Hi i get this problem, but i can fligth normaly
how is that?

Apparently nobody here has ever purchased or traded in an iPhone…. Stores will not accept them if they are not fully signed out and unbound from any Apple ID.  And you can’t do anything with a used iPhone that is still bound to another Apple ID.  In these cases Apple will not do anything to help, because the whole point of these measures are to fight stolen property.  So, they are basically worthless other than a source of parts.

Bound drones are the same - when buying through a private sale, you need to verify the drone is unbound before buying it, just like you’d verify a used phone isn’t bound to any accounts.  In the scheme of things, I think this policy saves more drones from getting stolen than it frustrates buyers of used gear.  Otherwise, all you'd need to do is reset any drone you find and it's yours.

Edit - DJI should make this point more clearly in its literature to avoid confusion for consumers.  Of course, DJI is in the business of selling drones themselves, so if this throws a wrench into the used drone market they probably don't really care.

Funny you mention Apple, a company that is notorious for being one of the most customer unfriendly ever when it comes to repairs, supporting anything from third parties or customer service. Apple has been sued by governments and fined over a lot of these practices.

But yeah, back to the point, there is no reason why DJI wouldn't be able to mediate between a new owner and the old owner when there is an issue (and the new owner can prove purchase and the old owner doesn't object/report the drone stolen), just to prevent a lot of people losing 100's of dollars and trashing perfectly good electronics.

This is of course exactly what Apple wants, people trashing last years iPhone and buying new, that's why they suck and get sued over their unfair business practices all the time. DJI.... remains to be seen.

A lot of the bad press that Apple gets is no doubt self inflicted, but really if they design and produce a product why would they be required to support repairs or accessories from 3rd party companies?  It’s their prerogative if that’s what they want to do.  In this day and age if you buy an iPhone and expect open architecture, shame on you for not doing any research on what you’re buying.  But that same walled garden is why Apple products are generally considered the most secure.  As for customer service, the few times I’ve needed support I’ve been satisfied wit their service.  Not to mention that my several years old Se phone is still getting updates to the latest OS and security - most Android devices are lucky to get 2 years of support.  A case could easily be made that Apple phones offer a much higher Lifetime ROI - there’s no need to buy the latest model unless you are a show off.

Point being that sometimes having more control over a product can result in better stability and higher satisfaction, albeit at a cost.

Edit- to your point about DJI mediating between drone owners...  Good luck with that.  What prevents a prior owner from not participating, or even lying to say their drone was stolen?  How to you legally prove a private sale?  Used equipment sales can be done using services such as eBay or stores accepting trade-ins, where the store verifies the drone has been properly unbound, or customers are protected from inoperable products.  I suspect the actual private sales market is really very small, and if that means the burden falls on the buyer, then caveat emptor.  Just because DJI will not unlock bound drones does not mean the result has to be an island of electronic trash.  If anything, at that point the parts value alone helps keep them out of the waste stream.

Case in point - which platform do you think is more reliable and easier to set up for the DJI Fly app, iOS or Android?  Install automatically from the App Store vs go through the apk side loading process for the average user?  Android 12 - 50% success depending on what model phone you have.  These benefits come at the costs you mentioned earlier - and a lot of people are willing to pay that price.

Well you basically take Apple's position on this. I don't agree and a lot of people don't. Look up the "right to repair bill" in New York state that passed this year, that covers a lot of these same issues and was inspired by Apple. Although the account binding is a slightly different issue, it kind of falls under the same category, because it's still a manufacturer refusing to let a legitimate owner of a product fully own the product  because of.... reasons.

Just to clarify - I generally support the Right To Repair bill...  Especially for farmers vs John Deere, which is another primary target for this legislation.  For consumer electronics, it's a complicated issue - to support the infrastructure necessary to provide consumers parts and technical support, no doubt the product price would need to be raised to cover those costs.  And to some degree, a manufacturers reputation may be negatively influenced by poorly done repairs or 3rd party parts.  But, as an electronics hobbyist,  I would loved to have access to OEM parts to do my own repairs.

That said, I think the RTR is a completely different issue - account binding is a theft deterrent, and DJI does not hinder your ability to remove or add drones from your account (provided they are not already bound to another).  I also find it interesting that several posts here mention they chose NOT to accept refunds when they discovered this problem, but rather complain about DJI.  That makes no sense to me - you've been offered a resolution and declined it.

Finally - if your argument is that DJI won't let you do as you wish with a product you own, you might as well also complain about their locking of geo zones via FlySafe...  It's "your" drone, why can't you fly it illegally at 500' if you want?  Why can't you root your Samsung phone to install whatever app you want?

The geo zones are very tricky indeed. Basically we are already facing the reality that DJI can and might brick any number of drones remotely, maybe forced by local laws. Or China's influence. And by bricking I mean either disabling a specific serial number OR geo restricting entire countries. But yes I do get the compromise, the geo zones might also prevent idiots from flying around airports and therefore prevent incidents like that causing country wide drone bans.

But yeah I chose to focus on this issue because it effects consumers and businesses here and now. Nobody feels sorry for Amazon sure, but I'm 100% sure this issue is causing big problems for some consumers and small retail stores that have to deal with pretty much all returned drones becoming unsellable. Who takes the loss on that exactly?

Honestly, because of aforementioned issues, I would not spend serious money on a DJI drone. I spent like 300 bucks on a Mini 2, which I' not worried about, it's basically a toy. But I would be nervous if I spent $3k   or more on one of these things and at any point it can stop working or be restricted in some way. Basically you don't really own these drones in reality, DJI does and by proxy your local government and their laws.

I share your concern about the possibility of DJI products being remotely disabled.  With the growing tension in Taiwan, something like that is certainly a possibility.  Too bad DJI also makes most of the best drones available at reasonable cost.

Still, I prefer knowing that because nobody can simply grab my drone and make it their own, there's less incentive to steal it.  And while DJI won't accept personal requests to reset account bindings in these instances, the fact is we do not know if they apply that same policy to larger distributers such as Amazon...   As you point out, places like Amazon are most likely to receive "locked" drones from customer returns in qty, and a certified distributor like Amazon making those requests is much different than you or I sending an email with a scan of a handwritten bill of sale.  The economics of the situation almost require DJI does resets in that case.  Small, independent shops are probably on their own - but if they have any experience with the product they will know to mandate the drones be removed from the owners account before accepting them.  It's the individual transactions such as the OP that are most at risk, and as I said - caveat emptor.  But that doesn't mean there's piles of useless drones in a landfill somewhere.

Same happened to me.. bought amazon warehouse mini 3 pro.. looks like new, not a scratch on it (the only thing that was missing is a screwdriver) and it is bound to another account. I can fly it no problem, but would like to bind it to my own account. DJI support was already closed when I wanted to contact them today so I asked amazon instead, their support was as useless as always in sorting these technical issues with their scripted troubleshooting and they recommended factory reset.. which did not do much.. after that they asked me if I want to return it which I refused for now as I would like to speak to DJI first, maybe they can help with contacting the person who registered the drone less than a month ago to his account before returning it.

But after reading a bunch of posts about this in here this really should be addressed. Even apple will delete your icloud account if you have a proof of purchase.. and I know this because we do this in work when our customers return their work iphones and forget to delete their icloud accounts, we just contact apple with our proof of purchase and phone is unlocked in a few days again. DJI should really allow this, or at very least they should implement a way for their resellers like amazon when somebody returns a new drone to send the serial number to DJI and they should unbind the drone automatically once the customer is refunded.

Killerko Posted at 8-8 17:19
Same happened to me.. bought amazon warehouse mini 3 pro.. looks like new, not a scratch on it (the only thing that was missing is a screwdriver) and it is bound to another account. I can fly it no problem, but would like to bind it to my own account. DJI support was already closed when I wanted to contact them today so I asked amazon instead, their support was as useless as always in sorting these technical issues with their scripted troubleshooting and they recommended factory reset.. which did not do much.. after that they asked me if I want to return it which I refused for now as I would like to speak to DJI first, maybe they can help with contacting the person who registered the drone less than a month ago to his account before returning it.

But after reading a bunch of posts about this in here this really should be addressed. Even apple will delete your icloud account if you have a proof of purchase.. and I know this because we do this in work when our customers return their work iphones and forget to delete their icloud accounts, we just contact apple with our proof of purchase and phone is unlocked in a few days again. DJI should really allow this, or at very least they should implement a way for their resellers like amazon when somebody returns a new drone to send the serial number to DJI and they should unbind the drone automatically once the customer is refunded.

Ask DJI support for help, they will contact the previous owner. If you're really lucky they'll unbind it. The process takes about 10 days. If it's not solved, return it to Amazon I'd recommend within your return window. You probably paid like € 800-900 for this thing and you'll have a hard time reselling it in the future when it's bound to another account, unless you don't disclose it which is super scammy. So my point is: the savings you had on this warehouse deal will probably be lost on reselling when you want to upgrade drones or get out of the hobby later.

TomKatt Posted at 8-4 09:32
I share your concern about the possibility of DJI products being remotely disabled.  With the growing tension in Taiwan, something like that is certainly a possibility.  Too bad DJI also makes most of the best drones available at reasonable cost.

Still, I prefer knowing that because nobody can simply grab my drone and make it their own, there's less incentive to steal it.  And while DJI won't accept personal requests to reset account bindings in these instances, the fact is we do not know if they apply that same policy to larger distributers such as Amazon...   As you point out, places like Amazon are most likely to receive "locked" drones from customer returns in qty, and a certified distributor like Amazon making those requests is much different than you or I sending an email with a scan of a handwritten bill of sale.  The economics of the situation almost require DJI does resets in that case.  Small, independent shops are probably on their own - but if they have any experience with the product they will know to mandate the drones be removed from the owners account before accepting them.  It's the individual transactions such as the OP that are most at risk, and as I said - caveat emptor.  But that doesn't mean there's piles of useless drones in a landfill somewhere.

Good point about certified distributors, although it doesn't seem Amazon is even aware of this issue. They are probably too rich to care about a niche little issue like this.

Ok . I have M3 full boxed with its orginal rc . Guess what . Guy who I have it asuured me he will unbind it ... paid by bank transfer  . Drone brand new flown only few minutes ... I have my own RC pro but now this guy said he lost access to this account as drone was on his old one u used 6 months ago . Drone was activated 187 days ago . SERIAL NUMBERS original RC and drone and box serial number are matching  - what I can do now as clearly this guy can't help me now - drone not stolen or blocked ... DJI should fix it as it is now very serious and brand damaging ... I have sent request to contact previous owner but its looks like he won't do it as no acces to account / email ... can DJI help me with this case ???

Hello all,
Same Situation Here, Mavic 3 from Amazon Warehouse Deals...

So, where would i even ask DJI to contact the previous owner?

Here?

Thanks for Help,
Nils

nils.heidorn Posted at 10-29 07:30
Hello all,
Same Situation Here, Mavic 3 from Amazon Warehouse Deals...

Hello again,
okay, just FYI:
For me it *seems* that the process is painless.
Contacted the general DJI support via phone (Germany) and the guy on the other side immediatly knew the procudure.
I got a request for a load of info that i sent back and the idea is:
DJI will try to contact the User and ask whether all is legit and the User can unregister the Drone, OR if they do not reach him they will do it manually after a short timeout.

So while it is a hassle it seems to be a known & good procedure.
(I would want that if my drone was stolen / lost too, so...)

AND: all within the Amazon WHD return time so if thungs go wrong i can give it back and only hurt feelings would remain :-)

Nils

djiuser_PUrGFW73XVzR Posted at 7-15 15:06
Hi is this resolved already?

Hi DJI.

Repeating the same post multiple times, especially in consecutive posts, serves no purpose. In fact it probably off putting to anyone who reads the first post and then sees the others.

Hi *yet* again:

CONFIRMED, it took some time but my bird is now bound to my account.

I got feedback that the previous owner did not respond within 2 business days and then it took DJI support 4 more days to manually unbind and to notify me.

Great!

Nils

nils.heidorn Posted at 11-8 02:13
Hi *yet* again:........CONFIRMED, it took some time but my bird is now bound to my account. ....and then it took DJI support 4 more days to manually unbind and to notify me.

Just to clarify something, did DJI themselves actually notify you that they, DJI, had undone the binding? If so how did they notify you? I.e. was it via email or a phone call or what ever?

OR.....could it have been that the original owner eventually unbound the drone and that all that you actually saw was that the absence of binding and that you could now bind the drone.

I ask because I get the impression that your post implies that you think DJI themselves undid the binding and that is contrary to everything I have so far read. Such action by DJI would, I think, open the a metaphorical "can of worms".

I’m in the same situation. The seller is an absolute ra tard. I’ve asked him several times to remove the drone that I purchased from him to remove it from his account. Each time he says he’s traveling and can not unbind it unless he’s hooked up to the controller. I’ve sent him YT videos showing him how to unbind it without the controller or even with another controller (since he has other dji drones) and he has yet to unbind mine. DJI needs to step in and fix this non scene.

djiuser_QQpzzzzPpsJa Posted at 12-11 17:00
I’m in the same situation. The seller is an absolute ra tard. I’ve asked him several times to remove the drone that I purchased from him to remove it from his account. Each time he says he’s traveling and can not unbind it unless he’s hooked up to the controller. I’ve sent him YT videos showing him how to unbind it without the controller or even with another controller (since he has other dji drones) and he has yet to unbind mine. DJI needs to step in and fix this non scene.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++99999999999999999999999999

Anti theft mechanism is cool, but it seems to create more pain than help. I'm in a similar boat.
I bought a second hand DJI Mini 3 Pro, I never used a drone before and it was connected to his account, so I wanted to sign out and connect to my own account, I would've never guessed that by doing that I'm pretty much screwed.

The RC and drone were still connected to his account, he only used the drone for a few minutes and is not very technical, so he had no idea about it, and me having my first drone had no idea about it, so I just disconnected the account from the RC, connected to my own, and now the drone is bound.
The seller doesn't remember the DJI account and even the gmail account as he created it ONLY for the drone...There was no warning, no message, NOTHING about the implications of signing out.

Fun...

nils.heidorn Posted at 11-8 04:41
@Sean-bumble-bee:

There i thought i made myself clear :-)

Hello, there. We sincerely apologize for any misleading and confusion. This is a mistake made by our support. We will investigate the case and give the support internal coaching. To avoid any misleading in the future, we have shielded relevant information. Your understanding is highly appreciated.

So now the admins here hide comments that proves DJI can in fact assist but they just don't want to?
NICE.

I can't create a new topic so I post here.

I have a similar problem but I can't unbind from my self-bound drones anymore after I changed to a new phone.

Althoug I am logged in, the app always says "Bound to another account" - all my drones which I bought brand new and activeted and bound by myself after purchase.

My old phone is broken so i cannot use that anymore. How can I unbind from my self-activated drones now? I really need to unbind from one drone.

djiuser_gkh6jOvl6Xcg Posted at 12-14 14:39
I can't create a new topic so I post here.

I have a similar problem but I can't unbind from my self-bound drones anymore after I changed to a new phone.

Did you create a new account on your new phone? If so log out of that account and log in to the old account.

djiuser_gkh6jOvl6Xcg Posted at 12-14 14:39
I can't create a new topic so I post here.

I have a similar problem but I can't unbind from my self-bound drones anymore after I changed to a new phone.

Hi there, may I ask if you logged in to your previous account? If you want to bind it to your new account, you need to log in to the bound account to unbind the drone and bind it to your new account.

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 12-14 21:56
Did you create a new account on your new phone? If so log out of that account and log in to the old account.

Nope, always just had one account.

DJI Mindy Posted at 12-15 01:33
Hi  there, may I ask if you logged in to your previous account? If you want  to bind it to your new account, you need to log in to the bound account  to unbind the drone and bind it to your new account.

I  don't have previous account, fresh installed the DJI Fly app on my new  phone, logged in with my old account (same as this one) and could to fly  the drone but not unbind anymore.

Just contacted the customer support via chat. They could confirm that both of my drones are bound to my account correctly but they also don't know why the app says "bound to another account". Really strange. I really need to unbund one of my drones. Already deinstalled and reinstalled the app two times and deletecd chache and app data but still no change. The app doesn't let me unbind from my drones anymore.

double post

I have sent you a couple of PM's, if you reply to them do so only via PM do not reply via the public section of the forum

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 12-15 06:18
I have sent you a couple of PM's, if you reply to them do so only via PM do not reply via the public section of the forum

I just saw it but I think it' won't help if others login with my login data.  I already tried another phone, same problem. So it's an account problem and not related to the phone

I would like to bring up something that know one talks about. What happens when a drone gets caught in doing illegal activities. If you do not unbind your drone when selling you will automatically be on the police hit list as the owner. At least in New York you will. This is going to become a very large problem soon. I just bought one that I new was binded, it came with controller, I assumed it was the mate to the plane, and to my surprise  it was not and now I have a problem. I live in NY so we have a right to repair law on the books so I guess I will try it out. Dji support has no clue on this problem when I called today. I suggest that Dji make a support page to enter your binding problem    with all info necessary and have them give you a solution to repair you drone. I would even pay a small fee to get this done.  All of a sudden Dji is not selling their wrecks on ebay . I this blowing up in their face.

corvettejunkman Posted at 12-15 17:41
I would like to bring up something that know one talks about. What happens when a drone gets caught in doing illegal activities. If you do not unbind your drone when selling you will automatically be on the police hit list as the owner. At least in New York you will. This is going to become a very large problem soon. I just bought one that I new was binded, it came with controller, I assumed it was the mate to the plane, and to my surprise  it was not and now I have a problem. I live in NY so we have a right to repair law on the books so I guess I will try it out. Dji support has no clue on this problem when I called today. I suggest that Dji make a support page to enter your binding problem    with all info necessary and have them give you a solution to repair you drone. I would even pay a small fee to get this done.  All of a sudden Dji is not selling their wrecks on ebay . I this blowing up in their face.

Hi there, may I ask where you purchased the controller and drone from? I sent you a PM to check more details, please have a look.

djiuser_gkh6jOvl6Xcg Posted at 12-15 05:33
Nope, always just had one account.

Thanks for the information. May I ask if the drone has been repaired before?

DJI Mindy Posted at 12-15 19:26
Thanks for the information. May I ask if the drone has been repaired before?

Nope also not. Brand new from official DJI store on amazon and activated by myself.

Now I already got 4 (!) emails from DJI support which all say "will transfer your email to the concerned team". This is really becoming an annoying problem.

djiuser_gkh6jOvl6Xcg Posted at 12-18 08:25
Nope also not. Brand new from official DJI store on amazon and activated by myself.

Now I already got 4 (!) emails from DJI support which all say "will transfer your email to the concerned team". This is really becoming an annoying problem.

Thanks for the confirmation. I've forwarded this issue to the corresponding team and our support team has also replied to your email, please have a look.

DJI Mindy Posted at 12-19 03:52
Thanks for the confirmation. I've forwarded this issue to the corresponding team and our support team has also replied to your email, please have a look.

Thanks for your help. I got a notification that my Mini 2 was onbound from my account. Now no devices are bound anymore to my account.

Just one more question: I could still fly all my drones withount binding to my account. Is it the normal case how it should be?

djiuser_gkh6jOvl6Xcg Posted at 12-22 18:23
Thanks for your help. I got a notification that my Mini 2 was onbound from my account. Now no devices are bound anymore to my account.

Just one more question: I could still fly all my drones withount binding to my account. Is it the normal case how it should be?

Sorry for the late reply. We recommend that you rebind them in case of any limitations.

djiuser_gkh6jOvl6Xcg Posted at 12-22 18:23
Thanks for your help. I got a notification that my Mini 2 was onbound from my account. Now no devices are bound anymore to my account.  Just one more question: I could still fly all my drones withount binding to my account. Is it the normal case how it should be?

It is perfectly normal.
None of my DJI drones are bound and they all fly perfectly well but NOTE, if you have flyaway insurance, the insurance will be invalid if all the bindings relating to the insured drone are in place.

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 12-31 03:21
It is perfectly normal.
None of my DJI drones are bound and they all fly perfectly well but NOTE, if you have flyaway insurance, the insurance will be invalid if all the bindings relating to the insured drone are in place.

I don't have, Flyaways just should not happen. But I always have a GPS tracker attached because I still don't trust DJI copters after these old flyaway problems with the old phantoms.

Hello! I want to buy drone, could you please check serial number if it's bounded to the account or no, thanks 1581F4XFC225C00636CW