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Buying

A buyer's checklist for second-hand phones

What to look for before you pay — battery health, IMEI checks, screen burn-in, and the questions to ask in chat.

Published · 5 min read

Buying second-hand is the smart move — you can get a one-year-old flagship for the price of a new mid-range. The catch is that you have to do a 10-minute inspection at meet-up that the seller already glossed over. Here’s the checklist.

Before you message the seller

Read the listing twice. Note:

  • The exact storage size (don’t pay for 256 GB and walk away with 128).
  • The colour (some hide differences in cost).
  • The battery health % if listed.
  • Whether the box and charger are included.

Cross-reference the photos — does the model look right? Does the back match the front? Suspicious if not.

Questions to ask in chat

Copy and paste:

  1. What’s the current battery health % (Settings → Battery → Battery Health)?
  2. Is iCloud / Google account fully signed out and removed?
  3. Has it been water-damaged or had any repairs?
  4. Original IMEI in box matches the IMEI in Settings?
  5. Original receipt available?

A seller who answers all five clearly and quickly is a green flag.

At the meet-up — a 10-minute inspection

Bring a working SIM card and a charger.

  1. Power on, end to end. Watch the boot sequence. Make sure no passcode or Apple/Google account is active — it must be a fresh setup screen.
  2. IMEI check. Dial *#06#. Compare against the IMEI on the box.
  3. Battery health. iPhone: Settings → Battery → Battery Health. Anything under 80% means you’ll need a battery replacement soon.
  4. Screen test. Open a YouTube video full-screen, scrub through it. Look for dead pixels, burn-in (especially on OLED), and uneven colour bands.
  5. Touchscreen test. Open the calculator and tap every key. Drag your finger across the whole screen — gaps mean digitiser issues.
  6. Cameras. Open the camera app, switch front/back, take a photo with each lens (wide / ultra-wide / tele). Check for cracked lenses.
  7. Charging port + speakers. Plug in the charger, play a song, confirm both speakers work.
  8. SIM. Insert your SIM. Confirm signal bars appear.
  9. Wi-Fi + Bluetooth. Connect to your phone hotspot. Pair with a Bluetooth device.
  10. Buttons. Volume up/down, power, mute switch (if applicable), fingerprint sensor, Face ID.

If anything fails, walk away — or renegotiate hard with the seller in front of you. Don’t pay first and “test it later”.

Use Safe Trading for big-ticket buys

For phones over 500,000 MMK, opt into Safe Trading so an admin verifies the payment and delivery. Costs an extra 50 credits — worth it for the peace of mind.

After you pay

Set the device up immediately so you can trigger the seller back if something’s wrong in the first hour. Once the seller leaves the meet-up, recourse drops sharply — except inside Safe Trading.