If you read my previous article on Hot Phone Deals you know how against my better judgement I was duped into a messy phone deal which left me without a phone and my pockets several dollars less….
The next step was to get a replacement phone on a very limited budget which meant that I would have to get a second hand phone sold by Street Dealers. Most shops tend to sell over-priced phones, a quick Google check of phone prices can give you a price range of how much a phone costs but when it’s now in a shop you can find the price inflated at least two fold because they went to offset costs for shipping, import duty and still make 100% profit…
You could say why not order my phone online… Good question, but online shopping in Zimbabwe is an extreme sport. Our bank accounts are not automatically linked to VISA or MasterCard services especially after the crazy fiasco where the Reserve Bank unilaterally raided Nostro Accounts then Nicodemusly converted everyone’s United States Dollar balances into Zimbabwean dollars at a rate of 1:1… Anyway, the easiest way to get a VISA or MasterCard is apply for one of those prepaid cards, where you first make a deposit at you bank to pre-fund the card with US Dollars and then do your online/international transactions…
There’s also the little thing of finding a reputable online store which delivers to Zimbabwe, then waiting 30-90days.. If you order from the wrong place the difference between what you ordered and what you actually get can be hilarious disastrous..
As I did not have 90 days to wait for a phone to arrive nor a respectable budget I decided to risk the local streets for something pre-loved and this time I would be vigilant.
When you are buying a preloved phone there’s a few things you will want to look out for:
•First, just eye ball the phone and look out for any evidence that it has been opened or repaired and if it has, inquire what the problem was because it could happen again as soon as you take the phone home…
•Next try making and receiving calls with the phone, you would be surprised how someone will assure you a phone works fine only to find that the speaker does not work or the mic is dead and you might have to use earphones or a handsfree kit (if you are lucky that the jack even works, so check that too and the Bluetooth and WIFI!!)
•Then you check how long the battery says it lasts and if it’s a type which replacements can be found should its standby time be poor and most importantly check that it charges.
•Do not hand over the money until you are satisfied, and do not hand back the phone for any reason, it will be switched on you so fast, you wont know what happened….
•Also if the price is too low for the phone, ask why, do not thank your spirits for giving you a bargain price.
I went there fully prepared and aware and vigilant, what could possibly go wrong?
The phone I ended up with was not the phone I thought I was buying….
It was an imitation phone, a clone phone, a fake…well, at least it was still a phone unlike the dummy phone I had gotten previously…
This one looked like a phone, it behaved almost like the real deal, but upon careful scrutiny you would notice a few things, some minor and others glaringly inconsistent; for example the material did feel as robust as it should, the screen resolution not quite there, the pictures it took looked nothing like 24MP camera pictures, and the storage that’s supposed to be several gig only a few 100mb, you realised it after installing a couple of applications and boom: Internal Storage Running Out
….and when you return, to try and find the person who sold you the phone; what are the chances you’ll find them again…
No returns, No Refunds, No Exchanges No Guarantees
Welcome to the big city…
~B
PS read the article The Apps That Live In My Phone to check out the bare minimum apps that worked on this clone of a phone…
Becoming The Muse 
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