Does anyone know how to track the original owner of the phone by the serial or imei? or any other information I can get off the phone.
pr0cl1v1ty said:
Does anyone know how to track the original owner of the phone by the serial or imei? or any other information I can get off the phone.
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Google mostly or call tmobile saying you found a device that you are willingly wanting to send back to owner for it is "his property" im sure theyll get you connected somehow.
Or get the police involved if you have the text messages still of him stating that he will meet up (make sure it was a public place cause they have cameras so they can see the trade and show his face that it was he who sold it)
And then you can get your money or you could even get him jailtime...
I'm a consultant... ask me anything... I'll run away.
It's best to call the telco. and report it found -- or go to the nearest police station and do the same. They'll keep it in holding until it's claimed.
Any phone in possession can be tracked without having apps installed (police backdoor). The original owner, on the other hand, can track it if they have remote apps installed or properly configured the apps to do so. Don't hold onto a hot item, as you can be held liable, even if some other guy gave you the phone.
The easiest way I have found is calling the contacts on the phone hopefully finding one that outright says "mom brother, father, etc"
Ive returned two phones this way. If its locked do what the others have said and turn into police
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda app-developers app
I'm Confused Here
Did you buy a stolen phone, or find one that someone has lost?
He probably bought a phone that worked fine and then got blacklisted and is now trying to bring vengeance upon the owner.
Sent from my SGH-T889
Related
hi, i have recently purchased a touch pro 2 off ebay and i stuck my SIM card in it to find out i cant get a signal or make calls etc..
i really dont know what i should do.
please help. any advice is helpful.
Was it used or new?
used, he was selling as 'it no longer makes calls or sends texts'
if it was listed as barred theres no way i would have bought it. but with what he wrote it sounded fixable.
earni said:
used, he was selling as 'it no longer makes calls or sends texts
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So you were suprised when you got it that it doesn't make calls? Call you provider they might be able to unlock it if the phone isn't broken to begin with. Next time i suggest understand what you are buying because this is a pretty ridiculous post. I am questioning my own judgment for even answering to this post.
i wasnt surprised it didnt make calls, i thought he may just have a bad radio or something but i checked the imei on checkmend and it shows up as blocked..
You bought a phone that the seller told you didn't work. You assumed the reason it didn't work was one thing, but it turned out to be another. Whether he lied to you as to why it didn't work or not, you still took a chance on buying a phone you knew was not working. Take your loss, learn from it and move on.
If the phones blocked then he has found/stolen it. Or put in an insurance claim saying it’s been lost/stolen.
If you paid by PayPal put in a claim giving reason that you were not told the phone was blocked. You will then get your money back.
earni said:
i wasnt surprised it didnt make calls, i thought he may just have a bad radio or something but i checked the imei on checkmend and it shows up as blocked..
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bwaaaaahahahahahaha...that's what you get...!!!
earni said:
hi, i have recently purchased a touch pro 2 off ebay and i stuck my SIM card in it to find out i cant get a signal or make calls etc..
i really dont know what i should do.
please help. any advice is helpful.
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Click to collapse
I've had this situation before and although it turned out that the phone I had purchased wasnt stolen, the process will be the same:
Contact your Phone Network and give them the IMEI number and explain the situation. Don't worry - they are used to dealing with this type of call. They will use a database shared between all the network providers to find out the original and current owner of the handset and tell you whether it has been registered stolen or just blocked by the previous owner (this is what happened to me only I found this out a lot later).
If they tell you it is stolen, take the handset and everything that came with it to your local police station, including print-outs of any correspondence you have had with the seller - via the website market place or direct.
The police will give you a crime number and most probably take the device and the print outs from you to investgate further. You will need the crime number to get your money back later on.
Contact the market place and your bank (credit card company) and explain the situation and give them the crime number.
In most situations, the market place will give you your money back (withdraw it from the sellers account). If they dont, your credit card company will do the chasing for you but you'll need to try yourself first.
The market place may ask you for more documents from the police and the police will be very understanding. The police woman assigned to my crime number was very helpful and was in regular contact with me about how the investigation was proceeding.
The whole process may take 6-8 weeks. It can be drawn out but persevere and you will get your money back - and deservedly so.
Good luck and PM me if you need any further advice.
I thought gsm phones cannot be blocked?
DJ_MiX said:
I thought gsm phones cannot be blocked?
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I am no expert but they can certainly be blacklisted by the owner and that was what I was suggesting.
http://www.unlockme.co.uk/blacklist.html was a site I read up on when I was faced with the same situation.
My phone was blocked. I rang up Orange and told them the situation and they unblocked it - to my surprise. At the same time, I had opened a case in eBay which went in my favour, but I decided to keep the TP2 as it's now working. In my case, I could get a signal (four bars), but it always came up with no connection.
So my Note 2 was stolen the other day, the phone is off still and I went ahead and got and activated a new Note 2.
I havent told Sprint yet because I am waiting for the thief to turn it on so I can track it and find the phone since I have AndroidLost and WheresMyDroid installed on the stolen one.
My question is once the phone turns on, will the thief keep receiving my text messages and what not if he connects the phone to WiFi?
Also, if i change all my Facebook/Twitter/etc passwords and they try to open that app on the phone, will it require them to login with the new passwords?
Any help/advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
milkycoins said:
So my Note 2 was stolen the other day, the phone is off still and I went ahead and got and activated a new Note 2.
I havent told Sprint yet because I am waiting for the thief to turn it on so I can track it and find the phone since I have AndroidLost and WheresMyDroid installed on the stolen one.
My question is once the phone turns on, will the thief keep receiving my text messages and what not if he connects the phone to WiFi?
Also, if i change all my Facebook/Twitter/etc passwords and they try to open that app on the phone, will it require them to login with the new passwords?
Any help/advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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text msgs arent sent over wifi, so no, they wont.
yes, they should be required to log in again
Ypu should have filed a police report the same day. The Note costs enough to be considered grand theft (at least in my state) and if you report it stolen properly they add its esn to a database and it gwts flagged when they attempt to activate it or turn it on while still active on your account. They can then locate and obtain your device back, if not catch the theif, sometimes they just get the chump that bought it even then that can sometimes lead back to the theif if they have a phone number for the seller. Plus reporting it stolen to the police gets you off the hook for anything done with the phone after it was stolen. You wouldnt want your unreported stolen device to turn up as the detonator on some terrorists IED, good luck explaining it was stolen but you didnt report that your $700 device was taken
I like to break stuff!
I found 2 phones along the interstate today where i work that both work still. A pantech and a Galaxy S III.(both ATT). they both have screen locks on them though. anyway to bypass these locks?
whip_24 said:
I found 2 phones along the interstate today where i work that both work still. A pantech and a Galaxy S III.(both ATT). they both have screen locks on them though. anyway to bypass these locks?
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You don't say, but I'm assuming that there is no information on either screen while it is locked, that indicates who the phones belong to. You might be able to find out whose they are by contacting ATT and providing the IMEI numbers. Anything more than that is for the XDA pros to come up with.
the reason i want to bypass is to get a contact out of each phone and call them to get them back to the owners. last time i returned a phone to a store it never got returned...(i know this because i dated a girl that worked there and she said that when she worked there they never got returned to owners). i tried to call ATT but they can't release any of the info due to privacy restrictions.(which is good and understandable)
Unrelated: I found a phone like that one time. No lock but I called "Home" and setup to return phone. It was a couple who said the phone belonged to their daughter who'd died in a car accident there a couple days before. Weird.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium
whip_24 said:
the reason i want to bypass is to get a contact out of each phone and call them to get them back to the owners. last time i returned a phone to a store it never got returned...(i know this because i dated a girl that worked there and she said that when she worked there they never got returned to owners). i tried to call ATT but they can't release any of the info due to privacy restrictions.(which is good and understandable)
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I do not know about Pantech but perhaps you can try Samsung regarding the Galaxy S3. If the owner registered the phone with them they might "work" with you to help contact the owner regarding the phone. Of course I doubt they will give out information but perhaps they are willing to play "middle man".
whip_24 said:
the reason i want to bypass is to get a contact out of each phone and call them to get them back to the owners. last time i returned a phone to a store it never got returned...(i know this because i dated a girl that worked there and she said that when she worked there they never got returned to owners). i tried to call ATT but they can't release any of the info due to privacy restrictions.(which is good and understandable)
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If you're really concerned about getting the phone back to the owner, call the carrier and tell them you found devices you want to return.
They'll send you boxes with return shipping labels, then they'll contact the owner of the device to return it.
Although it sounds like you've already made up your mind about what you're going to do.
(Please Help, TIME SENSITIVE)
I need help please, I post adds on CL and buy/sell the items on fleabay. I usually don't check the EMEI or any other numbers and have been fine until now. I was under the impression that if the phone is black listed, unlocking it would fix the issue... Am I incorrect??? If not, what can (besides refunding the $$$), be done to the phone to make it work on the T-Mobile network? IF unlocking doesn't correct the issue?
Thank You, in advance for your help everyone...
My correct Email is [email protected]
The yahoo Email that is attached to this account is abandoned, and I can no longer access it.
The Control Panel will not allow me to update my email. It states that the email is already taken.
So I believe I have two accounts on this site. I've already messaged XDA about the issue
I don't think there's anything legal that can be done if T-Mobile has blacklisted that IMEI, besides it maybe working on another Carrier? i.e. ATT but I don't know about that.
I think your chances of getting it work on T-Mobile again are in the neighborhood of .01%
Yeah if it's a T-mobile phone and T-mobile blacklisted the phone, it will NEVER work on T-mobile. Sim unlock might or might not work on another network such as AT&T as I've heard they now share blacklisting. Might work overseas.
Refund the money, get it unlock to see if it work on AT&T, resell it on CL/Fleabay and make sure the listing shows that it's a BL T-mobile phone.
Was It pass due account?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
chino0826 said:
(Please Help, TIME SENSITIVE)
I need help please, I post adds on CL and buy/sell the items on fleabay. I usually don't check the EMEI or any other numbers and have been fine until now. I was under the impression that if the phone is black listed, unlocking it would fix the issue... Am I incorrect??? If not, what can (besides refunding the $$$), be done to the phone to make it work on the T-Mobile network? IF unlocking doesn't correct the issue?
Thank You, in advance for your help everyone...
My correct Email is [email protected]
The yahoo Email that is attached to this account is abandoned, and I can no longer access it.
The Control Panel will not allow me to update my email. It states that the email is already taken.
So I believe I have two accounts on this site. I've already messaged XDA about the issue
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Click to collapse
no unlocking it wouldnt fix the issue, once the phone has its IMEI blacklisted, the only (legal) way to get it whitelisted again is for the prvious owner is pay off the phones balance, and thats only if the IMEI was blacklisted due to not paying the bill. If it was blacklisted because it was reported stolen, your SOL.
The only thing you can do, is unlock it and try to sell it as an unlocked device. But other then that, you will not get what you payed for it, due to it being blacklisted on a carrier.
Always gotta check those things on craigslist, people always think "it will never happen to me" untill it happens to them
Unlock it and use it on Att
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
T Mobile black listed one of my phones I got through insurance. I called them and told them it was a mistake. Within hours I had my phone un blacklisted. Call customer support ( a few times if needed ) and ask them to reinstate your phone.
lildanik said:
T Mobile black listed one of my phones I got through insurance. I called them and told them it was a mistake. Within hours I had my phone un blacklisted. Call customer support ( a few times if needed ) and ask them to reinstate your phone.
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this isnt a good idea, in your instance, it was their mistake in the first place. The op's situation, what more then likely happened is that the seller of the phone sold him the phone, then reported it stolen. If its reported stolen, they arent going to just "reinstate" it
I have my galaxy s3 through tmobile, and I used to be on my boyfriend's account. Well after we broke up, he reported my phone as stolen. Now I cant use my phone with any carrier, because apparently the IMEI number has been blacklisted. I have called tmobile to explain the situation, but they are not hearing it because I wasn't the account holder. Is there any way to go around this situation? They will not listen to me or believe me, even though I take my phone to them and show all of my data and proof that I have had it forever! Please help, because if I cant fix this then I will be out a lot of money that I do not have!!!
jessf said:
I have my galaxy s3 through tmobile, and I used to be on my boyfriend's account. Well after we broke up, he reported my phone as stolen. Now I cant use my phone with any carrier, because apparently the IMEI number has been blacklisted. I have called tmobile to explain the situation, but they are not hearing it because I wasn't the account holder. Is there any way to go around this situation? They will not listen to me or believe me, even though I take my phone to them and show all of my data and proof that I have had it forever! Please help, because if I cant fix this then I will be out a lot of money that I do not have!!!
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Well, I'll bite the bullet on this one. It looks like you are screwed as your phone is blacklisted and most of the carriers are sharing lists, so you probably never be able to get service in the U.S. Your only real options, other than pursue legal action against BF/TMo, are to sell the phone to a non-U.S. party for them to use or part it out.
Good Luck with it.
Thread Cleaned. Do not spam the boards to get 10 posts.