Can you sell an iCloud locked iPhone?

The short answer: no, and you should be suspicious of anyone who says otherwise. An iPhone with activation lock on it is tied to an Apple ID, cannot be wiped, cannot be activated by a new owner, and cannot legitimately be resold. Reputable buyers will not touch one, and we are no exception: our bench checks every phone, and a locked one goes back to you rather than into stock.

If it is your phone and your Apple ID, the fix is easy and free: turn off Find My on the phone, or remove the device from your account at iCloud.com. Our guide on turning off Find My walks through both routes. Once the lock is off, it is an ordinary phone and the calculator price applies in full.

If you have forgotten the Apple ID password, Apple's account recovery at iforgot.apple.com can get you back in with the right proof. It can take a few days, and it is worth the wait, because the difference between a locked phone and an unlocked one is the difference between nothing and the full price.

If the phone genuinely is not yours to unlock, an inherited handset, a phone bought second hand that turned out to be locked, then no buyback service can lawfully help, and the sites offering to are places to stay away from. What we can offer is a good ending rather than a payout: our Phones for Football programme takes phones that cannot be resold and turns them into kit and funding for grassroots football. The phone does some good, and it stays out of a drawer and out of landfill.