How to Safely Sell Your iPhone Privately (Without Getting Scammed)

Phones are the single most-scammed item in private sales, because they are valuable, easy to resell, and easy to fake a payment for. Done right, selling your iPhone privately is safe and gets you more money than a trade-in. Here is the full process.

Before you meet the buyer

1. Back up, then sign out of everything. Back up to iCloud or your computer first. Then, and this is the step people forget, turn off Find My and sign out of your Apple Account. Settings, tap your name, scroll down, Sign Out. If you skip this, Activation Lock leaves the phone useless to the buyer and they will (rightly) want their money back.

2. Factory reset it. Settings, General, Transfer or Reset iPhone, Erase All Content and Settings. Do this after you have signed out, not before.

3. Write down the serial and IMEI. Dial *#06# to see the IMEI, or find it in Settings, General, About. Record it. If the phone is ever disputed or stolen, that number is how ownership is proven.

4. Photograph the actual phone and its condition. Not a stock photo. The real device, screen on, plus any marks. This protects you against a later "it was faulty" claim.

Getting paid without a chargeback

This is where sellers lose money. The safe options, in order:

• Cash, counted in person. Simple and final, but carry-risk for larger amounts.
• A bank transfer that has fully cleared in your account before the phone leaves your hands. Not a screenshot. Not a pending balance. Cleared.
• Avoid "friends and family" reversals and courier-on-collection schemes entirely.

Never post the phone first. Never accept an overpayment. Never read out a code a buyer texts you.

Meeting safely

• Meet in a busy public place in daylight. Many police stations offer a designated exchange spot.
• Bring someone with you if you can, especially for a high-value model.
• Let the buyer inspect and test the phone while you watch it the whole time. The box-swap trick relies on you looking away.
• Confirm the IMEI on the phone matches what you recorded, so there is no switch.

The gap nobody closes

Even if you do all of the above perfectly, you still do not truly know who the buyer is, and they do not know you. If the phone is later reported stolen, or the buyer claims they never got it, it is your word against theirs.

Chainr closes that gap. Before you meet, both you and the buyer verify your real identity (government ID, face match, and a card check). At the handover you enter a six-digit code together, in person, which seals the sale. You both receive a timestamped certificate recording the iPhone, its IMEI, the price, and both verified names. If anyone ever questions the sale, that certificate is proof it was a genuine, consenting, in-person handover between two verified people.

Register your iPhone sale on Chainr before you meet the buyer, and sell with proof on both sides.