Financial Eligibility check changed after activation

[ilBuono]

 Hi. I purchased a new Sprint iPhone XS Max last month on Swappa. The seller appeared to be a Sprint store employee. As a requirement, Swappa doesn't allow financed devices to be sold on their site. The iPhone I purchased passed the check and once I received it, I also input the IMEI into Ting's BYOD checker. It got cleared there as well. I was able to activate it on my Sprint postpaid account without any issues.

I ended up checking the IMEI again yesterday and Swappa now notes that the "device is not eligible for resale" due to the financial eligibility checker. I went to Ting and get the "Sorry, this phone can’t be activated right now. This device has not reached financial eligibility" message.

What could explain this? Had the phone indeed been financed, I assume both the Swappa and Ting IMEI check would've caught it prior to me activating it on Sprint. Doing some quick searching, I ran across older Reddit posts where others encountered similar FED flag problems.

[HELPeR_Sprint · Accepted solution]

Hi ilBuono! One of the eligibility requirements is that the phone remains ACTIVE on the line for 50 days before it's financially eligible for unlock.  The XS Max came out on 9/21/18, so it is possible that it was active for 50 days before it was deactivated and put up for sale on Swappa.  Day 50 would have been 11/10/18. 

[ilBuono]

Thanks for the reply. I thought it referred to the financing status, but I guess I learned something new today. The phone arrived sealed, so I was the first to activate it. 50 days from my initial activation would put it in early January. 

[HELPeR_Sprint]

They likely won it in a contest and didn't need/want it.  If the ESN came up clean and it was sealed, you should be good to go 50 days after activation to have it unlocked. 

Let us know if you need anything else!