Selling a broken device.

[manusbaldspot]

So I dropped my LG G3 last week at the gym. There are no cracks or anything like that but the screen never powered back up. Ever.

I decided to sell it on eBay for parts. Problem is I'm worried that someone can fix it and recover my email and all accounts even though I had a lock on it. Is this possible?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Rukbat]

If the motherboard isn't damaged, it's not only possible, it's quite likely.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! If the phone had a screen lock set before it got damaged, then you're probably ok if you change the passwords of any account that the phone was logged into (especially the Google one). If someone was actually able to get the phone working again, they wouldn't be able to access your email or other info, because the phone would give a sign-in error and ask the user to sign into the account again. This wouldn't protect any locally stored photos or files, though--if you didn't have a good screenlock set up, they could potentially access that data.

 

[manusbaldspot]

Hmmmmm. Thanks for the answers. Can I do anything to remedy that? Magnet? I don't know anything? I'd like to protect pics and chrome may have saved passwords.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[B. Diddy]

No, magnets are for ferromagnetically stored data on spinning hard drives and floppy disks ("What the heck is that?" remarks 80% of the people reading this post). And those magnets would have to be really strong.

The only way you could get rid of that data would be to destroy the chips.

 

[manusbaldspot]

No way to do that with out opening the phone huh?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[B. Diddy]

I don't think so. I suppose you could hook it up to some high voltage power source and fry the internals, but that would be (a) hella dangerous, and (b) render it relatively useless for spare parts!

 

[manusbaldspot]

Freezer may be a less dangerous option?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[B. Diddy]

I don't think that would destroy the information.

 

[Rukbat]

Liquid nitrogen might, but that's the same as post #7 b - instead of frying everything it'll crack everything.