I spent $500 bucks on an S23 from Kemo Wireless. I needed a new phone since my old one broke, so I figured why not shop with a strapping local small business, right? The phone had no box or anything, which I didn’t mind buying a used phone. There was no indicator whatsoever suggesting the phone was “stolen/ missing” or even network locked. The clerk would have known that my carrier was a mismatch since I asked him to swap the sim cards. Of course, they have a no refund policy…
I end up going to verizon to get things sorted out, and they tell me that the phone was on the “missing/ stolen” list. I can’t trade the phone in, couldn’t even get a line for it, can’t do anything with it. It’s basically a $500 paperweight. To put the cherry on top, I bought the phone with cash :)…
Go get yourself another phone but don’t let that store get away with it. As another poster said get written confirmation it’s stolen, show it to the shop, and make it very clear they broke the law selling it to you. You can cause a lot of inconvenience for them, be it officially by reporting them, or just sharing the news on your local towns Facebook community page.