Sorry but we cant create a repair while Find my iPhone is active

Question

Hello everyone. First of all please accept my appologies in case im posting to the wrong place. I bought an iphone 5 used, like half year ago on ebay and now it stopped turning on. I browsed for troubleshooting on expresslane and came up to the page where it offered to mail phone to apple for repair. I decided to do that but on a certain step i got a message "Sorry but we cant create a repair while Find my iPhone is active. Youll need to turn off Find My iPhone and retry this serial number." Well i knew i never turned this feature on personally, it appears that the previous owner did that and never erased this feature before selling and i never checked for that before using. I even never installed any apps of any kind. Decided to contact ebay seller to ask if they could turn the feature off. They appeared to be wholeasalers who resell used devices and never keep a record of what they buy and sell. Contacted Apple telephone support, they confirmed that the only way device could be serviced is to turn the feature off. A vicious circle. Dead end? Any thoughts?

Answer 1

fletchjay wrote:
Yes and in my case i cant find who i bought it from. Now its a useless device for me
I don't understand?  You don't know who you bought it from?  So, was this a purely private sale over the internet or something?
Activation lock may lead to many such scams if people insist on buying used from unknown parties.  Someone steals someone else's phone, sells it online, and of course, it is blocked from being restored and activated by the original owners perfectly legitimate use of Activation Lock.