I know this is a stupid question bud Ive seen Evos with "bad ESNs" so cheap Ive began to wonder what it is. I know its something bad (duh its fkn obvious) but what exactly is this ESN?? and can I still activate the phone with sprint n use it? thnx!
You can't activate it if it has a bad ESN
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Bad ESN's are phone's that are essentially "lost" or something else. You wont be able to use those phones on Sprint, but you can flash on another carrier like MetroPCS or Criket.
Electronic serial numbers (ESNs) were created by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to uniquely identify mobile devices.
The ESN is "bad" in the sense that it is reported stolen or the account has an outstanding balance remaining. It cannot be activated on a network. There are ways to zero out the ESN and cloning. ESN cloning is illegal. Thus, for all intents and purposes, a phone with a bad ESN can be your new Wi-Fi bound media device
oook, so basically if I want a PHONE (call, txt, web,...) I should avoid bad ESN phones, unless I want an HTC branded iPod... well thnx every1 for the fast replies =)
Hi,
I just lost my DHD, just as my husband and i were about to root both of ours this weekend!
We have obviously informed insurers, blocked the sim etc..
My question is this; If someone finds the phone, and roots it, will the insurance company still be able to track it via the IMEI or something??
They said they would put a 'block' on the phone, does this mean just the sim or the actual phone?
After building up to rooting our phones, I'm now thinking if someone finds mine and roots it they will get a free DHD at my expense :-(
Thanks
the IMEI won't be changed by rooting it
so if someone found it, and they checked the IMEI it should come up as lost/stolen
but of course that relies on someone checking the IMEI in the first place
thanks +1 maatsby
so the IMEI is a physical thing on the phone?
So basically, if someone found my phone, rooted it, used their own sim, there is no way for the insurance/ police/ provider to track the phone down?? (unless the IMEI is submitted and checked)
You're close...what happens is if an insurance company 'blocks' the phone they actually put the IMEI number into a blacklist for this country, that means if someone turns the phone on it will be emergency calls only...the phones radio(how it gets signal) will still work although blocked and the cell tower nearest to it will track its location should anyone be tracing that IMEI.....
So....no ones getting a free phone , although that doesn't stop it becoming spares I'm afraid...
Sent from my HTC Desire HD using LEEEEEDROID. . 5.1.1
I can confirm that!
My Dad's phone (rooted DHD) was stolen from him last year.
We reported it (in my country we report stolen phones to the provider company who reports it to the general security department).
We gave them the IMEI.
In less than two months they were able to track it down. They contacted us and we got the phone back!
I wish u all the luck in finding yours! Cheers..
Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk
Thanks for the info everyone!
im currently using aokp jb. the back of my phone says one imei while the imei in the phone says a different one. apparently the imei number 004999010640000 belongs to a non-existant 16gb iphone 3gs. i dont know what changed my imei but i do know that at&t has recently started blacklisting stolen/lost devices and the imei i listed above appears as stolen. i dont know if people have been having problems while going to make a phone call but i have and just wanted to share the info i learned at at&t.
Maybe call at&T or go to a store and ask them to look it up and verify that it's not an iphone nor is it stolen but I doubt you'll have any really problems as at&t really doesn't do much for a stolen phone once the customer buys a new one
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Where did you buy your Nexus? If you got it secondhand most likely the seller changed the IMEI but I dont know why that would matter as ATT doesnt sell the phone so they dont care if it was stolen. Pretty strange situation you find yourself in.
You might want to ask ATT to see if someone is using the IMEI on the back of your phone. If so, maybe they have the stolen iPhone. If you can get it straightened out, great. If you can't, send a pic of your phone's real IMEI and report it stolen. Then the crook (if there is one) can't use it, either.
my phone has two imei's one on the back and the one in the nv_data.bin the one in the nv_data is a generic one apparently which i dont know how it got there, most likely when my phone was sim unlocked cause i didnt buy it through the play store. and ive been trying to figure out how to restore imei's and have been following guide after guide to no avail. i know that imei changing is illegal and banned here but i dont know what else to do
tl;dr : my galaxy nexus has a generic imei in it and att is blacklisting my phone because of it
ok i dont want this to look like the typical stolen phone wanting a new imei to get around !
right here i have 1x t-mobile galaxy s3 , working condition, bought with a bad imei he cancled through t-mobile.
and then i have a t-mobile galaxy s3 wiith a completely destroyed digitizer/screen.
if anybody knows a way i could get around this let me know ,ive been searching but maybe somebody has some good links
Why do an IMEI swap? Just swap the mainboard and you're good to go. I'm guessing if you knew enough to at least ask about IMEI-swapping, you know a bit more about disassembling. That which iFixit gave a very modest rating of 8
alpha-niner64 said:
Why do an IMEI swap? Just swap the mainboard and you're good to go. I'm guessing if you knew enough to at least ask about IMEI-swapping, you know a bit more about disassembling. That which iFixit gave a very modest rating of 8
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hey thats a good idea! i thought of this already , but! my galaxy s3 that has a good imei motherboard is shot with the "Sudden death syndrome" which is common. i beleive this problem is in the motherboard, so if i swapped it id be swapping in a shot motherboard, but it has a good imei, if not,ill go ahead and swap it so let me know . thank you
update: i tried the motherboard swap, and the sudden death syndrome follows, so i need to use my imei thats on my SDS'd motherboard. thanks
the ptoblem here is that even though you bought the phone and did nothing wrong, it is still considered stolen property.
as for sds, can you be more specific? sudden death was specific to the original firmware for the I9300. even if it exhibts simikar symptoms, its not really sds as its not sn isdue plaguing our devices like it did for them.
Sent from my T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide(HTC Espresso) using Tapatalk 2
DocHoliday77 said:
the ptoblem here is that even though you bought the phone and did nothing wrong, it is still considered stolen property.
as for sds, can you be more specific? sudden death was specific to the original firmware for the I9300. even if it exhibts simikar symptoms, its not really sds as its not sn isdue plaguing our devices like it did for them.
Sent from my T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide(HTC Espresso) using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i know what you mean, but its really not stolen property its is mine, i paid full price for this phone but t-mobile wont help me because my account is in bad standing.
i read that is is legal to clone/swap the imei on two phones that belong solely you to.
i know theres gotta be a way!
gottapaybills9640 said:
i know what you mean, but its really not stolen property its is mine, i paid full price for this phone but t-mobile wont help me because my account is in bad standing.
i read that is is legal to clone/swap the imei on two phones that belong solely you to.
i know theres gotta be a way!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
otherwords i know its not a legal option to tamper with your imei alone, but i beleive this should be a legal action since i own both phones, if someone can help i can send a tag'd pic of both of them too to prove their mine, please help me thank you
before this goes further, please understand that this thread is probably already violating xda rules. discussion about cloning devices is not allowed. i too hsve seen claims that what you wsnt to do is legal, but no one has ever been able to provide me definitive proof of this, so it is nothing more than a guess.
in your op you said you bought a blacklisted device from someone who stopped paying. this makes it stolen property, whether you paid full price or not. If someone stopped making their car payments, then sold that car to you, would it not still be considered stolen, and you forced to return it to the rightful owner?
Or say someone stole your TV, or whatever you want as an example, then sold it to someone. is that buyer the new legitimate owner? or are you?
dont take offense to any of this. im not against you at all. but i just wanted to explain why you cant discuss this here, and why you will be very hard pressed to find soneone willing to risk helping you.
even if device cloning is legal as you want to believe, it likely would not be in this specific case because the phone would still be considered stolen property.
i am sorry to have to give an unwanted answer, and i do understand where youre coming from, but i dont think there is any information here that will help you. Sorry...
Sent from my T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide(HTC Espresso) using Tapatalk 2
hi there, i have an sgh-m919 which is 4months old. it worked fine for the first 3 then one night without warning, the cell-signal indicator turned into a circle with a line through it, indicating no carrier.
did some looking, seems that the imei is now reading as unknown (i did not try to root or do anything to it for this to occur). this is not a stolen device and the people i bought it from can't help.
after perusing your excellent help/forums, i tried rooting, reflashing stock tmobile, triangle-away, u name it, same result- imei unknown, circle with line through it.
i am wondering if i have a hardware fault which is causing this because of the many things i have tried, none seem to change this one issue. Note that when i press the codes to go into service mode, the screen shows a blank service mode, as opposed to a menu which is what is supposed to be there. So i am really puzzled if this is a hardware fault which is disallowing the drivers or whatever to initialise?
my question is- is there some diagnostic i can run which will interrogate the hardware and report if there is a failure? i would like to keep the phone stock samsung tmobile as opposed to rooting etc.
any assistance would be appreciated
thanks
Greg
rookoorarr said:
hi there, i have an sgh-m919 which is 4months old. it worked fine for the first 3 then one night without warning, the cell-signal indicator turned into a circle with a line through it, indicating no carrier.
did some looking, seems that the imei is now reading as unknown (i did not try to root or do anything to it for this to occur). this is not a stolen device and the people i bought it from can't help.
after perusing your excellent help/forums, i tried rooting, reflashing stock tmobile, triangle-away, u name it, same result- imei unknown, circle with line through it.
i am wondering if i have a hardware fault which is causing this because of the many things i have tried, none seem to change this one issue. Note that when i press the codes to go into service mode, the screen shows a blank service mode, as opposed to a menu which is what is supposed to be there. So i am really puzzled if this is a hardware fault which is disallowing the drivers or whatever to initialise?
my question is- is there some diagnostic i can run which will interrogate the hardware and report if there is a failure? i would like to keep the phone stock samsung tmobile as opposed to rooting etc.
any assistance would be appreciated
thanks
Greg
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you buy it from a store? If so take it back to the store and demand they give you a new one.
Did you buy it from a person selling it second hand? If so they screwed you over. They sold you the phone then reported it stolen later and got themselves a brand new on on a warrenty claim. As soon as they report their current one stolen T Mobile blacklists the IMEI. Call the cops on them. Call the warrenty company too any let them know that a fraudlent claim was filed.
Skipjacks said:
Did you buy it from a store? If so take it back to the store and demand they give you a new one.
Did you buy it from a person selling it second hand? If so they screwed you over. They sold you the phone then reported it stolen later and got themselves a brand new on on a warrenty claim. As soon as they report their current one stolen T Mobile blacklists the IMEI. Call the cops on them. Call the warrenty company too any let them know that a fraudlent claim was filed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi, thanks for your reply.
yes i bought it from a store and when i took it to them for service, it just sat there for 2 weeks before i pulled it back. they did not work on it and when i diagnosed the imei problem, they replied that this has never happened to them before so i doubt they are capable of repairing this anyway.
based on your suggestion that the imei is blacklisted- if this is true, how come the issue doesn't go away temporarily when i flash to oem without a sim installed? the phone does not go onto the network at all- it shows that circle upon boot. i am thinking that if the imei was indeed blocked, it would allow the phone to go online to the carrier and then report it as unknown.
the issue seems to be that either the nv has been corrupted (which i am guessing would be rewritten over with a fresh one when flashed) or there is some hardware fault (such as the cell radio) which is causing this.
the phone works great on wifi, all apps work fine, everything seems normal except for the cellular/mobile ability.
that's why i am asking if there is a hardware diagnostic i can run to verify or deny this is the problem.
thanks
Greg
rookoorarr said:
hi, thanks for your reply.
yes i bought it from a store and when i took it to them for service, it just sat there for 2 weeks before i pulled it back. they did not work on it and when i diagnosed the imei problem, they replied that this has never happened to them before so i doubt they are capable of repairing this anyway.
based on your suggestion that the imei is blacklisted- if this is true, how come the issue doesn't go away temporarily when i flash to oem without a sim installed? the phone does not go onto the network at all- it shows that circle upon boot. i am thinking that if the imei was indeed blocked, it would allow the phone to go online to the carrier and then report it as unknown.
the issue seems to be that either the nv has been corrupted (which i am guessing would be rewritten over with a fresh one when flashed) or there is some hardware fault (such as the cell radio) which is causing this.
the phone works great on wifi, all apps work fine, everything seems normal except for the cellular/mobile ability.
that's why i am asking if there is a hardware diagnostic i can run to verify or deny this is the problem.
thanks
Greg
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you bought it from a store brand new then the imei is not likely the issue. At least not because its been blacklisted.
Again though, you bought it from a store. Its 4 months old and it broke. Take it back and tell them to give you a new one. What country are you in? Some countries have much stronger consumer protection rules.
Sent from my GT-P5110 using Tapatalk
I'm in Trinidad, West Indies (the Caribbean)
I have contacted t-mobile who says they can't help because I'm not a t-mobile customer and the people I bought it from are useless when it comes to service. They gave only a 30 day warranty so it's out.
Last resort, have contacted samsung, awaiting reply
Thanks
Greg
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
rookoorarr said:
I'm in Trinidad, West Indies (the Caribbean)
I have contacted t-mobile who says they can't help because I'm not a t-mobile customer and the people I bought it from are useless when it comes to service. They gave only a 30 day warranty so it's out.
Last resort, have contacted samsung, awaiting reply
Thanks
Greg
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you pulled out the battery and looked on the back and checked the IMEI there to see if its blacklisted? If it isn't then you can push it back into the phone, I had the problem on my old s3 and I would think that the solution would be the same to fix it.
Sent from my GT-I9505G using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
I have the imei from the sticker under the battery but don't know the site to check for blacklisted imei's; guess I'll google it
I also don't know how to push it back onto the phone: all the free apps I tried don't work. The service menu is also blank.
Greg
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
Yeah it sounds like something deleted out the information in the rom that holds that data.
I beleive in the etc folder.
I forget without looking.
There are many tools on the forum to backup IMEI data to prevent this from happening and restore it from backup if it does.
In this case, were presumably there is no backup, the phone will need to be serviced by samsung.
Agreed. Based on the number of ideas I tried from xda, the issue was never repaired so I hooe samsung can help
Thanks
Greg
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
based on checks with several imei blacklist sites, it seems that my imei is blacklisted (wtf!)
i have emailed t-mobile to verify as well.
but here's a question- if my device got blacklisted on the night when the imei went null in the phone- was it deactivated by t-mobile (note, i am not a t-mobile customer, i am not in the USA) and if it was, how come flashing to samsung oem doesn't repair the issue?
i do not have a sim in the phone so it's not even going to try to connect to a carrier. i am confused if it could have been remotely disabled via t-mobile and how can i get this back up and running again?
Thanks
Greg
rookoorarr said:
based on checks with several imei blacklist sites, it seems that my imei is blacklisted (wtf!)
i have emailed t-mobile to verify as well.
but here's a question- if my device got blacklisted on the night when the imei went null in the phone- was it deactivated by t-mobile (note, i am not a t-mobile customer, i am not in the USA) and if it was, how come flashing to samsung oem doesn't repair the issue?
i do not have a sim in the phone so it's not even going to try to connect to a carrier. i am confused if it could have been remotely disabled via t-mobile and how can i get this back up and running again?
Thanks
Greg
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The store you bought it from sounds shady if they won't honor the manufacturers warranty. They also seem to have sold you a stolen phone. Call the cops.
You will never get the phone unblacklisted.
Sent from my GT-P5110 using Tapatalk
Skipjacks said:
The store you bought it from sounds shady if they won't honor the manufacturers warranty. They also seem to have sold you a stolen phone. Call the cops.
You will never get the phone unblacklisted.
Sent from my GT-P5110 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Partially right. He could call and find out if the phone is stolen or if it has a balance in it. If latter, you can pay the balance off and have the blacklist removed. But yes, report the store to the police. Shady business.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
xdapowerapps said:
Partially right. He could call and find out if the phone is stolen or if it has a balance in it. If latter, you can pay the balance off and have the blacklist removed. But yes, report the store to the police. Shady business.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think you can. Once the imei is on that blacklist I think its there to stay.
Sent from my GT-P5110 using Tapatalk
xdapowerapps said:
Partially right. He could call and find out if the phone is stolen or if it has a balance in it. If latter, you can pay the balance off and have the blacklist removed. But yes, report the store to the police. Shady business.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Once blacklisted it's a done deal. Even if you offer to pay any balance owed tmobile will say no.
Only recourse is try and get a refund from the store.
☞ Sent from here☜???
baseballfanz said:
Once blacklisted it's a done deal. Even if you offer to pay any balance owed tmobile will say no.
Only recourse is try and get a refund from the store.
☞ Sent from here☜???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try bringing really big scary mean looking guys with you into the store. See if the manager is more understanding of your issue when you have 'friends' there.
Lol great answers thanks to all so far
I have reported the blacklist to the store, awaiting reply now
I also wrote samsung who has referred me to a local dealer but I am waiting to see what the store does first.
Can anyone say how t-mobile did this? I do not have a t-mobile sim, I was using the phone on wifi as normal when the imei went null
How did t-mobile find the device to null the imei (I am not in the usa) and what exactly was done? What files or database on my device was deleted/erased?
Thanks
Greg
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
rookoorarr said:
Lol great answers thanks to all so far
I have reported the blacklist to the store, awaiting reply now
I also wrote samsung who has referred me to a local dealer but I am waiting to see what the store does first.
Can anyone say how t-mobile did this? I do not have a t-mobile sim, I was using the phone on wifi as normal when the imei went null
How did t-mobile find the device to null the imei (I am not in the usa) and what exactly was done? What files or database on my device was deleted/erased?
Thanks
Greg
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing was changed on your phone.
T Mobile blacklists the phone's serial number (IMEI) which is sent to the cell tower everytime the phone moves to a new tower or re-authenticates itself on a tower. If your IMEI is blacklisted then the network says it won't allow the device to authenticate.
Even though you don't use T Mobile you may still be using a T Mobile network. The 4 main US carriers sublet their networks to smaller carriers, and while I'm not super familiar with the cell carriers used in Trinnidad, I'd bet you anything that the US carriers opperate the networks there even if it's under different names or through subletting of the their networks.
There is also some ambiguity as to if cell phone carriers share those blacklists with each other. If they do, then getting blacklisted on one GSM network is the same as getting blacklisted on all GSM networks. I'm not sure if that's going on though.
Hmmmm then the issue I have is different. The device is showing a null imei so it never gets to register on the carrier
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
rookoorarr said:
Hmmmm then the issue I have is different. The device is showing a null imei so it never gets to register on the carrier
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then something else happened that damaged the IMEI on your device.
But you specifically said you checked your IMEI against the blacklist and said yours was blacklisted. All advice that was given to you after that was based on that information.
If the IMEI is damaged on your device, then you need to find help elsewhere. We do not discuss how to repair/restore/replace IMEI's on XDA unless you have a previous backup of the EFS partition made in recovery for YOUR device. If so, just restore that backup. If not, you cannot use XDA to find out how to fix a bad IMEI. There are too many ways that information is used for evil and theivery and XDA will not be a party to the discemination of that information.
Agreed, understood.
If you look at my original question, you will see where I was querying a null imei. And as the thread continued, someone suggested I check the imei blacklist. I thought that t-mobile had done something remotely to my device to disable it, that's how I got to this point. My original issue still remains-null imei.
I understand that changing imei is illegal so I have not requested that. I was enquiring what could have happened to my device, given that I did not root or tamper with it in any way to cause a null imei.
If it is that the efs or nv or whatever file on the device got corrupted, I can accept that. Odd thing is that if it's a protected system file then how could it become corrupted in the first place.
Nevertheless, I do not wish to be blacklisted here on xda so I am not asking for advice on how to change imei.
If I knew I needed to backup whatever files before, I would have. But this is not my first Android (I owned a nexus one since it came out and it still works to this day) and I never had this issue of corrupted files. Granted, it is an older version of android.
I appreciate all the advice given so far.
Thanks
Greg
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app