Hi,
I recently bought a new iPhone 6 plus online from adverts.ie ( like ebay ) for 650euro as my old iPhone 6 had been stolen two weeks previously. The seller assured me that the phone was theirs and even showed me a picture of a reciept as proof, they said they were selling as they wanted to downsize to the 6 instead.
I paid with a bank draft and the phone was shipped to my house, when I received the phone and tried to turn it let me choose a language and a wifi network to connect to and then a message came up in a foreign language.
I tapped it into google translate and it identified the language as french and the message read ''this phone is lost, if found please call this nuber ...'' and provided a french number.
I tried contacting seller in case this was a mistake but he had deleted his account and the phone nuber he had given was now disconnected so obviously it was a scam. I was really dissappointed but I had just been the victim of iPhone theft myself and so knew what it felt like and tried to return the phone to the rightful owner.
I tried calling the french number, a man answered who did not speak any english so i could not communicate with him. I tried sending a text in english to see if he would respond but he did not. I got a friend of mine who speaks french to call the number, this time no one picked up but she left him a message in french explaining how we had the phone (in Ireland) and asking him to contact us to return it. We waited two days and no reply so my friend then sent a text in french again explaining the situation, that it was not us who had stolen the phone but to contact us to arrange for the return. Three days later still no reply. My friend tried to call again but it rings out to voicemail. In the mans voicemail message he says ''if i am not available please contact me at the office on this number ...'' we called this number and my friend left a message with the receptionist who assured us that she would give the message to him the following day.
It has now been four days since that and he has not contacted us despite us providing both our numbers and both of our emails for him to contact us on.
I'm not sure what to do in this situation now as there is no apple store in Ireland ( where I live) and I cannot drop the phone in to a carrier store as I dont know which one the orignal owner was with and also I assume they were with a french carrier. I am reluctant about dropping it in to my local police station as a friend of my mums is a police officer and she said the chances of the phone making its way from our local station in Ireland back to the original owner somewhere in france would be slim to none.
Is there anyone on this forum who can help me ? Not sure what to do next. Thanks
I recently bought a new iPhone 6 plus online from adverts.ie ( like ebay ) for 650euro as my old iPhone 6 had been stolen two weeks previously. The seller assured me that the phone was theirs and even showed me a picture of a reciept as proof, they said they were selling as they wanted to downsize to the 6 instead.
I paid with a bank draft and the phone was shipped to my house, when I received the phone and tried to turn it let me choose a language and a wifi network to connect to and then a message came up in a foreign language.
I tapped it into google translate and it identified the language as french and the message read ''this phone is lost, if found please call this nuber ...'' and provided a french number.
I tried contacting seller in case this was a mistake but he had deleted his account and the phone nuber he had given was now disconnected so obviously it was a scam. I was really dissappointed but I had just been the victim of iPhone theft myself and so knew what it felt like and tried to return the phone to the rightful owner.
I tried calling the french number, a man answered who did not speak any english so i could not communicate with him. I tried sending a text in english to see if he would respond but he did not. I got a friend of mine who speaks french to call the number, this time no one picked up but she left him a message in french explaining how we had the phone (in Ireland) and asking him to contact us to return it. We waited two days and no reply so my friend then sent a text in french again explaining the situation, that it was not us who had stolen the phone but to contact us to arrange for the return. Three days later still no reply. My friend tried to call again but it rings out to voicemail. In the mans voicemail message he says ''if i am not available please contact me at the office on this number ...'' we called this number and my friend left a message with the receptionist who assured us that she would give the message to him the following day.
It has now been four days since that and he has not contacted us despite us providing both our numbers and both of our emails for him to contact us on.
I'm not sure what to do in this situation now as there is no apple store in Ireland ( where I live) and I cannot drop the phone in to a carrier store as I dont know which one the orignal owner was with and also I assume they were with a french carrier. I am reluctant about dropping it in to my local police station as a friend of my mums is a police officer and she said the chances of the phone making its way from our local station in Ireland back to the original owner somewhere in france would be slim to none.
Is there anyone on this forum who can help me ? Not sure what to do next. Thanks
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