This case was revealed on a Chinese blogging platform by somebody using the pseudonym ‘Proud Qiaoba’. She managed to earn around £725 for each one and used the money to put down a deposit on a house.
The writer claimed that he was allegedly colleagues with the woman who Chinese media dubbed ‘Xiaoli’, and said that everybody in the office is now talking about this.
Xiaoli comes from the city of Shenzhen in southern China, and after she received the twenty newly launched iPhone 7 from her boyfriends, she sold them to a mobile phone recycling site called Hui Shou Bao for 120,000 Chinese yuan (approximately £14,500).
The house she bought was in the countryside, and when she showed her new home to their group of friends, they were all shocked when she revealed the way she got the money.
Some tried to justify her actions by explaining she is not from a wealthy family, her mother being a housewife and her father a migrant worker. As the oldest daughter and her parents are getting old, she may be under a lot of pressure to buy them a house.
Since many people became suspicious after hearing the story, BBC Trending approached Hui Shou Bao and a company spokesperson confirmed they had bought 20 iPhones from a female client at the beginning of October 2018 and paid 6,000 Chinese yuan (approximately £725) for each one.