Refurbished Phones - Dont get ripped off! Identification tips!

[Sire Ahsan]

Alright.

The market is flooded with refurbs and lying pigs selling them as 'proper' ones. These phones will fuck up sooner or later.

We need a guide. Post your pointers, will add to this thread. Someone sticky this too. Ill start up with some ... a few are obvious but whatever can help eh.

• OLD PHONES! Simple as that. You cannot get a new Desire HD, or Xperia X10, Nexus S or Desire Z now. They are old. They cant be available new.
• NFC missing. NFCs will be missing in a few phones from the back side. Nexus S is a prime example
• Badly stuck on screen. U will notice that hard pressing the screen will give you a very distinct travel, it will move.
• Shoddy quality etc. I saw a Galaxy Nexus and upon close inspection you would notice spots on the screen which looked like they were from a chip on the back

I need some serious input from those who are active here. Lets do something to help people out.

 

[maryfarrukh]

If back cover is removable, take it off and you'll notice sloppy font. Irregular alignment

 

[murtaza12]

Most HTC phones are S-OFF after being refurbished. Can be checked by booting into fastboot mode (Power + Vol Down... I think).

 

[hasooboy]

Most of the Refurb phones comes Rooted out of the box.

 

[abobobilly]

Apart from the ones you mentioned, there is no definite way of checking whether or not a phone is refurbished. It becomes increasingly difficult if the phone (usually Androids) are flashed with a Custom Firmware (in most cases, Cyanogen Mod) which reduces the chances of the "Codes" to work, near to impossible.

I have thought about making a guide with such information in the past, but having minimal & incomplete knowledge and experience in this field made it impossible for me to do so.

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Another thing i want to mention here about the word "Refurbished". Most people actually believe them to be repaired by the company but having seen many evidences, its slowly becoming obvious that most of it is being done Locally. Just like there are fake companies producing Local (low quality) Engine Oils and there is no one stopping them, just like that.

 

[Sire Ahsan]

The point of this thread is to gether up all information.

You are right about the root thing. The Galaxy Nexus that I mentioned ... it is rooted and has the ZohoPlayer thing. I knew the minute I saw that that its refurbed.

Also, for some reason ... the online update did not work.