How to Change Apple ID on Second Hand iPhone

iPhone is one of the greatest devices, with the best services and performance in its class, with more that one million applications that you can find in the App Store. iPhone also has a great operating system, iOS, which can run on the minimum hardware though (except for iPhone 3G and iPhone 4 seems run slow at this moment). This thing made iPhone hunters or iPhone fans who have a minimum budget or users who just want to own the old iPhone model, to search for a second hand iPhone on Market or e-bay or to buy directly from the iPhone owner.

There’re many things you need to pay attention to when buying a second-hand iPhone, but here we’re not going to discuss that. In this article we will talk about an important thing, you should pay attention to, before you buy a device, and that is: “Is iCloud and Find My iPhone still connected to iCloud account of the previous owner or not?”

Here, we are going to share how to change the Apple ID on the second hand iPhone or iPad.

Steps to Change Apple ID on Second-hand iPhone?

We’re gonna discuss two common scenarios related to this topic.

The First Scenario:

You are going to buy a second-hand iPhone.

Go to Settings >> iCloud

Check if it’s still signed in by someone’s iCloud account or not? If yes, then ask the seller to sign out from that iCloud account.

If the user successfully signed out from the iCloud account, follow the steps below.

Notice: Please do not attempt these steps if the user didn’t sign out from the iCloud account.

Ask the seller to reset all content and settings.
You will be lead to do the initial set up.

The Second Scenario:

You have bought a second-hand iPhone, let say on the online shopping site such e-Bay, for example. Once you check the iPhone, its iCloud and Find My iPhone is still connected to someone else’s iCloud account. Here is what you can do: ask the owner to remove a device from his/her Find My iPhone. If you don’t have the seller’s contact information: Go to Settings >> iCloud

Look at the email address on iCloud, so you can contact the previous owner by using that email, and ask him/her to remove the iPhone device from his Find My iPhone.

Another option, just in case a person refuses to remove a device from: Find My iPhone, no matter what the reason is, you can ask for the original iPhone purchase invoice, and ask Apple Authorized Service Provider or Applecare to remove that device from the old iCloud account. They will only need the original purchase invoice and 2 -3 working days to process.

In case you own an iPad, the steps are exactly the same.