The first ten minutes with a refurbished phone

Whoever you buy from, the window in which a problem is easy to prove is short. This is the ten-minute routine that protects you, in the order that matters — and it works the same whether the phone came from us, a marketplace, or a shop down the road.

Before you pay: thirty seconds at the door

On a cash-on-delivery order you have one advantage and it expires the moment you hand over the money. Use it.

• Look at the outer packaging before anything else. Torn, re-taped, crushed or opened — refuse the parcel. Do not accept it “to check inside”. Once you have paid, a damaged-in-transit claim becomes a negotiation instead of a refusal.
• Check the tamper seal if there is one. A seal that has been cut and re-stuck shows as a slight ridge or mismatched edges.
• Start recording video before you break the seal, and do not stop until the phone is out of the box and powered on. One unbroken clip. This is the single most useful thing you can do, and it costs nothing.

Minute 1–2: the IMEI

Dial *#06#. The IMEI appears on screen. Three things to do with it:

1. Match it to the invoice. If the invoice has no IMEI on it, you cannot prove which physical device you own. Ask for one that does, before anything else.
2. Match it to the box label if the box came with it.
3. Check it against the Government CEIR database — SMS KYM <IMEI> to 14422. A blocked or duplicated IMEI means the phone will stop working on Indian networks, and no warranty covers that. How to read the reply is here.

Do this one first because it is the only failure that cannot be fixed by a replacement of the same model.

Minute 2–3: is it really yours?

The phone must arrive at the setup screen, not at somebody’s home screen and not at a lock screen asking for a previous owner’s account.

• iPhone: it should boot to “Hello”. If it asks for an Apple ID and password that are not yours, it is Activation Locked and it is, for your purposes, a paperweight. Send it back the same day.
• Android: if it asks for “the Google account previously synced on this device”, that is Factory Reset Protection. Same answer.

Neither lock can be removed by the seller after the fact without the original owner. Do not accept “we will send you the password”.

Minute 3–5: the numbers that were promised

Open the listing you bought from on another screen and check each claim against the phone in your hand.

• Battery health. iPhone: Settings → Battery → Battery Health & Charging, which also shows cycle count on iOS 17+. It should match the listing within a point or two. What the figure means.
• Storage. Settings → General → About, or Settings → About phone. A “256GB” phone that reports 128GB is not the phone you bought.
• Replaced parts. iPhone: Settings → General → About, scroll to the bottom. A Parts and Service History section that the listing did not mention is a disclosure failure, and grounds for return. How to check on Android.
• Model and region. The model number in About (for example MLPF3HN/A — the HN means India) tells you where it was sold. A grey-import unit is not illegal to own, but it has no Indian manufacturer warranty.

Minute 5–8: the hardware sweep

Fast, in this order, because these are the faults that are cheapest to catch now and most annoying to discover in a month.

1. Screen on grey. Full-screen a mid-grey image at maximum brightness. Grey reveals burn-in, blotches and dead pixels that white and black both hide.
2. Touch across the whole surface. Open the dialler and drag a finger across every part of the screen, especially the edges and the bottom two centimetres.
3. All cameras. Front, main, ultra-wide, telephoto. Shoot one photo and one video on each. Look for dust specks, a milky haze, or a lens that will not focus.
4. Both microphones and the speakers. Record a voice memo and play it back at full volume. Then make an actual call — the earpiece and the speakerphone are different components.
5. Biometrics. Enrol a face and a fingerprint and unlock ten times each. Intermittent failures are the sign of a previous repair.
6. Sensors. Open the compass app (tests the magnetometer), rotate the phone (accelerometer), cover the earpiece during a call (proximity sensor).
7. Charging and Wi-Fi. Plug in and confirm it charges. Connect to Wi-Fi and load a page.

Samsung owners: dial *#0*# for a built-in hardware test menu that does most of this in one place.

Minute 8–10: the paperwork

• Photograph the invoice and save it somewhere that is not the phone.
• Note the warranty start date. It runs from delivery, not from purchase, and you will need the exact date if you ever claim.
• Save the seller’s grievance contact. Under the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules 2020 every online seller must publish one; if you cannot find it on their site, that itself tells you something.
• Keep the unboxing video for at least the length of the return window.

If something is wrong

Report it the same day, in writing, with the video attached. A fault reported on day one is a delivery problem and the seller owns it. The same fault reported on day nine is an argument about whether you dropped it. Nothing about the fault changes in between — only how easy it is to prove.

Our own window is seven days for a fault, transit damage or anything not as described, with return freight paid, and six months of warranty after that. The terms are written out here, including the parts we do not cover.