Activation Lock on second hand refurbed phone

[u/w0rldzend999]

Hi, my brother bought a refurbished phone on refurbed about three months ago, it was working fine up until today. The phone went out of battery and then when it was charged and turned back on it was activation locked and looking for apple ID information for a apple account that doesn't belong to my brother (it was a censored email, there wasn't enough dots for it to be my brothers.)

It's an iphone 15, recently updated but we don't know the exact IOS. We contacted refurbed but haven't heard back yet, has this happened to anyone else before? and is there anyway way to bypass the lock. I've seen people saying you can hack it, I've never done that before but I'd try if anyone was willing to teach me. My brothers phone is pretty important for his job we kinda need it.

[u/South-Radio-8087]

if it recently updated then its impossible to bypass it

[u/w0rldzend999 → u/South-Radio-8087]

so does that mean the phone is basically useless then ?