Iphone scam

The speaker wanted to buy a new phone and messaged many people on social media, but no one responded. Finally, they found an ad for a brand new iPhone and met the seller. They paid for the phone and later found out it was stolen when they tried to activate it. The seller had scammed them by getting the phone for free from a store and then selling it online. The speaker learned their lesson and bought a new phone from the Apple store. The situation could have been worse as the meeting spot was sketchy. You know, one time I really wanted a phone, and I messaged like dozens of people on like Igigi and Facebook, and just no one would get back to me. I was willing to basically pay them whatever. My phone broke. My old phone broke, and I just really wanted a phone. No one would message me, and finally I found an ad that had a brand new iPhone. It was still in the packaging, and this guy messaged me, and I was just super excited that someone finally messaged me, someone was finally willing to meet me. So we, he discussed to meet him at his store, I'm like, okay, it was kind of strange, but I went along with it, because I was just really excited that he was wanting to meet me. And then some time passed, and then he changed his mind, he wanted to meet at like this random front of a road, and I'm like, okay, wherever you want to meet, I just want to get this phone, and I just want to start, like, I just want to have a phone. So I live about an hour away from this dude, so I went, I went with a friend, and I drove back past this little convenience store where he originally wanted to meet, and then I drove by, and just a little bit further, I waited by this road, and then this guy pulled up to this road, and that night, it was nighttime, and it was pitch black. So he pulls up, he had, I think, a backpack on, a hood over his head, a hat on, and we talked for a minute, and I kind of pulled my wallet out with all my cash in it, and I started to count it out in front of him, and he handed over the phone, and he left, and as soon as he left, he went up, he pulled his phone up and started talking to someone. So we'll skip that part of the story, and I went right to the Bell Store to hook up my new phone. I'm like, hey, I'm here to hook up my, this phone I just bought, and so they, I handed it over to them, and they, I think they plugged in, like, the serial numbers, or whatever they did, and they came back to me and said, this phone is stolen. My heart sank, and I just said, this isn't true, like, this, I just bought this from this guy, and they said, no, it's stolen. So I had, I was just really upset all of a sudden, and just before that, they made me buy, like, a SIM card and stuff, and set the phone up, and they wouldn't refund my money from the SIM card, and I was just, I was really upset. So me and my friend went to a restaurant, just sat down, and so I could just chill out, and then I started to message this guy, and he, he just, I asked him, like, this, this phone is stolen, and he just denied it, and then he never messaged me back. So this guy scammed me, so what he did was, he went to a store like Bell, he got the phone for zero dollars, and then he, as soon as he got it, he posted it online for an X, so much money, and he just said it was brand new. So eventually someone like me would buy it, he would get the cash, and then he would report it stolen, so he would never have to pay back the store. So it was a perfect scam, and I would have never thought you could do that to a brand new phone, but I learned my lesson to never really buy secondhand phones again, unless you really know the person. But at the time, I was, just didn't really think, because he was the only one willing to sell me a phone, and I said, finally, so I gave in, I bought a phone that he reported stolen, and I was owed so much money. However, I went right, the next weekend, I went right to the Apple store, and I bought a brand new Apple phone. I said, I'm not taking any more risks with people, I'll buy my own, even though it cost quite a bit of money at the time, I just gave in and bought a new phone. And yeah, that's the end of that story, but it could have gone a lot worse, because he met me in a really sketchy spot, and you know, when he left, as soon as he left, he pulled his phone up and just started, he was ready to call whoever to report it stolen immediately. So, that's my story where I got scammed.