Is Back Market legit? Are its phones any good?
Yes: vetted UK refurbishers, a 12-month warranty, 30-day free returns and 80% battery on every phone (terms read 26/09/2026). The catches and live prices.
On this page
Back Market sells refurbished phones for hundreds of pounds under the new price, and the businesses behind them are names most people have never heard of, so asking whether it is legit is sensible. On 26/09/2026 we read its UK terms, its warranty certificate and its help pages, and opened its listings beside the prices we hold. It is a genuine marketplace with real protections. What it is not is a shop, and that explains most of what surprises first-time buyers.
Is Back Market legit?
Yes. The marketplace is run by Jung SAS, a French company registered in Paris, and its UK subsidiary, Back Market UK Ltd, registered in England and Wales with an office in Bristol, arranges the payments here. Its terms of sale, its warranty and its returns rules are published in full, and your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 sit underneath all of them.
Back Market does not refurbish phones itself. Independent refurbishers do, and Back Market decides who may sell. It says only one in three businesses that apply pass its checks on their sales history, their performance and what they sell, and that it keeps checking them afterwards with mystery orders, visits to their workshops and customer reviews. A seller caught selling a fake is banned from that category. On the UK site, only UK refurbishers sell.
Who are you actually buying from?
The refurbisher. Back Market's terms say plainly that it is an intermediary and never the seller, so the contract and the warranty are with the business named on the listing, just below the Add to cart button. You still talk to Back Market's customer care, but a legal claim goes to the refurbisher, whose details are on the invoice.
That matters less than it sounds, for three reasons:
- You never pay the seller directly. Back Market's payment partners take the money on the seller's behalf. Your card is charged only once the seller confirms it has the phone, within 24 business hours; if it does not, the order is cancelled and the hold on your card is released.
- Back Market steps in if the seller does not. If a seller has not repaired or replaced a faulty phone within 5 business days of receiving it, and the claim is valid, Back Market offers a refund, a replacement or a repair itself.
- Early faults get a replacement first. For 6 months after delivery, Express Replacement can send an identical phone before you post yours back.
Here is what that looks like for one phone. On 26/09/2026 Back Market's page for a 128 GB iPhone 15 listed Fair at £319, Good at £338, Excellent at £346 and Premium at £416. Our price box shows the Back Market listing we check beside every other seller, with the cheapest offer per condition on top:
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Are Back Market phones good?
They are sold as fully working at every grade, and the grade only describes how the phone looks. These are Back Market's own descriptions for phones, read on 26/09/2026, from the bottom rung up:
- Fair: signs of wear on the body, including scratches and dents, and light scratches on the screen that do not get in the way when it is on.
- Good: faint scratches on the body you will not notice at a glance, and no marks on the screen.
- Excellent: hairline scratches on the body that are barely visible, and no marks on the screen.
- Premium: no signs of use. A Premium phone may have been gently used, or returned in an opened box.
Every phone is factory reset and wiped, and its IMEI is checked against the blacklist of lost and stolen phones. Back Market also promises that no phone it sells is locked, stolen or fraudulently sourced.
Two things the grade does not tell you. The first is the battery: every phone should arrive with at least 80% of its original capacity, and a Premium one with at least 90%. The second is the parts. Only Premium promises genuine manufacturer parts and a genuine battery. On the other grades a refurbisher may fit compatible parts, which Back Market says are tested to work as well as the originals. On an iPhone, a battery fitted by anyone other than Apple brings up an "Unknown part" or "Important message" notice in Settings. Back Market says that is normal and does not affect performance, but a part that is not genuine may lower the phone's trade-in value later, which is why our refurbished iPhone guide suggests checking the parts history on the first day.
What does Back Market promise?
| What Back Market says | |
|---|---|
| Who sells | Independent refurbishers that Back Market vets; on the UK site, UK refurbishers only. Back Market is the marketplace, not the seller |
| Grades | Fair, Good, Excellent and Premium describe looks only; every grade is fully working |
| Parts | Genuine manufacturer parts on Premium; compatible parts possible on the other grades, tested to work like genuine ones |
| Battery | At least 80% of original capacity on every phone; at least 90%, from a genuine battery, on Premium |
| Warranty | 12 months from delivery, given by the seller, or longer if the listing says so; a repair or replacement within 5 business days of the seller receiving the phone, and a refund only if neither is possible |
| An early fault | Express Replacement for up to 6 months: an identical phone sent before you return yours, if one is in stock |
| Change of mind | 30 days from the day it arrives, with a free return label; orders placed between Black Friday and 31 December can go back until 31 January |
| Payment | Taken by Back Market's payment partners for the seller, and charged once the seller confirms stock. Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Klarna and Clearpay |
| Fee | A Quality Assurance Fee at checkout: up to 2% of the basket, from £0.49 to £9.99 |
The warranty does not cover a drop, water, a repair by someone else or a battery wearing down with normal use. Before you send a phone back, remove the passcode, sign out of every account and switch off Find My, or a refund is delayed.
What are the catches?
None of them makes Back Market a bad place to buy, but each one catches people out.
- The price on the page is not the total. Back Market adds its Quality Assurance Fee at checkout: £4.99 on a basket between £300 and £349.99, so a £319 iPhone 15 costs £323.99. The prices in our boxes are before the fee, as they are on Back Market's own listings.
- Picking a grade can change the storage. Each grade, colour and SIM type is priced by its own listing, often from a different seller, and when the phone on screen has none in a grade, Back Market's grade button takes you to one that has, in another storage if need be. On 26/09/2026 its page for a 512 GB Galaxy S25 Ultra opened on Fair at £649, and its Good and Excellent buttons, at £595 and £605, led to 256 GB phones. Check the storage again after you choose a grade. Colours differ too: on its 128 GB iPhone 16 page they ran from £461 to £515 that day.
- The SIM option can change the phone. Back Market says its phones can come from anywhere in the world, even when a UK refurbisher sells them. Some iPhones take only eSIM, FaceTime Audio is missing on iPhones from some regions, and on 26/09/2026 the dual physical SIM version on Back Market's iPhone 16 page was marked as having no eSIM and no Apple Intelligence.
Is Back Market cheaper than eBay?
It depends on the phone, and the gap moves by the day. eBay's refurbished listings also come from businesses, under eBay's rules instead of Back Market's. Here are six phones with a refurbished price at both, live:
| Product | Back Market | eBay | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple iPhone 15 Plus 128GB | £349.00 | £354.99 | Back Market by £5.99 |
| Apple iPhone 16 128GB | £469.00 | £520.00 | Back Market by £51.00 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Pro 128GB | £563.00 | £520.00 | eBay by £43.00 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Pro 256GB | £569.00 | £599.00 | Back Market by £30.00 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 512GB | £803.00 | £847.00 | Back Market by £44.00 |
| Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra 512GB | £678.00 | £657.99 | eBay by £20.01 |
Of 6 products with a refurbished price at both shops today, Back Market is cheaper on 4, eBay on 2.
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Read both columns with care. A Back Market price is the cheapest grade and colour its page lists for that storage, before the fee. Our eBay column holds eBay's refurbished grades, which carry at least a year's guarantee and 30-day returns (our grades guide has the detail). Phones sold on eBay as opened but never used are not in it: they can come from a private seller with none of that cover, so our product pages list them in a section of their own. On 26/09/2026 all six eBay rows above were "Good - Refurbished" listings from businesses.
Here is one of those phones in full, across every seller we check:
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If you are weighing up other refurbished sellers, we have compared Back Market with musicMagpie and with Amazon Renewed.
What to do
- Choose the grade from Back Market's own descriptions, then click through every grade, colour and SIM option on the page, because each one is priced separately.
- Read the listing before you pay: the refurbisher's name, the SIM type, and whether Premium's genuine parts and 90% battery are worth the extra to you.
- Compare the total, fee included, with eBay and with the new price in our price box.
- On the day it arrives, check that the battery health is 80% or more, look at the parts history and make sure setup asks for no one else's account, while you are well inside the 30 days.
- If a fault appears in the first 6 months, open "Get help" on the order and look for Express Replacement.