.

You’ll find out when the second slot refuses to connect.

PTA now runs a Multi-SIM Verification check, validating that a device’s IMEIs actually belong to the same handset according to manufacturer records. Applications that fail this can be held or rejected, which is a problem for phones with reprogrammed or mismatched identities.

So: dial `*#06#`, note both numbers, and text both to 8484. Two separate checks, two separate answers. This takes an extra thirty seconds and is the difference between a working phone and a half-working one.

When a non-PTA phone is still worth buying

Contrary to how the market talks about it, “non-PTA” isn’t automatically a reason to walk. It’s a reason to do arithmetic.

The device is legitimate. The question is whether the discount exceeds the registration cost, and there are three situations where the answer is yes.

The discount is larger than the duty. Get a current figure from the official calculator for that exact model, subtract it from the asking price, and compare the total against approved units of the same phone. Sometimes the maths genuinely works. Frequently it doesn’t, which is why sellers of unregistered devices rarely encourage you to do the calculation in front of them.

You want a Wi-Fi-only device. A second phone for the house, a device for a child, a music player, a dedicated camera for a shop counter. Blocked cellular is irrelevant if you were never going to put a SIM in it. These sell at real discounts and work perfectly for the purpose.

You qualify for an allowance you haven’t used. If you’re returning from abroad within the window and haven’t claimed your free device for the calendar year, the calculus changes entirely.

What makes it a bad buy is paying an approved-phone price for an unapproved phone, then discovering the duty afterwards. That’s not a discount, it’s a deferred bill.

eSIM and multiple identities

Newer devices complicate the IMEI count.

A phone with one physical SIM slot and an eSIM still carries two IMEIs. A device with two eSIM profiles may carry more. Every identity programmed into the device is subject to the same registration requirement, which means the “check both numbers” instruction becomes “check all of them.”

Dial `*#06#` and read the whole screen rather than the first line. On some devices you’ll need to scroll. If a phone reports three identities and the seller has registered one, you’re looking at a device that will work partially and cost money to fix.

This is also where the manufacturer validation matters. Because the system cross-checks a device’s identities against manufacturer records, a phone whose IMEIs don’t credibly belong together can be held at registration — which is a problem you inherit, not one the seller solves.

How status should affect the price you pay

A rough framework, since this is the practical question underneath everything above.

Compliant on all identities: full market price. You’re buying a phone with no paperwork risk.

Compliant on one of two identities: subtract the duty on the outstanding identity, plus something for the hassle. Verify the figure before you agree, not after.

Valid but unregistered, recently arrived: subtract the full duty. Confirm how much of the window remains, because that’s your deadline, not the seller’s.

Valid but unregistered, long resident in the country: be careful. If the window has lapsed, the free allowances associated with it may have lapsed too, and the position is worse than it looks.

Blocked: no price makes this work. The block exists for a reason you don’t know.

Get the tax number from the official calculator with the model in front of you, in the same week you’re buying. A figure from a blog post — including this one, which is why there isn’t one — is a guess about a number that changes.

What the sticker doesn’t prove

Retailers put PTA-approved stickers on boxes. Stickers are printed objects and can be printed by anyone.

PTA’s own public guidance is to buy from reliable sources, prefer box-packed devices with warranty, confirm that the IMEI on the phone matches the one on the box, and be wary of prices well below the market. Reasonable advice, and none of it substitutes for texting the number yourself.

Same for screenshots. A seller’s screenshot of a compliant status is evidence about some IMEI, somewhere, at some time. Run the check on the phone in your hand.

One thing to understand about ownership

PTA registration attaches to the device’s IMEI, but the registration is made under an individual’s CNIC or passport. PTA’s own guidance notes that buying and selling a registered device carries risk for exactly this reason — the registration record continues to reference the person who made it.

In practice, a compliant phone keeps working when it changes hands. But if a dispute or a correction is ever needed, the person on the record is the one the system recognises. Worth factoring in when you’re deciding how much a compliant status is worth to you, and worth keeping your seller’s contact details for.

If something does go wrong — a device blocked in error, or a one-slot compliance problem — PTA runs an online complaint system, and there are facilitation centres and operator franchises that handle registration in person.

Common mistakes to avoid

  • Checking one IMEI on a dual-SIM phone. The most expensive shortcut in the local market.
  • Trusting a seller’s screenshot. Check the phone in front of you.
  • Assuming approved means genuine. Approval is a tax status, not a quality or ownership check.
  • Buying an unregistered import without pricing the tax in. The discount often isn’t a discount.
  • Believing a sticker. Thirty seconds of SMS beats any label.
  • Ignoring how long an unregistered phone has been in the country. The clock doesn’t reset when the phone changes hands.
  • Confusing a Wi-Fi demonstration with a working phone. Blocked devices browse perfectly.

FAQ

How do I check if a phone is PTA approved?

Dial `*#06#` to get the IMEI, then text it to 8484 or enter it at dirbs.pta.gov.pk. For dual-SIM devices, do this separately for both IMEI numbers.

What happens if I buy a non-PTA phone?

It works on Wi-Fi indefinitely but loses access to calls, SMS, and mobile data once blocked. You can register it and pay the duty to restore service, which is why the tax amount should be part of your price negotiation.

Is a non-PTA phone illegal to own?

Owning it isn’t the issue; using it on Pakistani mobile networks without registration is what the system restricts. The device becomes a Wi-Fi-only phone until registered.

How much is PTA tax on a phone?

It varies by device value and is revised periodically, including at each budget, and filer status affects the total. Check the official calculator on the PTA portal with your specific model before committing to a purchase.

Can I transfer PTA registration to my name after buying?

Registration is tied to the IMEI and recorded under the registering person’s CNIC or passport. A compliant device continues working after a sale, but keep your seller’s contact details in case a correction is ever needed.

My phone was blocked by mistake. What now?

PTA operates an online complaint system for exactly this, and franchise or facilitation centres can assist in person. Have your IMEI and any registration reference ready.

Before you go to see any phone in Pakistan, put 8484 in your contacts. Dial `*#06#` at the meetup, text both numbers, and read both replies before you discuss price. It costs nothing and it settles the single biggest local variable in about a minute.

When you’re ready, browse listings on ExploreFrag — and our guide to spotting blocked and stolen devices covers the checks that sit alongside this one.

PTA rules, tax rates, and registration windows change. Verify current details at dirbs.pta.gov.pk before making a purchase decision.

About the author

Emran Ahmed is the founder and CEO of ExploreFrag, a marketplace for buying and selling used phones and accessories across every brand. The one-slot approval problem is the most common local complaint he sees, and it’s almost always avoidable with one extra SMS. He reviews listings most days and now reads “PTA approved” in a description as the beginning of a question rather than the end of one.

How to Spot a Fake or Cloned Smartphone
08/02/2026

How to Spot a Fake or Cloned Smartphone

Post By Emran Ahmed Verification & Safety , , , , No Comments

The tell was the screenshot.

A buyer, mildly suspicious of a too-cheap flagship, took a screenshot during his inspection and went to mark it up. The editing tools that appeared weren’t the ones that phone should have had. Everything else looked right — icons, wallpaper, the settings menu, the boot animation. The interface was a costume over a different operating system, and it fell apart the moment he did something slightly unusual with it.

Fakes are built to survive a glance. They’re not built to survive nine minutes.

Two different problems

Worth separating, because the checks differ.

A counterfeit is a cheap device dressed as an expensive one. Different internals, different software, sometimes a different operating system entirely wearing a skin. The phone is not what it claims to be.

A clone is a real phone carrying an identity copied from another real phone. The hardware is genuine; the IMEI belongs to someone else’s device. This is nastier, because the identity checks out — it’s describing the other phone.

Most buyers only look for the first one.

Nine checks that expose a counterfeit

1. Run the serial through the manufacturer

The fastest and most decisive check. Take the serial number from the settings menu and run it through the manufacturer’s own lookup. A genuine device resolves to a specific model with a real purchase or coverage date. A fake either fails outright or resolves to a model that doesn’t match what you’re holding.

2. Compare the IMEI’s TAC against the phone

The first eight digits of an IMEI identify the model. Decode them and see whether they agree with the device in front of you. A mismatch means the identity was programmed in, and no amount of convincing hardware changes that. Our IMEI explainer covers how to read this.

3. Open the app store and install something

Skinned devices break here. Either the store is a lookalike, or the real store is present and reveals the underlying operating system, or the install simply fails. It takes twenty seconds and it’s one of the hardest things for a counterfeit to fake convincingly.

4. Take a screenshot and edit it

The markup tools, the save behaviour, the notification — all platform-specific, all rarely reproduced properly in a skin.

5. Ask the voice assistant something

Not “what’s the weather.” Something slightly odd. Fakes often ship with a stub assistant that handles two or three canned interactions and nothing else.

6. Dig three levels into settings

Counterfeit interfaces are wide and shallow. The top-level menus look right; the sub-sub-menus are missing, misspelled, or lead nowhere. Pick something obscure — accessibility options, developer settings, per-app permissions — and keep tapping.

7. Weigh it and feel the glass

Genuine flagships have a specific density that plastic-framed copies don’t reproduce. If you can, compare against a known-good unit. Camera glass on fakes is often flat and lifeless, and the bezels are usually slightly thicker than the real thing.

8. Test the cameras honestly

Shoot in low light, then zoom in. Counterfeits fake the megapixel count in the interface and can’t fake sensor performance. A “48-megapixel” photo that falls apart at moderate zoom in ordinary indoor light is telling you what the hardware actually is.

9. Check the display against the spec

High refresh rate is expensive and rarely faked well. Scroll a long list quickly and watch. Then run a plain white image at full brightness and look at the colour temperature and the evenness — cheap panels are visibly cooler and blotchier.

One caution about all nine: run them somewhere with good light, a stable connection, and no time pressure. Every check above assumes you can see the screen properly and look something up. A counterfeit inspected in a dim stairwell at closing time passes tests it would fail on a café table at noon, which is why the venue is part of the check rather than a detail around it.

Catching a clone

Harder, because the IMEI passes.

The signals that survive:

The three-location IMEI match. Dialled code, settings, and the physical etching on the tray or back. A cloned identity is written in software; the etching usually isn’t updated to match.

The serial-to-model lookup. If the manufacturer says this serial is a 256GB device in one colour and you’re holding a 128GB device in another, the identity was borrowed.

Regulator validation. Systems that check a device’s multiple IMEIs against manufacturer records will reject mismatches. Pakistan’s DIRBS runs exactly this validation, which is one reason a cloned phone often surfaces at registration rather than at purchase — details in our PTA approval guide.

The paperwork. Box, receipt, and etched IMEI all agreeing is a combination that’s genuinely hard to fabricate.

Packaging tells, and their limits

Counterfeit boxes have improved a lot, so treat these as supporting evidence rather than proof.

Look at print quality under good light — fakes often show slightly soft text, off-register colour, or fonts that are close but not right. Check that the IMEI printed on the box matches the phone. Check that the included cable and adapter are what that model actually ships with, since counterfeits frequently include generic accessories.

Regulatory stickers deserve particular scepticism. A printed label claiming approval is a printed label. Verify the status through the official channel rather than reading it off the box.

Counterfeit accessories, which are far more common

Fake phones are relatively rare. Fake chargers, cables, and earphones are everywhere, and one of those categories can damage the phone you just bought.

Chargers and power adapters. This is the one that matters for safety rather than performance. Counterfeit high-wattage adapters routinely omit the protection circuitry that genuine ones include, and the failure mode isn’t a slow charge — it’s heat, a damaged battery, or worse. Look for a recognisable brand, proper certification marks moulded or printed on the housing, a weight that feels substantial rather than hollow, and clean moulding without seams or flash.

Cables. Fakes are thinner, lighter, and use inferior conductors. Symptoms are slow charging, intermittent data connections, and connectors that loosen within weeks. Low stakes financially, mildly infuriating daily.

Earphones, particularly true wireless. Counterfeit versions of popular models are convincing in photographs and fall apart on pairing behaviour, case fit, and audio quality. Check the serial against the manufacturer where a lookup exists.

If you’re buying a phone bundled with accessories, price the accessories at zero unless you can verify them. A genuine phone with a counterfeit charger is a common combination, usually because the original was lost and replaced cheaply.

Buying without meeting: how the checks change

Some of this article assumes the phone is in your hands. When it isn’t — a shipped purchase, or a listing you’re evaluating remotely — the sequence shifts.

Ask for, in this order:

  1. A photo of the dialled IMEI screen, taken alongside something identifying, so you know it’s this phone rather than a stock image.
  2. The serial number, which you run through the manufacturer lookup yourself.
  3. A short video rather than photos: the seller unlocking the phone, opening settings, scrolling the about page, and opening the app store. Video is much harder to fake than stills and takes them thirty seconds.
  4. A photo of the original box, with the IMEI visible and matching.

Then insist on a payment method with recourse. The whole argument for buyer protection is situations exactly like this, where you can’t verify before paying. Our meetup and payment guide covers which methods actually offer it.

A seller who won’t send a thirty-second video of a phone they’re selling has made a decision about how much they want the sale.

The pattern underneath all of this

Counterfeits are optimised for the first thirty seconds. Photographs, home screen, weight in the hand, a quick scroll.

So the reliable strategy isn’t memorising tells. It’s doing something the fake wasn’t designed for — installing an app, editing a screenshot, opening an obscure settings page, shooting a photo in bad light. Anything unscripted.

My honest position on the whole category: at a normal market price, counterfeits are rare enough that these checks are a formality. It’s the unusually cheap listing for a desirable model that deserves the full nine minutes, and that’s also the listing where people skip the checks because they’re excited about the price.

The third category: real phones sold as something they’re not

Between genuine and counterfeit sits a category that costs buyers more money in aggregate than outright fakes do.

Refurbished sold as new. A returned or repaired device, cleaned up, boxed with generic accessories, and listed as sealed. The phone is real. The description isn’t. Tells: packaging that opens too easily or shows re-sealing, accessories that don’t match what the model ships with, and a warranty clock that has already started when you run the serial through the manufacturer.

Repaired sold as untouched. Genuine phone, third-party parts inside. On devices that log their own repair history this is visible in the settings menu; elsewhere you’re looking at seam gaps, mismatched panel colour, and chewed screws near the charging port.

Regional variant sold as local stock. A real, unmodified phone built for a different market, which may lack the network bands or carrier certification your service depends on. Check the model suffix against the variant sold in your country.

None of these is a counterfeit, and all three are misrepresentation. The serial lookup catches the first, the physical inspection catches the second, and the model number catches the third — which is why running all three beats looking for any single tell.

Common mistakes to avoid

  • Judging by the home screen. That’s the part built to pass.
  • Trusting the settings menu’s claimed specs. Skins report whatever they’re told to report.
  • Accepting the box as verification. Packaging is printable.
  • Skipping the serial lookup. It’s free, takes seconds, and is close to decisive.
  • Assuming a clean IMEI check rules out a clone. It rules out a blacklist, which is a different question.
  • Doing all this at night, outdoors, in a rush. Fakes survive bad viewing conditions. That’s rather the point of them.

FAQ

What’s the fastest way to check if a phone is genuine?

Run the serial number through the manufacturer’s lookup. If it resolves to the model in your hand, you’ve ruled out most counterfeits in under a minute.

Can a fake phone pass an IMEI check?

A counterfeit with a cloned IMEI can return a clean blacklist result, because the number belongs to a genuine device elsewhere. That’s why the model-versus-identity comparison matters more than the blacklist alone.

Are fake phones common on used marketplaces?

Less common than people fear at ordinary prices, and considerably more common at prices well below market for desirable models. The price is usually the first tell.

How do I check a phone if I can’t compare it to a real one?

Use the software tests — app store, screenshot editing, deep settings, voice assistant — since they don’t require a reference device. The physical tells are useful but harder to judge in isolation.

What if the seller won’t let me install an app?

That’s an answer. A seller confident in what they’re selling has no reason to object to twenty seconds in an app store.

Is a cloned phone illegal to own?

Reprogramming an IMEI is illegal in many countries, and a cloned device can be blocked or seized. Regardless of local law, it’s a phone that may stop working without warning.

If a listing is priced well under everything comparable, plan the nine checks before you go rather than deciding at the meetup. The excitement of a bargain is exactly what these devices are built to exploit.

Shopping now? See what’s listed on ExploreFrag and bring the full inspection checklist with you.

About the author

Emran Ahmed is the founder and CEO of ExploreFrag, a marketplace for buying and selling used phones and accessories across every brand. He collects stories about how counterfeits get caught, and the screenshot-editing one remains his favourite because nobody sets out to test a phone that way. He reviews listings most days and treats an unusually low price as a prompt to check more, not less.

Safe Meetup and Payment Rules for Used Phone Deals
08/02/2026

Safe Meetup and Payment Rules for Used Phone Deals

Post By Emran Ahmed Verification & Safety , , , , No Comments

The seller counted the notes, shook hands, and watched the buyer walk off with the phone. Twenty minutes later his banking app showed nothing, because the transfer confirmation he’d been shown was a screenshot of a page that had never existed.

He’d done everything else right. He’d checked the phone, agreed a fair price, met in a reasonable place. He’d just accepted an image as evidence of money.

Nearly every private-sale loss comes down to a version of that: one party gives up something irreversible before the other party’s side is irreversible too. The rules below all serve that single principle.

Where to meet

Somewhere public, indoors, with cameras and power outlets. A café, a shopping centre, a bank lobby. Outlets matter because charging is one of the checks a buyer needs to run, and you can’t do it in a car park.

Safe exchange zones, where they exist. Many police departments designate parking spots outside their stations for online transactions, usually under camera coverage. Nobody with bad intentions suggests meeting there, which makes proposing it a useful filter in itself.

Daylight. Phone condition is genuinely hard to assess in a dim car park at nine in the evening, and that’s not an accident in listings where the seller insists on it.

Not your home. For sellers especially. Your address plus knowledge that you own valuable electronics is more than a stranger needs.

Tell someone where you’re going and when you expect to be back. Share your location for the duration. This costs nothing and it’s the difference between an inconvenience and a problem if something goes wrong.

Bring what the other side needs

For sellers: the box, the cable, the SIM tool, and a charged phone. Bring your own charger so the buyer can test charging without borrowing one.

For buyers: your own SIM, your own charger, and the checks you plan to run. Our fifteen-point inspection list covers the sequence.

For both: your phone, charged, with mobile data — you’ll want to run lookups on the spot.

The scams that recur

Recognising the shape of these matters more than memorising them, because the details change and the structure doesn’t.

The switch. The buyer inspects the phone, hands it back to “think about it,” and returns a different device — a dummy, a broken unit, or a lookalike. Defence: note something specific about your phone before handing it over (a mark, the case, the exact battery percentage) and check it when it comes back. Better: don’t hand it over at all — let them inspect it while you’re holding it, or on the table between you.

The walk-off. “Let me just check the signal outside.” Never let the phone leave your sight, and never let it leave the building.

The screenshot transfer. As in the opening. A payment confirmation on someone else’s screen is a picture. Verify in your own banking app, and wait for the funds to actually land rather than for a pending notification.

The counterfeit note. Higher-value sales attract this. Count cash carefully, check notes properly, and if the amount is significant, meet at a bank and deposit it before the phone changes hands.

The overpayment. Buyer “accidentally” sends too much and asks for the difference back. The original payment gets reversed later; the refund doesn’t. Any transaction involving sending money back to a stranger is a scam, without exception.

The renegotiation at the meetup. Buyer arrives with less cash than agreed and a shrug, betting you’d rather take it than go home empty-handed. Not dangerous, just expensive — decide your floor in advance so you’re not deciding under pressure.

The extra person. One buyer becomes three at the meetup. Leave. There is no legitimate version of this that’s worth staying for.

The instalment. “I’ll pay half now and the rest tomorrow.” Tomorrow does not exist.

One framing that helps: at every moment during a meetup, ask yourself which side would lose if the other simply walked out right now. A well-run handover keeps that answer balanced — nobody is exposed for more than a few seconds at a time. The scams above all work by creating a window where one party has given up everything and the other has given up nothing.

Payment, ranked by how reversible it is

MethodReversible?Use it when
Cash, counted, in personNoDefault for most private sales
Bank transfer, confirmed as landedEffectively noLarger amounts; wait for the credit, not the notification
Payment app, funds visible in your accountRarelyVerify in your own app, never from their screen
Payment app “friends and family” style transfersSometimesUnderstand the protection you’re giving up
Card-based or protected paymentsYes, easilyBuyer-friendly, seller-risky for in-person deals
Cheque, money order, anything postedYesNever, for a same-day handover

The rule underneath the table: the phone moves when the money is irreversible, not before and not after.

For sellers, that means cash in hand or a confirmed credit in your own banking app. For buyers, it means completing setup on the phone before you release payment — which is the mirror image of the same principle, and why a good meetup has both sides satisfied at roughly the same moment.

The handover sequence that works for both sides

Order matters, and this order keeps both parties covered.

  1. Meet, sit down somewhere with a table.
  2. Buyer inspects the phone while the seller is present and it stays on the table.
  3. Buyer runs the identity checks — IMEI, blacklist, regulator status where relevant.
  4. Seller signs out of their accounts and erases the device.
  5. Buyer completes setup to the home screen on their own account, with their own SIM.
  6. Money changes hands and is verified.
  7. Both sides note the IMEI, the price, and the date.

Step seven takes thirty seconds and matters more than it looks. A simple receipt — device, IMEI, price, date, both names and contact numbers — protects both parties. It gives the buyer someone to contact if a delayed block appears, and it gives the seller evidence of a legitimate sale if the device later becomes someone else’s problem. Photograph it; both keep a copy.

Keep the listing and the message thread too. If anything surfaces weeks later, that record is the entire basis of your position.

When you can’t meet in person

Shipped sales remove the single best protection either side has — simultaneous exchange — so they need their own rules.

Use a platform with protection, and stay inside it. Every scam involving remote sales begins with someone suggesting you move the conversation and the payment somewhere the platform can’t see. There is no legitimate reason for that suggestion.

Sellers: document the device before it’s boxed. Photograph every side, the screen powered on, and the dialled IMEI screen, all in one continuous set. Then photograph the packing process. Disputes about shipped phones almost always turn on what condition the device left in, and photographs with consistent timestamps settle them.

Sellers: ship with tracking and signature, and insure it. The cost is small relative to the phone. Post it from a counter that gives you a receipt rather than a drop box.

Buyers: record the unboxing. One continuous video from sealed package to powered-on phone. Stopping the recording midway makes it useless.

Both: agree the return terms in writing before anything ships. Who pays return postage, what window applies, what counts as “not as described.” Silence on these points is where remote sales go wrong.

The honest summary: remote purchases are convenient and structurally weaker. If a phone is worth several hundred and there’s a local option, take the local option.

Documenting the sale

The receipt mentioned above deserves slightly more detail, because most people skip it and it costs thirty seconds.

Include: make and model, storage capacity, colour, the full IMEI (both, on a dual-SIM device), the agreed price, the date, and each party’s name and contact number. Write “sold as seen” if that’s the agreement, or note any warranty period you’re offering if it isn’t.

Both parties photograph it. That’s the whole process.

What this actually buys you: if a delayed network block appears months later, the buyer has a documented counterparty rather than a vanished username. If the device is ever reported stolen, the seller has evidence of a legitimate transaction on a specific date. Neither party expects to need it, and the one who does will be extremely glad it exists.

Keep the original listing and the message thread too. Screenshot them rather than relying on the platform retaining them.

Reading the conversation before you go

Most bad meetups announce themselves in the messages.

Watch for: pressure to hurry, resistance to meeting somewhere public, a price that drops without you negotiating, vagueness about where the phone came from, requests to move the conversation somewhere unusual, and any framing where you’re asked to trust rather than to verify.

Watch also for the reverse, which is reassuring: a counterpart who suggests a public place unprompted, offers the IMEI before being asked, and is patient about your checks. That’s what a normal transaction looks like, and it’s most of them.

Walk away when

  • The other party brings someone unannounced.
  • They want the phone or the money out of your sight, for any reason.
  • The location changes at short notice to somewhere quieter.
  • The payment method shifts to something reversible at the last minute.
  • They’re pushing hard on time.
  • Something is off and you can’t articulate what.

That last one is a legitimate reason. A deal you walk away from costs you an afternoon. There’ll be another listing.

Common mistakes to avoid

  • Accepting a screenshot as proof of payment. The single most common seller loss.
  • Letting the phone leave your sight. The single most common switch setup.
  • Meeting at home. Gives away more than you get.
  • Deciding your price floor while standing in front of someone. Decide it at home.
  • Sending money back to a stranger for any reason. Always a scam.
  • Skipping the receipt. Thirty seconds now, your whole position later.
  • Going alone at night to somewhere you don’t know. Reschedule instead.

FAQ

What’s the safest way to accept payment when selling a phone?

Cash counted in person, or a bank transfer you’ve confirmed as landed in your own app. Both are effectively irreversible, which is the property that matters.

Is meeting at a police station overkill?

No, and it costs nothing. Many departments provide designated spots for exactly this. The main benefit is filtering — people planning something don’t agree to it.

Should I let a buyer test the phone before paying?

Yes, thoroughly, while it stays in your sight. A buyer who won’t test it properly is either inexperienced or not really buying, and a seller who won’t allow testing is a much bigger warning sign.

What if the buyer wants to pay half now and half later?

Decline. Part-payment converts a completed sale into a debt owed by someone you’ll struggle to find.

Do I need a receipt for a private sale?

You’ll want one. Device, IMEI, price, date, and both parties’ contact details, photographed by both. It’s the only documentation either side will have if a problem surfaces later.

Should I go alone?

Bring someone if the amount is significant or the venue is unfamiliar. It changes nothing about a legitimate transaction and deters the other kind. Telling somebody where you’ll be, with a return time, is the minimum either way.

What if something feels wrong but I can’t say why?

Leave. You don’t owe anyone an explanation, and the cost of being wrong is an afternoon.

Before your next meetup, do two things: pick the venue yourself, and decide your walk-away price at home. Both of those are decisions made badly under pressure and easily in advance.

When you’re ready to buy or sell, start on ExploreFrag, and sellers should read our pricing and timing guide before agreeing a number.

About the author

Emran Ahmed is the founder and CEO of ExploreFrag, a marketplace for buying and selling used phones and accessories across every brand. The screenshot-transfer scam in the opening came from ExploreFrag’s support inbox, and it’s the one he warns sellers about most often because the victim usually did everything else correctly. He reviews listings most days and still thinks the thirty-second receipt is the most skipped useful habit in private sales.