Returns and refunds

Last updated November 14, 2026

Every FlatFeeTech sale is between a buyer and a private seller, paid through PayPal. If a phone isn’t as described, the seller has to take it back and refund you. Sales can’t be returned just because you changed your mind, so read the listing and the photos carefully before you buy. This policy is part of our terms and applies once FlatFeeTech opens to buyers.

What’s covered

• It isn’t as described: a different model, storage or color; worse condition than its grade; or lower battery health than listed.
• It’s defective: something doesn’t work when it arrives, such as the screen, cameras, speakers, buttons, charging or cellular. Every phone here is listed as fully working.
• It’s locked: locked to a carrier when it was listed as unlocked, or still locked to the seller’s Apple ID or Google account (Activation Lock).
• It’s blocked: the IMEI is reported lost or stolen, blacklisted, or blocked over an unpaid balance after you receive it, for a reason from before the sale that isn’t yours. The seller stays responsible for this however long after the sale it shows up.
• It wasn’t shipped: tracking doesn’t show the seller shipped it within 3 business days.
• It didn’t arrive: tracking doesn’t show it delivered to your address.

What to do

1. Check the phone the day it arrives, and take photos or a video of anything wrong, including the box it came in.
2. Email us at support@flatfeetech.com within 2 days of delivery with your listing code and what’s wrong. We’ll contact the seller and help sort it out; many problems (a forgotten Activation Lock, for example) can be fixed in minutes. A block on the IMEI that shows up later can be reported when you find it, but PayPal’s deadline still applies to getting the payment refunded. After it passes, we can act against the seller’s account but we can’t get your money back.
3. If it isn’t resolved, open a dispute with PayPal from the payment in your PayPal account. PayPal has its own deadlines, separate from ours, and emailing us doesn’t open a PayPal dispute. Check PayPal’s deadline for your payment and don’t wait.

Who decides

• You and the seller, first. Most returns are agreed between the two of you, with our help.
• PayPal decides payment disputes. If you can’t agree, PayPal decides whether the payment is refunded, under the PayPal policies that apply to it. We can’t promise how PayPal will decide.
• We decide what happens on FlatFeeTech. We look at the listing, the photos and what both sides send us, and can remove listings or suspend accounts. We can’t move money: we never hold your payment.

We may ask either side for photos, video or tracking. Both sides agree to answer reasonable requests.

Returning a phone

• The seller pays return shipping when the phone isn’t as described, is defective, locked or blocked, either by sending you a prepaid label or by repaying what you spent.
• Send back the same phone, in the same condition, with anything that came with it, using tracking. Erase it and turn off Find My or your Google account lock first.
• The seller refunds the full price, with no restocking fee or other deduction, once tracking shows the phone is back with them and it’s the phone they sent. We keep the IMEI of every phone listed, so a returned phone can be matched to the one that was sold.
• If PayPal is deciding the dispute, follow PayPal’s return instructions; its rules apply to the payment.

How refunds work

• Refunds go back to how you paid, through PayPal. The money comes from the seller’s PayPal account; FlatFeeTech never holds your payment.
• When a sale is cancelled or fully refunded, we plan to return our fee to the seller. We’ll confirm how that works before checkout opens.

If the seller refuses a return

Tell us, and open a dispute with PayPal: only PayPal can order the payment refunded. A seller who refuses a return this policy requires is breaking our terms, and we can remove their listings and close their account.

If the package is lost

• The phone is the seller’s responsibility until tracking shows it delivered to your confirmed PayPal address.
• If tracking doesn’t show it delivered, the seller refunds you and takes it up with the carrier.
• If tracking shows it delivered and you don’t have it, tell us and the carrier straight away. If you and the seller can’t settle it, PayPal decides under its own rules.
• A returned phone that goes missing on its way back is the buyer’s responsibility until tracking shows it delivered to the seller.

Not covered

• Changing your mind, or finding a better price elsewhere.
• Damage or faults that happen after delivery.
• Anything clearly shown in the listing photos or description.
• Payments or deals made outside FlatFeeTech and PayPal checkout.

The full rules for buyers and sellers are in our terms.