Flipkart Caught Selling 'Pre-activated' Smartphones During Sale

Imagine you buy a smartphone from your savings at an e-commerce store, use it happily for a couple of months, and after a few months it starts having some manufacturing defects. When you go to the service centre, they reject your appeal by saying that your device has already exceeded warranty period but you remind that it's not even a year since you bought the device. A few users on X (formerly Twitter) have complained that the smartphones they received from Flipkart have been activated already.

Flipkart is one of the major e-commerce platforms in India. Some users claimed that they had received ‘pre-activated’ Oneplus and Samsung devices from Flipkart. The same type of complaint was filed on Flipkart in 2011. You can check the below examples. 

 

What is a Pre-Activated Smartphone?

A smartphone activates when it boots up for the first time or the SIM card is inserted into it. If you receive a pre-activated smartphone, it means that it was set up by another user before. A warranty on a device starts from the date the device is activated. 

Pre-activated devices are a monetary loss to the customers who have paid for the new one because new smartphones usually come with a 12-month warranty, whereas pre-activated devices come with less than 12-month warranty.

In this scenario, Flipkart may refund your amount or change the device, but as customers, we can check the activation status and date of our devices by visiting brand websites. This method is more or less the same for all the brands.

How to Check Phone Activation Date?

You can check your smartphone's activation status using its serial number or IMEI number. Check out the below links to manually check the activation date of your phone. 

For iPhone 

iPhone users can check their activation status using their serial number, which they can copy from the 'about' section of their iPhone.

1. Open Settings on iPhone.
2. Scroll down and tap General.
3. Tap About section and copy the serial number.
4. Paste it on the below website and your device activation period will be shown. 

 https://checkcoverage.apple.com/?locale=en_IN

  For Android

If you are a OnePlus, Samsung, Vivo, OPPO, Xiaomi, or an Android user, you can just go to their respective websites and do a warranty check by copy pasting the serial number.