Used phone checker: catch locked, blacklisted and financed phones before you meet

Which listings Sift checks: used iPhones, Galaxy, Pixel and more

Sift recognises a phone from the listing title: iPhone, Galaxy S, Note, Z Flip, Fold and A models, Pixel, OnePlus, Motorola, Redmi, Nothing Phone, and plain “unlocked phone” or “cell phone” listings. It covers the rest of the drawer too: iPads, Galaxy Tab, Pixel Tablet and OnePlus Pad, Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch and Pixel Watch, AirPods and MacBooks. When the title isn’t enough, Kijiji’s Cell Phones category or Facebook’s phone pages settle it.

Phones get the header Phone in the listing’s details card; tablets, watches, AirPods and MacBooks get Device. Cases, chargers, accessories, repair services, empty boxes, landlines and “we buy iPhones” ads are left out, so a dresser described as “locked” never raises a phone warning.

Check this: locks, bad IMEIs and unpaid phones

Three warnings come from the listing’s own wording, in English and French. Each one lands as a short red chip on the photo, and in full under Check this in the details card, with the words that matched beside it.

• Activation locked. iCloud locked, activation lock, “locked to owner”, Apple ID, Google, FRP or MDM lock, “can’t sign out”, bypass, or a forgotten passcode.
• Blacklisted or bad IMEI. Blacklisted, bad IMEI, reported lost or stolen, “won’t work on any network”.
• Still financed. Financed, payment plan, balance owing, a carrier tab, under contract, financé, solde restant.

The reading is negation-aware. “Not iCloud locked”, “blacklisted: no” and “was financed, but paid it off” raise nothing, and neither does “selling because I got a new phone on a payment plan”, which is about the other phone. A store’s ad offering financing doesn’t count as a financed phone.

kijijiiphone 14 protoronto

iphone 14 proToronto (GTA) · 38 results

Financed

CA$520

iPhone 14 Pro 256GB, like new

Toronto, ON2 days ago

Like new, always in a case.Battery health 91%.Small balance owing with Rogers.Pickup near Dufferin Mall.

Phone

Check this

Still financed“balance owing”

Check elsewhere

Check the IMEI (Canada)Sold on eBaySearch by imageGoogle Shopping

A still-financed phone is the quiet risk. It can pass every check on the day, then be blacklisted when the original owner stops paying. When the warning shows, ask for proof it’s paid off, or skip it.

Sift’s general red flags apply too: a deposit first, a move to text or WhatsApp, or a price under half the typical one on the page. More in the scam checker.

Good signs

Green chips mark what honest sellers tend to mention:

• Unlocked: factory or carrier unlocked, not tied to one network.
• Clean IMEI: the seller says the IMEI is clean.
• AppleCare: active AppleCare. An expired plan doesn’t count.

A good sign is still the seller’s word. Treat Clean IMEI as an invitation to check it yourself, which takes a minute.

Check the IMEI before buying

Every phone, tablet and watch listing gets an IMEI check first under Check elsewhere in the details card:

• Check the IMEI (Canada) opens devicecheck.ca, from the Canadian Telecommunications Association. You get it on every Kijiji listing, and on Facebook when your home is in Canada.
• Check the IMEI (US) opens the CTIA’s Stolen Phone Checker everywhere else.

Both are free. The link opens the checker; you type in the IMEI, which the seller can show you by dialling *#06#. AirPods and MacBooks have no IMEI, so they get no IMEI link. Below it: Sold on eBay, for what the same model really sells for, then Google Lens, Google Shopping and the same search on the other site.

A clean result means no one had reported the phone when you checked. It says nothing about Activation Lock or financing. How to check if a phone is stolen walks through the IMEI check step by step.

iCloud-locked iPhones and the activation lock check

No public website tells you whether an iPhone is Activation Locked, so the check happens in person. Have the seller erase the phone and remove it from their Apple Account in front of you, then start setup yourself and get past activation. If it shows “iPhone Locked to Owner” or asks for someone else’s Apple Account, don’t pay (Apple).

Android’s version is Factory Reset Protection: after a reset, the phone asks for the Google account that was on it (Google). The seller removes their accounts before the reset, and you get past the account step.

Sift adds the step before: it catches the sellers who tell you up front, in words you would skim past. Read “iPhone Locked to Owner” for the full check on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac, and the used Samsung and Android guide for FRP.

The one-click Phone setup

The one-click Phone setup in Settings › Presets gets you ready in a minute. It saves a preset called Phone, applies it and turns the phone checks on. It also switches on the “Broken or for parts” word pack, which hides listings that say for parts, parts only, broken, not working, needs repair or as-is, in English and French. Each hidden listing keeps its reason, such as “Blocked word: broken”, and you can peek at what went from the popup.

The setup starts your block words and price limits fresh, so a leftover “sofa” filter doesn’t hide every phone, and it never overwrites a preset you already have with the same name. Adjust it like any other preset and switch to it from the popup when you’re shopping for a phone. The welcome page offers the same choice when you first set Sift up. The phone checks have their own Phones and devices switch, under Category checks on the Feed page of the settings.

Price history, fair price and alerts for phones

Phone prices drop when a listing sits. Sift remembers every price it sees and puts the drop on the photo, so an iPhone that went from $650 to $560 since yesterday stands out. Point at the badge for the dated history. Listings deleted and posted again are marked too. More on the price tracker.

The fair-price verdict compares each asking price with the other listings on the same page, once there are at least eight, and labels it Below typical, Typical or Above typical. It works best on a narrow search: “iphone 13 128gb” tells you far more than “iphone”, which mixes old models with new ones.

Good phones go quickly. Save a search for the model you want and press Watch this search in the Sift popup. Sift checks it in the background, as often as every 15 minutes on Kijiji and every 30 on Facebook, runs new listings through your filters, and notifies you only about the ones that pass. Up to 10 searches at once. See new-listing alerts.

Where it works

Sift works on Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji in Chrome, Edge and Brave on a computer. It’s free, needs no account, and runs entirely in your browser: every check above happens on your own computer, and the check-elsewhere links open only when you click one. It doesn’t run in the Facebook or Kijiji app, or on a phone.

Sift reads what the seller wrote. It doesn’t look up IMEIs, Activation Lock or financing itself, and it can’t spot a fake or a swapped screen in a photo. It points you to the listings worth checking and the free tools that check them. For the meetup itself, from battery health to parts history, read buying a used iPhone on Marketplace, used iPads and Apple Watches and what to check on a used MacBook. Checks for cards, LEGO and bikes are on the category checks page.

Questions people ask

Is there a used phone checker for Facebook Marketplace?

Not one built into Facebook. On a computer, Sift reads each phone, tablet and watch listing on Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji, flags wording about activation locks, blacklisted IMEIs and unpaid financing, marks good signs, and links to a free IMEI check. It’s free and needs no account.

Can Sift tell if an iPhone is iCloud locked?

It tells you when the seller says so, in English or French, and that catches a lot of listings that are easy to skim past. It can’t see the phone’s real lock status, and no public website can. Have the seller erase the phone and remove it from their account in front of you, then start setup yourself.

How do I check the IMEI before buying a used phone?

Ask the seller to dial *#06#, check that the number matches Settings and the SIM tray, then enter it at devicecheck.ca in Canada or the CTIA Stolen Phone Checker in the US. Sift puts the right checker one click from the listing; you type the IMEI in yourself.

Does Sift check tablets, Apple Watch, AirPods and MacBooks?

Yes. iPads and other tablets, Apple Watch and other watches, AirPods and MacBooks get the same lock and financing checks under the header “Device”. Tablets and watches get the IMEI link too. AirPods and MacBooks have no IMEI, so they don’t.

How do I hide broken and for-parts phones on Marketplace?

Facebook has no filter for it. In Sift, choose the one-click Phone setup in Settings › Presets. It hides listings that say for parts, parts only, broken, not working, needs repair or as-is, in English and French, and saves the setup as a preset you can switch back to from the popup.

Does it work in the Facebook app or on Kijiji?

It works on Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji in Chrome, Edge or Brave on a computer. It doesn’t run in the Facebook or Kijiji app, or in a phone’s browser.

Sources

1. 01Canadian Telecommunications Association devicecheck.ca
2. 02CTIA Stolen Phone Checker
3. 03Apple Support Activation Lock for iPhone and iPad
4. 04Apple Support If you want to buy a pre-owned iPhone or iPad
5. 05Google Android Help Reset your Android device to factory settings