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Purchasing and selling iPhone 4

I have several phones on my plan and I did upgrade my primary line to an iPhone. My question is my son is now up for a renewal and there is NO way I am buying him an iPhone, but it did make me think can I purchase the iPhone 4 on his line then sell the iPhone for a profit.

What are the issues surrounding this kind of transaction? and how do I handle it with Verizon? The 32GB would cost me $250 and is selling for $600 on eBay.

Thoughts? Bad idea?

Comments

AZSALUKI

you'll lose his upgrade and the next time he needs a new phone, you'll be stuck paying retail for it. if you do it, you have to buy the iphone for the $250, add the $30 data plan (if he doesn't have that plan already), activate the iphone on his line.....then deactivate it nad reactivate his old phone. then sell the iphone on ebay and cancel the $30 data plan. i suspect that in the end, you will make $200-300 and will likely have to spend at least that much for his next phone, as he will not have an upgrade for another 2 years. in my opinion, it's a bad idea.

Kyllle

As the previous poster said, you won't be able to upgrade his line with the discounted pricing for 20 months, so make sure he is ok with keeping his current phone.

Also, if you decide to sell it on eBay, be aware that there is a 9% fee, then a 2% PayPal fee, so if you sell it for $600, you'll only get about $530 of that. One way around this is to make the shipping fee like $500, because eBay doesn't tax you on shipping fees.

keezy

I agree with the other two posters. It's a bad idea in my opinion, because you lose your son's line's upgrade for another 2 years. You'll make a little bit of profit, but that profit won't be enough to cover the full retail price of a new phone if your son's dies. I would suggest either keeping the upgrade until his phone dies, or upgrading his phone now.

Butthead

And people wonder why there is a $350 etf on smartphones. Well, you now have your answer. Remember, your cell carrier is not your local dollar store where you can buy low, sell high. Unreal.

xlost6

This is just upsetting...wow

johnita36

This is exactly why the etf's are so high. Just upgrade your son's phone and stop worrying about how you can make some quick money. You will regret doing this as others have stated when your son's phone dies and you're forced to pay full retail price for him a new phone.

Johnita

nismos14

Just buy it, then activiate it, then reactivate his old phone, you can easily put away 600 or so, you'll probably end up getting an overall profit of 250-300, which is worth it, then you can buy him a new phone with some of that, and pay bills or invest with the rest.

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