Cell Phone Scam

Be careful not to be scammed when making a deal through Craigslist or email.  Here’s a note I received from my friend today.  He is a UVA grad student:

My friend broke her phone several weeks ago.  I saw an email from someone selling a phone, so I forwarded this email to her to see if she is interested. It turned out she decided to buy this phone, so we met that guy and paid him in cash. However, when we came home, we found out the iPhone cannot be activated because it is reported lost and locked. It means this phone might be stolen from others and we cannot use it anymore.  We tried to contact him. His phone number is listed as unknown so I cannot call back. Then I emailed him, he said he would give me the Apple ID and password to unlock the phone soon. But I did not get any message from him since then. We have called the police, Apple, and AT&T to help, but got no response yet.