Is this legal? If so how?

[iMore Question]

is this legal? if so how

hi, I'm what you could call poor. It has been lots of years i want to have a iphone . last week, I bougt got a deal on an I phone from a guy on the street. The phone seemed to work well and since the price was low i bought it.

NOw ttwo days ago the phone rang and i now understand that this phone is a phone that someone found in a parc and sold it to me.

It is to bad for the original owner but i bought it and he said himself that he lost it.

Can I use this phone for myself ? if so how to change the sim card? how to get rid of the password to unlock?
thx

 

[HankAZ]

Re: is this legal? if so how

hi, I'm what you could call poor. It has been lots of years i want to have a iphone . last week, I bougt got a deal on an I phone from a guy on the street. The phone seemed to work well and since the price was low i bought it.

NOw ttwo days ago the phone rang and i now understand that this phone is a phone that someone found in a parc and sold it to me.

It is to bad for the original owner but i bought it and he said himself that he lost it.

Can I use this phone for myself ? if so how to change the sim card? how to get rid of the password to unlock?
thx

If it has an activation lock (requires an Apple ID logon), there there is NOTHING you can do except return it to the rightful owner.

Apple added the Activation Lock to iOS 7 to combat the rampant unauthorized reselling of lost/stolen devices. There is no way around this lockout… your only options are to contact the person you bought it from and get your money back. But it's extremely doubtful that will happen.

Give the phone to the original owner if he can verify that it's his (by removing the activation lock) and chalk it up to an expensive lesson. Buying phones from "a guy on the street" rarely ends well.