Accessing a reformated LG Stylo 2 plus

[Android Central Question]

So, I sold a near perfect lg stylo 2 plus on ebay since I upgraded. I obviously did a factory reset on the phone because I don't want my information or data out there. He received it, but it will only let him put in MY gmail information, which I will obviously not do. I contacted google, they said it's not them, it's LG. So I called LG and they said it'd cost him 45 dollars to ship it to them and have them unlock it.

What can we do here? The device is unlinked from my google devices now and I'm not giving someone I don't trust my information. How can he bypass this?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! It's Factory Reset Protection, because I suspect you didn't remove your Google account properly prior to the factory reset. In that situation, the phone will ask the user for the previously associated Google account and password. This is meant to discourage people from stealing a phone and doing a simple reset to make it their own. If you didn't go to Settings>Accounts, select your Google account, tap Menu, then Remove Account prior to the reset, then the buyer isn't trying to scam you.

You can't bypass this, because it's a security feature. You could consider doing a video chat with him (so that you can both see what the other is doing), give him your Google username and password to let him get into the phone, and then watch him finish the setup -- then change your Google password (and any other account password that uses that same password). The only thing I'm not sure of is if after he enters your information, if he still may need to go to Settings>Accounts-Google to properly remove your Google account, or if it will have been removed already.

 

[LeoRex]

Yeah, this is part of the Factory Reset Protection.... basically if you reset a phone that has a Google account added to it, the credentials are stored in a protected system partition that is not purged. When you boot for the first time, I will prompt you for those credentials... once you authenticate using that old account, the usual first boot continues. Your credentials are not permanently stored with FRP, they are just used temporarily to allow the initial setup to continue (they can choose their own gmail account, etc)

 

[Rukbat]

If you install TeamViewer in your phone phone or PC and he installs TeamViewer QuickSupport (both in the Play store and both free), you can log into your Google account on his phone (your old one). The password is obscured when you log in - it's all dots), so he won't see anything but your login name, which he probably already has.

 

[B. Diddy]

If you install TeamViewer in your phone phone or PC and he installs TeamViewer QuickSupport (both in the Play store and both free), you can log into your Google account on his phone (your old one).

But the problem is that the buyer can't get past that initial screen asking for the seller's Google account and password -- so there's no way he'd be able to install TeamViewer on the phone, right?

 

[Rukbat]

Oh, if that's the case, then the only choices the OP has is to pay for round trip postage (which probably isn't worth it, or to give the buyer the password on the phone and, as soon as he says it works, change the password on the account. I'd have that page on Google already up on my desktop (or laptop) screen before I gave it to him, so he'd have it for a few seconds at most.

Maybe someone can write up a warning sticky about deleting your Google account before selling a phone. (I've never had to do it, and I'm not about to do a factory reset on my phone, so someone else would probably be better for the author than I am.)

 

[B. Diddy]

Maybe someone can write up a warning sticky about deleting your Google account before selling a phone. (I've never had to do it, and I'm not about to do a factory reset on my phone, so someone else would probably be better for the author than I am.)

I wish Google and/or manufacturers would include a warning about this when a user selects the Factory Data Reset option in Settings>Backup & Reset​ if it detects that the Google account has not been removed from the phone yet.