Iphone esn still linked to verizon account?

I just bought 2 iphones for verizon used. I checked the esn's online and they came up bad. I text the guy and got the text on one of the phones. I assume the esn must be good if I got his text on it? Does he just need to call Verizon and have the phones deactivated?

Added (1). BTW he restored the phones before I got them. When I set them up they activated.

Depends, if the phones are off contract then yes. If the phones are still on contract I don't think he can sell them yet.

If you texted the guy and one of the phones received the txt guess what? If the other phone has a bad ESN and you bought it anyway now you have 2 phones with bad ESN, in other words 2 very expensive paperweights. The phone that received the txt is still activated and under contract and you can't call verizon to change anything because legally the phone is not yours to change its on somebody elses account and most likely he was not planing to pay whatever he owns the carrier so the sadly to say you have 2 useless phones, i don't think you can flash them to any other company.
He can call verizon and deactivate only and ONLY if there's $0.00 balance on the account.

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