If I buy a phone second hand and the seller stops paying the account, can the phone be recalimed

[Anonymous]

A chap advertised a nearly new O2 iPhone 7 on our NHS swap and sell notice board

It was bought new from O2 in November 2016 on 500 minutes, unlimited text and 1 gig data monthly tariff

the chap says it is not a Refresh tariff - is there any way to check that?

Also the warrantee on the Apple site confirms it is under warrantee until Nov 2017

It is not blacklisted listed

It is OK for activation

It is OK on iCloud

Any advice would be much appreciated J

[adamtemp64]

Unless the iphone was purchased outright and a simplicity tariff used o2 only sell on refresh now .

Only by asking to see proof of purchase etc will you find out .

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

If he stops paying the bill the phone will be barred from the network ultimately.
You can check the tariff type by asking to look in his MyO2 http://www.o2.co.uk/myo2

[Anonymous]

Well I asked him for the type of the account he has and he just said what it ofered on a monthly basis in terms of minutes and so on.

He has not Paid for it up front though as he is selling to raise money.

[MI5]

As soon as he pays off the contract you are safe from a network point of view, but he could still claim on an insurance policy if he is dishonest and again the phone would be barred.
If you know the seller well you should be safe but there are many risks with secondhand phones that you need to be aware of.