Exploring KM these days there were several people offering me an iPhone 5 on the street. The offered phones were on IOS 7 and seemed all to be a legit phone (not a copy). Their asking price was 2.5k RMB. Not sure if they were on unicom or an other carrier at this point. Does anybody have experience buying from them and how can I make sure that I do not end up with a bad phone.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Half the normal selling price, and you really have to ask? If it is in the box fake, not in a box stolen or fake. if it seems to good to be true it is. how to make sure it isdont buy froma street vendor.

Do not, do not buy from these guys,ever! Its all a scam, they'll show you a legit phone and after you hand over the cash they will hand you a realistic model used in displays.

If you insist on buying then after inspecting the phone, do not hand back the phone for any reason, hand them the cash and walk away. However, watch your back for thugs thats coming to retreive their phone.

I have bought one before,not original, three major differences1- Camera quality, memory size and apple store application. You can get it from them for more cheaper if you don't care for these things

Tonyaod is correct. Usually they show you a real one. Then after you pay them they will say I give you a free cover. They take the phone and switch it, putting on a cover.
I know the scam and was approached in Xiamen. He showed me the real thing. It was a iPhone 4 from HK. Factory unlocked and jb'd. I took the phone, gave him 500 RMB and would not give him the phone back. He tried everything, finally resorting to trying to snatch it from me. I pushed him away and left on my moto, him running behind me. LOL

The scammer got his own medicine. I didn't even want it. But now I got a backup for 500RMB!

I don't recommend you try this. I was on a bike and could get away.

Are some of these the result of pick-pocketing, or are they just fakes?

They are the fakes you see in mobile stores, basically glorified paper weights. Fell for this years ago in Beijing. Lesson learned.

Tip my hat to you Bucko, well played.

@Ocean

Most are fakes. You can buy them OTC in Shenzhen for 200RMB.
If you know what you are doing, you can tell real vrs fake. You can't tell from the appearance.

On the subject of fakes, also watch out for flash drives. These are more common fakes than anything else. The usual thing they do is take a cheap 2 gig flash, inject a root code on it so it shows it as a 16 gig (or whatever). But it's still only a 2 gig. If you are going to buy flash drives, then put a program on your laptop that can look at the flash drive.
I suggest using EaseUS Partition Master. It is a free dl.

Thanks for all the reactions. Haven't seen a single one of them today.....must be the bad weather.....

Thanks for all the reactions. Haven't seen a single one of them today.....must be the bad weather.....