So my friend has a dilemma here. He bought a Galaxy S3 off craigslist a while back. Now one month later his phone was locked by AT&T because it was reported stolen by the person he bought it from. Is there anything he can possibly do? He has already called AT&T and they refuse to unlock the phone, he can't use it whatsoever on his AT&T service.
Unless I'm wrong, he's pretty much screwed.
Whenever a purchase on craigslist is made you must always insist on the person giving a receipt signed by both of you. Your friend seems to be Sol.
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Is there more to the story you're not telling? What is there incentive for doing this?
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I wasn't aware ATT blocked IMEI like VZW/Sprint block ESNs. That's unfortunate about your friend's phone.
Sell it to someone internationally if you can unlock it.
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ferhanmm said:
Sell it to someone internationally if you can unlock it.
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A family member of mine in the caribbean, Trinidad to be specific purchased a factory unlocked TMO version Samsung Galaxy S3 from someone and now they seem to be having trouble with making and receiving calls on their network (Bmobile is the network there). I told my cousin that he may have purchased a stolen phone and the IMEI may have been blacklisted but I didnt think that was possible internationally? Could there be another reason like the network is not compatible; Bmobile is in the process of setting up HSPA+. The phone is also rooted. Could that be a problem also? Thanks in advance for any help you can give me. Also he has been receiving a software update from TMO, the 94mb one. Could updating the software make it work?
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I have rooted my tmobile sgs3 t-mobile sgh-t999..is there a simple(FREE WAY TO UNLOCK IT..PLEASE HELP
Hey looking for the same thing this is my second s3 I had a Verizon an rooted an was really easy to get unlocked with this tool but been looking around an getting mixed Info but I can tell u that their is definitely a unlock method for the cdma Verizon one might take a look at that thread an see if it works just got mine a hour ago gonna root mine soon =)
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For T-Mobile, you just call them and ask nicely.
http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-1588
You can tell them you are going to Europe and want to use your phone on the trip.
Got me the unlock code for this one.
The codes are cheap on eBay, as well.
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Me too. I just asked nicely. I'm even on the installment plan. I never thought it would work.....the lady told me that she would put in a request and I got it in my e mail later that day.
Good luck
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are they different for each device? if so how can you buy from ebay. if the code is universal no one wants to post it? I just don't understand how this works.
say you are going out of nation to tmobile.
BeatnikBandit said:
are they different for each device? if so how can you buy from ebay. if the code is universal no one wants to post it? I just don't understand how this works.
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It's a unique code for each phone. You send them your IMEI and they can look up your specific code from some database.
i have a situation here..my dad bought S3 for me and send it to Philippines where i live at the moment..any suggestion on how can i unlock Tmo S3 without paying a person or site/s to unlock it...LAST OPTION would be PAYING
EDIT: i can't register on Tmobile site cuz i live in the Philippines and my dad won't give his number to me =\
S3 unlock code
Bitcloud30 said:
i have a situation here..my dad bought S3 for me and send it to Philippines where i live at the moment..any suggestion on how can i unlock Tmo S3 without paying a person or site/s to unlock it...LAST OPTION would be PAYING
EDIT: i can't register on Tmobile site cuz i live in the Philippines and my dad won't give his number to me =\
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As somebody said earlier call t-mobile and talk nice and they might send you the unlock code but this will work only if the phoe is registered with t-mobile (bought from t-mobile)
Else pay for unlock code. many sources available on the web or may try a local dealer who may do it for you.
Good luck
Just read this...damn I was hoping you could unlock it like the G2 bummer guess I'll have to call. I thought you had to have the phone for 3 months though can anyone confirm?
Okay so I found galaxy note 2 from a craiglist deal, popped in sim card, everything worked great as its a tmobile version but said per seller that it was unlocked. 30 minutes later after the deal my device had been blocked from network use. My sim would no longer work in my older phone, so I called and got that fixed, but I now have a stupid nice phone that im using for a paper weight. Obviously the person who sold it to me either knew it was reported lost or stolen, or reported it after selling it to me, its whatever it happens right.
What are my options? I really want to be able to use this phone and spent a lot of money on it. I appreciate all input.
Try using another sim card I suppose
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I did, I even went to the AT&T store and they gave me a new sim card and it worked, made calls, surfed the web for like 10 minutes and the same thing happened.
pr0cl1v1ty said:
I did, I even went to the AT&T store and they gave me a new sim card and it worked, made calls, surfed the web for like 10 minutes and the same thing happened.
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the only thing you can do is have the seller call att or tmobile, what ever its branded and tell them they found the devise and att can unblock the imei
Sounds like u was scammed.
Sent from my SGH-T889
Only other option may be to try it on the other carrier. If it's a TMo phone, try it on ATT and vice versa.
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G1(CM7)--> G2(CM9)--> Note 2 T889 stock (root + multiwindow mod)
darocsfinest1 said:
the only thing you can do is have the seller call att or tmobile, what ever its branded and tell them they found the devise and att can unblock the imei
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Yea, I've been trying to figure out how to lookup the original buyer of this phone.
pr0cl1v1ty said:
Okay so I found galaxy note 2 from a craiglist deal, popped in sim card, everything worked great as its a tmobile version but said per seller that it was unlocked. 30 minutes later after the deal my device had been blocked from network use. My sim would no longer work in my older phone, so I called and got that fixed, but I now have a stupid nice phone that im using for a paper weight. Obviously the person who sold it to me either knew it was reported lost or stolen, or reported it after selling it to me, its whatever it happens right.
What are my options? I really want to be able to use this phone and spent a lot of money on it. I appreciate all input.
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If it is locked. Unlock and use through other carrier either tmobile or something that uses tmobile network mvno. If u have att note 2.
Its starting to look like its just not safe to buy this phone off Craigslist...
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Its not this phone. Its any phone. Run the numbers before you buy like a good consumer
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I don't know if you guys have reading comprehension problems or what... Dude said he used on tmo for 30 minutes and then got blocked, and then did the same thing with AT&T. For those of you that don't know AT&T and T-Mobile now share their blacklists, meaning it will not work on any carrier that uses any of those towers. Sad to say your best option would be to sell to an international user on celltraderonline. Be very clear that it is on the US blacklist and will not work with AT&T, T-Mobile or their sister carriers.
Have you tried any T-Mobile or AT&T MVNO's like Simple Mobile or Red Pocket? That might work. If not your pretty much screwed. Unless you use it in another country.
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JOSE89178 said:
Have you tried any T-Mobile or AT&T MVNO's like Simple Mobile or Red Pocket? That might work. If not your pretty much screwed. Unless you use it in another country.
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Wow, I guess you didn't read my post above yours.
I have been "burnt" also with buying a T-Mo Note 2 on Craigslist. I used my phone for 2 mos before it got blocked from T-Mo. I used the dialer tricked and unlocked the phone and now using it on Straight Talk Att sim. But you are right you can't use it on T-Mo network or any of the mvnos. You can only use it for ATT mvnos. I get 4g speeds and everything.
KillaHurtz said:
Wow, I guess you didn't read my post above yours.
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Wow, I guess two people can't answer at the same time.
The posts are just three minutes apart.
I guess you read my mind lol. I never saw your post. I never would of posted something double and make myself look like a fool CD they were less then 3 min apart. So excuse me :banghead:
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dwest3784 said:
I have been "burnt" also with buying a T-Mo Note 2 on Craigslist. I used my phone for 2 mos before it got blocked from T-Mo. I used the dialer tricked and unlocked the phone and now using it on Straight Talk Att sim. But you are right you can't use it on T-Mo network or any of the mvnos. You can only use it for ATT mvnos. I get 4g speeds and everything.
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if the phone has been imei blacklisted it will not work on any united states gsm service that includes straight talk... highly doubt you have a blocked phone working on straight talk
I had another thread going about being blocked on imei.
I just called tmobile and talked to them for about thirty minutes about my situation.
A quick summarization of the conversation is:
- The previous owner has been accused of fraud so that is the reason of the blocked IMEI.
- Can't do anything to unblock it, unless the previous owner retracts ther dues or whatever it is that needs to be payed.
- No third party unlocking will work.
Well for me, I fortunately have his information such as address and phone number and the text conversation still logged on my old phone. Luckily I called him today as a private number to check if he's phone still worked and still does, thank god.
Now I'm planning on calling him up tomorrow and, professionally, tell him my situation. When I met the guy, he didn't seem like a bad guy but hey, never judge a book by it's cover eh.
If he refuses any of these or won't agree to a median than I'll have to take legal actions.
That's my plan that is. I am not going to let $600.00 go to waste on a blocked phone! I'm taking this guy all the way.
*#06#
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not sure but can't you get rid of your IMEI by flashing a bunch of times? I had this happen with my SK4G, my IMEI number under settings was a bunch of 0s. When I called up T-mobile and asked for an unlock code for the phone, it didn't work because my IMEI was screwed up. I ended up having to alter some Hex file in order to unlock it
Well I was dumb paid 350 for it great shape guy said it was factory unlocked n I could use my net10 service on it.
Well its locked and when I tried unlocking it I seen I had 4.1.2 and need 4.1.1 to sim unlock. My buddy put his sim card in phone from same company same phone and it would not register so he told me phone was blocked either not paid off or lost or stolen.
My question is what can I do. If I downgrade to 4.1.1 and unlock sim will it still not work?
Thanks.
There's not much you can do legally. Contact the seller would be a good idea. Threaten police or civil action against him.
The note 2 can act as a cracking little tablet but wifi only.
I don't think downgrading the firmware will unlock a blacklist phone. There are websites that you can check imei numbers in the uk have a look where you are and proove it's been lost or stolen first.
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audiobookman said:
There's not much you can do legally. Contact the seller would be a good idea. Threaten police or civil action against him.
The note 2 can act as a cracking little tablet but wifi only.
I don't think downgrading the firmware will unlock a blacklist phone. There are websites that you can check imei numbers in the uk have a look where you are and proove it's been lost or stolen first.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2
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Tried to 4 whole week he wont answear!!!!! I have a net10 sim card figured it would work guess I got screwed out 400 bux.
I use CheckMEND. UK, USA and EU sites. One of tools i use to help avoiding dodgy gear
From 2nd November 2012 AT&T and T Mobile in the USA began blocking handsets by using the IMEI and sharing this information between them. This means that even if the sim card is changed the phone will not work on these two networks.
CheckMEND has access to this data
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Sorry for your problems. This is why I never get anything off craigslist unless I personally know the person OR they hand it to me locally and I test it. Again, sorry. Likely lost or stolen.............
Hi guys, I am sorry if it was already posted here, I could not find similar topics or posts. I have a problem with the network. When I try to call someone it says 'not registered on network'
I have been using galaxy s3 tmobile since last year november. I bought it from a police officer, he gave me unlock codes from tmobile. I used the phone on tmobile for 6-7 months and than I switched to staright talk unlimited and have been using it till yesterday. Yesterday suddenly my phone/ data/ sms.... stopped working. I was using cm10.1.3 than I thought, it is related to kernel/radio or modem and flashed back to stock rom.
But I still have the same problem.
The signal bar is full. I went to apn setting and played with it little, but no results. I tried to connect to the network, it says ' sim card does not allow a connection to this network'. I chatted with tmobile agent: she said, it must work on any network other than tmobile. I put my sim card on iphone, it works, but when I insert any simcard on my phone, it gives same issue. I checked my imei on tmobiles network, the result is: imei blocked. Could anyone help me with it please. ???? :banghead:
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bek23 said:
Hi guys, I am sorry if it was already posted here, I could not find similar topics or posts. I have a problem with the network. When I try to call someone it says 'not registered on network'
I have been using galaxy s3 tmobile since last year november. I bought it from a police officer, he gave me unlock codes from tmobile. I used the phone on tmobile for 6-7 months and than I switched to staright talk unlimited and have been using it till yesterday. Yesterday suddenly my phone/ data/ sms.... stopped working. I was using cm10.1.3 than I thought, it is related to kernel/radio or modem and flashed back to stock rom.
But I still have the same problem.
The signal bar is full. I went to apn setting and played with it little, but no results. I tried to connect to the network, it says ' sim card does not allow a connection to this network'. I chatted with tmobile agent: she said, it must work on any network other than tmobile. I put my sim card on iphone, it works, but when I insert any simcard on my phone, it gives same issue. I checked my imei on tmobiles network, the result is: imei blocked. Could anyone help me with it please. ???? :banghead:
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If the IMEI is blocked then the seller has reported the phone to be stolen. There's not much that can be done in that case to the phone. You can talk to the Seller if you want.
Doesn't sound like a police officer to me. Probably lied to you to make the sale. Either he reported it lost/stolen like Perseus said, or he never fully paid it off and stopped making payments. Either way, the device is now almost certainly considered to be stolen property. You can unlock it and sell overseas, but otherwise you are pretty much screwed I am sorry to say.
You need to call T-Mobile to find out why it's been blacklisted. If it's been reported stolen, or was never fully paid for try to contact the seller and ask about it. If you can't get in touch with him you may want to consider filing a police report.
Only other possibility, but highly unlikely, is if some a$$ cloned their device using your imei (either randomly entered or obtained some other way). In this very unlikely scenario it wouldn't be the sellers fault, unless he gave the IMEI to someone to use or used it himself.
It's much more likely the seller did this to you since this, unfortunately, happens all the time.
Like stated previously, there isn't much you can do if you can't resolve things with the seller.
Sorry to hear about your misfortune.. good luck though.
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Thank you for the replies, I have called tmobile, they say it's not fully paid off or the customer has stopped the services at all, at the time of purchase I was 100% sure he was police officer, he showed his badge and all the stuff in the car.
How can I unlock it? I might want to sell overseas.
Anyway, I was thinking about move to n5, but it is too early, coz n5 is not out yet
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In the general section is a SIM Unlock thread. Should be on the first page or two.
If he is actually a cop, I'd call him up and ask about it. If he only recently cut his service, it may have been unintentional that you got screwed as a result. Maybe he had forgot all about it. Considering how long it's been, he probably had it close to paid off, so maybe he'd be willing to pay off the balance to T-Mobile to have it unblocked. Or it might be worth it to you, depending on the amount owed, to pay it yourself if he can't or won't.
Granted, it would suck to have to, but if he only owes like $50, might be worth considering.
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bek23 said:
Thank you for the replies, I have called tmobile, they say it's not fully paid off or the customer has stopped the services at all, at the time of purchase I was 100% sure he was police officer, he showed his badge and all the stuff in the car.
How can I unlock it? I might want to sell overseas.
Anyway, I was thinking about move to n5, but it is too early, coz n5 is not out yet
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If its not paid for then t-mo will release it after you pay up. Nexus 5 is ways away. You will have to go without a phone.
Unlock, ask T-mo or use online services on ebay
Well it is pre unlocked, or should I unlock again?
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bek23 said:
Well it is pre unlocked, or should I unlock again?
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No Need. If you know its unlocked then go ahead and sell Overseas.
Thank you very much who helped me with this issue, and of course the seller cut his services and even his number is not available anymore, no replies from email, but I am happy that nexus 5 is play store now, yeey
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I've read a little but but i'm still confused. I have a phone under metropcs but I want a galaxy s4 so i'm wondering if i buy a tmobile s4 with a bad esn or imei if i unlock it will i be able to use it with metro? also has anyone got their phone unlocked and if so by whom? Once I get the phone unlocked how do i get it on my service with metropcs?
You don't need to unlock T-Mobile devices to use with metropcs, and it will not work with a bad imei.. Why would you want to do this? It's not right
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Not necessarily, I have a Samsung galaxy S1 here at the house that has a botched IMEI on it from unlocking it that that i would use from time time under AT&T when i was on contract with them, and tested on T-Mo. Since the phone had a botched IMEI, when the phone got put on a network it would fully function. It just wouldn't get registered as a smart phone. Cheap way to save a few bucks a month on cell service.
Swyped from my LG Nexus 5 using XDA premium.
Koizuma said:
Not necessarily, I have a Samsung galaxy S1 here at the house that has a botched IMEI on it from unlocking it that that i would use from time time under AT&T when i was on contract with them, and tested on T-Mo. Since the phone had a botched IMEI, when the phone got put on a network it would fully function. It just wouldn't get registered as a smart phone. Cheap way to save a few bucks a month on cell service.
Swyped from my LG Nexus 5 using XDA premium.
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Metropcs is powered by T-Mobile network, and I've worked at metropcs and got customers coming in with T-Mobile blocked imei devices, and I wouldn't be able to activate them.. AFAIK blocked devices will eventually stop working with other carriers
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serio22 said:
You don't need to unlock T-Mobile devices to use with metropcs, and it will not work with a bad imei.. Why would you want to do this? It's not right
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The s4 from metro is like $500 I don't wanna pay that much lol
rcraig617 said:
The s4 from metro is like $500 I don't wanna pay that much lol
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Just bought a clean imei S4 in mint condition on ebay for $325 and saw another go for $300. Keeping your comparison apples to apples, i.e. both used, you will not find a huge savings going with a blacklisted phone. They seem to be selling for about a 33% discount over like kind phones. I recognize that represents real money but it's nowhere near hundreds of dollars saved. There is a lot of demand for them.