I received an email from an unknown person saying that I needed to give him access to my iCloud account! I ignored it at first figuring it was a phishing scam, but he persisted and stated that he had purchased an Apple Watch from me on eBay and it was locked.
Now he had my attention, as a month or so earlier I had indeed sold my Apple Watch (series 3) on eBay after I had upgraded to the series 5. He said the watch was locked and he needed access to my iCloud account so he could activate it on his account. I wasn’t about to provide him with this access, but I obviously needed to get the watch unlocked.
I went online and searched around and found that the watch has a kind of “find my watch” app like the iPhone has. I found one article that said I needed to go into my iCloud account and go to the devices section, which I did. The series 3 watch I had sold was still showing there; and that was the problem, it was still attached to my account. I deleted it from my account and emailed the buyer and told him to try and activate it again. He did, and this time it worked! It was great that this could get resolved in the way it did and he didn’t have to mail the watch back to me.
I
wrote him back and apologized for the problem and told him that when I first received his email I thought he was trying to scam me. He said he laughed and thought I was scamming him, sending a watch that wouldn’t work. We both had a good laugh.
Next time I upgrade my watch, I will know to go and remove it from the devices section in iCloud before mailing it to the new owner. Lesson learned.
