I’m making a last attempt here before I give up on my locked Fairphone 4, as I have received no helpful support from Fairphone so far.
To give some context: I purchased a Fairphone 4 from a liquidation sale on the platform aurena.at. Unfortunately, after the purchase, I discovered that the phone is locked with a Google account, which was not mentioned in the product description.
My previous attempts to contact Fairphone support:
On my first attempt, I received no response.
On my second attempt on August 22, 2024, I also received no reply.
On my third attempt on September 3, 2024, I finally received an answer, but it provided no real solution. I was only advised to contact the previous owner, which is not an option in my case.
Out of curiosity, I contacted Shiftphone support to see how they would handle such a situation. On the same day, I received a friendly and solution-oriented response. They offered to unlock the phone for a small fee, provided I can prove the legitimate purchase of the device.
It would be a shame for this almost new Fairphone 4 to become electronic waste because of a Google lock. This goes against the values of Fairphone, which emphasize sustainability and longevity.
Does anyone in the community have an idea on how to solve this issue? Or is there someone from Fairphone who could finally assist me? I would really appreciate any support before I consider offering the device as a parts donor and sharing my experience publicly on social media.
Here’s a suggestion for how you might respond in English:
Hello,
Thank you for your response.
However, I have already tried this approach, and unfortunately, I received a very unsatisfactory reply. It seemed like the support team was not particularly engaged or motivated to help resolve my issue.
Hi! Have you tried entering the bootloader and factory resetting the device from there? As far as I know, that method should bypass any security measures and wipe the phone clean.
You can do it by powering off the phone. Then hold down volume UP, and long press the power button to turn on the phone as usual.
You will be presented with a weird menu, that you can navigate with volume UP and DOWN, and the POWER button as enter. Pick the factory reset option and let it do its thing. You shoooooould be presented with an out of the box experience from there on.
Thank you for your feedback. My concern is less about comparing the sales channels of Fairphone and Shiftphone, and more about the response time and customer service. I only received a reply from Fairphone after sending three emails, which was frustrating for me.
Additionally, the chat option didn’t really work either; I was asked to leave an email instead. This makes me wonder why I, as a customer, have to follow up multiple times to get a response. This is the key issue when I compare the service of Fairphone with Shiftphone, where I’ve always received quicker and more helpful replies.
Thanks for the tip! I’ve already tried entering the bootloader and resetting the device, but unfortunately, it didn’t work. I’m still stuck with the same issue, and it seems like the problem goes deeper.
Do you have any other suggestions on what I could try?
I just quickly googled to fact check myself, and apparently I’m super wrong. As apparently there’s been a Factory Reset Protection built into android for years. Sorry about that.
Some reddit threads say you could possibly bypass this by installing a custom recovery and installing a new rom.
But if this protection stops you right on the setup screen, then you cant even enter Settings to Enable OEM Unlocking, to thn go ahead and unlock the bootloader and install a new OS onto the phone.
Worth a try I guess? But if you get stuck on Step 1, I’m out of ideas.
Depending on what android version your FP4 is running you might need to do it differently. The older the better usually. I’ve done this on earlier versions of Android, the newer ones might have some issues with Google certification later but that would be better than the brick it is now I think.
I recommend trying ones that do not require downloading some software, those usually want money or can even be malware.
Thank you for the tip, but unfortunately, it didn’t work out. Nevertheless, I will offer the phone as a spare parts donor. I no longer wish to have anything to do with Fairphone, as in my case, it feels like pure greenwashing.
Looking at the security feature from the other perspective it’s there to prevent a stolen phone from being able to be wiped and sold.
Unfortunately it means that any phone it laptop now needs to be unlocked before sale to prevent the issue. With phone thefts on the rise this will become even more common an issue with second hand devices.
Here’s a recent example phone article about the theft issue:
