Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of itplustech
itplustech

asked on

iphone activation

Hi
I have a customer who purchased an iphonr second hand. I have wiped the device but on restart i get an activation screen saying:-
"The iphone is linked to an apple id (user@domain.com). Sign in with the apple id that was used to setup this iphone"

The previous owner is not contactable.

Any ideas how this can be resolved?
Avatar of efrimpol
efrimpol
Flag of United States of America image

Looks like it is locked to the previous owner.

Take it to an Apple store and see if they can get it unlocked and activated.
It can't as far as I know. Starting a few versions of iOS back, the user can tie their Apple ID to the phone making it unusable by anyone who doesn't have that ID.  Before a phone can be made totally open again, the user who set that ID has to go in and remove the connection to their Apple ID. Once that is done anyone can use the phone.  If that wasn't done and you have no way of getting to the old user, the phone is probably a brick.
Have you performed a full reset via recovery mode?  This requires a computer with iTunes and Internet access, but it wipes out everything and installs the latest iOS version.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Kyle Santos
Kyle Santos
Flag of United States of America image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
or call apple support
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
continuing from my original comment above, I truly believe that if you have no access to the Apple ID that was used to lock the phone, you are toast. We had that situation here. We could prove that our company purchased the phone and that we were representatives of the company, but Apple refused to help us unlock the phone... it became a very attractive brick.