"bound or unbound" that is the question.

[buschman31]

One day you will go flying with it and it will ask you to log in ...Someday... If I were you I would fly it until that day and During that time get a Drone only from a store such as CamRise as a replacement. You can use this one for parts later or sell it off as parts

it already asking to update in the few times that i have logged into the controller when its online and i have not flown it yet

 

[Cafguy]

The letter is a pretty good idea!

 

[Cafguy]

Its gonna logout eventually also the Authorization letter thing I don't understand. With DJI you only have 2 choices when it comes to Drone transfer. 1. You can be the original owner If thats the case they will still not unbind the Drone...they will only send you a code that will allow you to change the password. OR 2. you can send the Drone to them and for the same price as a replacement they will throw the Drone you send them into the grinder and send you a Replacement. The DJI user agreement states that they will not unbind a Drone and they would NEVER do it "Remotely" if they even did.

 

[buschman31]

wow, another new twist to the same old problem. here we have a buyer who checked for the problem first only to learn later that you cannot really fully check for the problem in person but only if you possibly reach out to the manufacturer to verify. and....the person who bound the drone refuses to release it even though that person sold it to you.

in america, there is only one legal answer to this lunacy and it's call the court room. take the pawn shop to court.....please. write a letter to them explaining they either release the drone or take it back for a refund or else we go to small claims court. post the letter here, we will help you. we'll see if they feel comfortable with explaining their position in a legal setting. this is not legal advice but only my personal opinion.

What i will do Monday is call the corporate office and speak to someone there. The store manager is basically telling me that its unlikely the area manager is do a authorization letter releasing the drone for unbounding since the sales receipt shows all the info.

 

[Droning on and on...]

How do I check if it's bound before I purchase it?

Like the OP, get the S/N of the drone and check with DJI. Small inconvenience, but straightforward and pretty easy.

 

[mavic3usa]

How do I check if it's bound before I purchase it?

Like the OP, get the S/N of the drone and check with DJI. Small inconvenience, but straightforward and pretty easy.

As you know, fraud is real and the thieves are smart these days. If you are selling a bad drone, you're not going to provide a s/n that can be "looked up" and found to be bad. Therefore, lookout for the fake s/n provided to you which is likely social engineered from someone else on the internet or easily found elsewhere and it's clean. Same for stolen drones.

Just remember, the s/n you are provided by the seller for an item that you have neither won nor placed a bid on, you're not guaranteed to get that particular drone and the thieves know this. You get the green light from DJI, your drone arrives and it's a different locked drone s/n. If the seller is willing to list the s/n or provide it thru secure messaging to a legit buyer, that would be better (which I believe ultimately is the suggestion here). Nothing you can't overcome but just be aware, if you don't have the product in your hand, no guarantees. I know for sure I wouldn't give my s/n to just anyone who asks on the internet because they were browsing; only to the winner.

 

[Mrprop365]

As you know, fraud is real and the thieves are smart these days. If you are selling a bad drone, you're not going to provide a s/n that can be "looked up" and found to be bad. Therefore, lookout for the fake s/n provided to you which is likely social engineered from someone else on the internet or easily found elsewhere and it's clean. Same for stolen drones.

Just remember, the s/n you are provided by the seller for an item that you have neither won nor placed a bid on, you're not guaranteed to get that particular drone and the thieves know this. You get the green light from DJI, your drone arrives and it's a different locked drone s/n. If the seller is willing to list the s/n or provide it thru secure messaging to a legit buyer, that would be better (which I believe ultimately is the suggestion here). Nothing you can't overcome but just be aware, if you don't have the product in your hand, no guarantees. I know for sure I wouldn't give my s/n to just anyone who asks on the internet because they were browsing; only to the winner.

I usually sort out small points over messaging and then hop on a call and if there is anything of particular interest I'll ask them to stick it a message so it's on file

 

[buschman31]

Ok i was able to get the authorization letter from the pawnshop and sent it to DJI. It will take 1-2 days before i get a reply back. I'm pretty sure that things will be ok now.

 

[buschman31]

Ok i was able to get the authorization letter from the pawnshop and sent it to DJI. It will take 1-2 days before i get a reply back. I'm pretty sure that things will be ok now.

Also i if anyone is going to buy an used DJI from a local pawnshop or individual, please use the DJI chat in their website. They can check the serial number right away and give u a quick answer if the drone binded or unbinded to an account

 

[buschman31]

Also i if anyone is going to buy an used DJI from a local pawnshop or individual, please use the DJI chat in their website. They can check the serial number right away and give u a quick answer if the drone binded or unbinded to an account

UPDATE: The unbind request took 1 day. I got the email notice 12-20 that the unbind of the drone was done.

 

[Bill Lazar]

I don't know of any other merchandise where you have to go through these hoops to buy something second hand. This is absolutely rediculous.

 

[buschman31]

Yes it was really crazy. And dont try to get another unbinding case for another drone. Dji will only allow one unbinding if your are using the same email for the previous unbinding.

 

[mavic3usa]

Apologizes for not sharing my feedback in the other thread regarding this topic. As I was researching the binding process to become up to date on where DJI stands regarding the new policy and after spending countless hours binding and rebinding using several of my drones, remote controllers, and a couple of made-up DJI accounts (representing the new legit user/buyer and the dishonest new user or seller), I found too many inconsistencies and different behaviors and confusing pieces of the process which prevented me from creating a coherent post.

Different drones and different controllers (and goggles) did different things at different times. For example, on my RC Pro, I never see stars in my email account. Perhaps this is a recent change but my email account is in plain view for all to see and never protected (under any circumstances) which means you don't have to communicate with DJI, you can simply see my email and send your own message directly to me.

I tried different networks from cellular to home wifi to a public wifi and even no network trying to recreate login/logout issues but couldn't nail it down so it appears DJI is pretty random about this. I've only had a couple times auto-login and the last time wasn't this year or last year so it's been awhile. Auto logout is where you get screwed and because it's not immediate, you don't know when you are in trouble until you are.

Also I am never asked for password. When unbinding, just click the buttons and you are done. If a thief broke into my car overnight and stole my drone and the [binded] remote controller all they have to do it power up the drone and the RC, connect, unbind the controller and substitute their own DJI account since nothing is stopping them. That's hardly theft deterrence. However, it is true if your drone flew away and someone found it (obviously not the RC) then they won't be able to use it with another controller if the drone is bound. Interestingly, DJI has two bound conditions: One for premium services (such as care refresh) which you can seem to bind to expired Care and one for your DJI login; they call it binding as well. When you use your DJI account to log in with the drone, that's one step and you need to take a second step and bind that DJI account to your DJI account so it's like locking down the account to that drone and establishing some sort of ownership. But as I mentioned, anyone can pickup your equipment and as long as you are logged in (which I don't know too many flyer who log out once they are done flying), the thief can easily hit the buttons (without a password) and unbind and log off. By the time you wake up in the morning, your missing equipment is rebound elsewhere and you're locked out, just like the iPhone in the old days before Apple installed additional sub locks and timers giving the victim a decent chance against a quick thief who grabs your equipment and quickly changes all settings and you lose everything before you can respond. I couldn't find a way to log out of my equipment remotely or to force it to log out when re-connected to [pubic] wifi which is what the thief needs in order to rebind the equipment to his new DJI account but I'm sure DJI can do it. Again, by the time you realize this, you've lost everything. I understand why DJI is asking everyone to bind, regardless but I don't understand how the public is support to know if a serial number is unbound since there is no DJI.com resource that clearly notes the current status; I checked during all this testing. If the potential cannot reach out to DJI to confirm, they'll just have to take the word of the seller; good luck with that.

Anyway, once I collected too many screenshots and too many scenarios and TMI on the process, I quickly realized no regular user is ever going to know or learn all of this and only us experts (or the victims who get burned once) will figure it out and regardless of what I post, no one is going to change their mind and DJI is certainly not going to change their process. We have bigger issues to deal with, never mind the binding, you first have to be able to buy a DJI drone in the US or activate a fresh Care account before anyone is worried about binding. Just like what's going on in America, I resorted to FAFO on the binding process, live and you learn, sucks for the victims, and nobody cares until it happens to you and so I scraped those draft posts; that's the update.