Basically I lost my phone and I called Sprint and reported it stolen. Come to find out a friend of mine had the phone the whole time. I called to see if I can get it off the black list but they told me that the phone is basically a tablet now and there is nothing I can do to remove the IMEI off the blacklist or get it unblocked.
I read somewhere that I can still unlock the phone and use it internationally. Is this really true, if so, does anyone know if a company that will unlock a blacklised IMEI number?
As far as I know once the IMEI is blacklisted you are hosed. Usually it is only blocked if the device was still being financed and service was cancelled. The device is still the carriers at that point.
Related
I bought a 2nd hand galaxy nexus and just notices the IMEI is 004999010640000 which doesnt match with the one on the back of the phone. How can I restore it? thanks
does the IMEI reflect back to the carrier? If it was called in lost or stolen and I put a sim in the phone with out changing the imei with verizon will it work?
This is generic IMEI and most likely means that phone was originally sold SIM locked for specific carrier. Until there's a shorter howto/app, see here for details and how to get rid of it:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1606982
Yes, IMEI is reported to the carrier and can be blocked, effectively making your device unusable as a phone. Generic IMEI above for now works in the US, but it's blocked for example in India.
IMEI is also reported to google, as can be seen from dashboard. Would be fun if they started to track & block stolen android phones...
I have been using it for a month but until today i wanted to try it out on the original carrier so I noticed it didnt work... Then I checked the imei and saw that it doesnt match. thats why i want to go back to the original IMEI so I can use the phone on the original carrier
Just want to verify this:
My daughter lost her cell and I’m told by Sprint rep that she can put a restriction/flag on the phone so it can’t be use or activated. Now here is my issue; after I told her that I have a backup phone that I want to activate on that account she ask me if I had a screen look on my old phone because once she removed it from the account it can be activated on any other account with no restriction. Pretty much a clean ESN after the swap.
To my understanding once a phone is flag only the owner can call sprint and have the flag remove. This doesn’t make sense to me because people can just steal ur phone wait few days until you put a phone on your account and then activate it under their name and have a free phone.
If this is true is another reason to not pay for insurance because people will still take ur phone if they know they just have to wait couple of days and
You were told wrong, or more probable, you were told poorly. Once a phones serial number (ESN) has been flagged as lost/stolen, the only way to make that phone work on a network again is to flash it with another ESN (which usually a thief would not know how to do).
arunningpir8 said:
You were told wrong, or more probable, you were told poorly. Once a phones serial number (ESN) has been flagged as lost/stolen, the only way to make that phone work on a network again is to flash it with another ESN (which usually a thief would not know how to do).
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i lost my phones more then ones and they are all without screen locks and bad esn by sprint
and as for as my experience with sprint customer service
i'm not surprised that someone gave you wrong information
it looks to me that they all get paid minimum wage
arunningpir8 said:
You were told wrong, or more probable, you were told poorly. Once a phones serial number (ESN) has been flagged as lost/stolen, the only way to make that phone work on a network again is to flash it with another ESN (which usually a thief would not know how to do).
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Click to collapse
Don't think thieves don't use these forums as well
Any body know how to change this
I brought my 925T(unlocked) on ebay. and i when i check imei, it's different from the one wrote on the back, so i asked the seller, he said "You will get the Imei I factory unlocked the phone after factory unlocked they change the Imei " :| i guess that what happen
Something similar almost happen when I was buying a phone. The seller had masked the imei so the phone would work since the imei had been blocked by carriers. People are getting very sneaky I would be very cautious when buying phones and if that happens you should ask for a refund unless you are OK with a masked imei.
Long story short I had a blacklisted phone that work for a short while with the SIM card from another carrier. Now I need a new SIM card from my new carrier.
A new SIM from your new carrier will not help here. The blacklist is based on the device's IMEI and is shared between carriers and their MVNOs. The only reason the device worked for a short time is the carrier had to detect your device first, and that takes time. A new SIM only buys you a little time before the device gets blocked on the new network.
The only legal ways to resolve the problem of a device being blacklisted are to pay the bill, if the phone is yours, or sell the phone if you purchased it from someone else.
A lot of phones get stolen during shipping, I had mine stolen and got an empty box. I blacklisted the IMEI for that phone.
So my phone was stolen and I promptly reported the incident to the carrier (under contract), the crazy thing is that after 3 months I checked the IMEI online but there is no block on it, how is it possible?
The carrier (Philippines out sourced call center) assured me that they reported the stolen phone and requested the IMEI to be blocked.
Now I started looking on internet and found that an IMEI can be changed.
Could you guys please clarify these issues:
Does it take so long time to block an IMEI number and if not is the carrier just being deceptive?
Can the IMEI really be changed, if so my stolen phone is being used under a different IMEI?
mobnoob said:
So my phone was stolen and I promptly reported the incident to the carrier (under contract), the crazy thing is that after 3 months I checked the IMEI online but there is no block on it, how is it possible?
The carrier (Philippines out sourced call center) assured me that they reported the stolen phone and requested the IMEI to be blocked.
Now I started looking on internet and found that an IMEI can be changed.
Could you guys please clarify these issues:
Does it take so long time to block an IMEI number and if not is the carrier just being deceptive?
Can the IMEI really be changed, if so my stolen phone is being used under a different IMEI?
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Click to collapse
If the phone was stolen it's gone.
The IMEI can probably be cleaned by Amazon
Shady employees
Take the loss and don't worry any further.
Most of us have been there.
humdrum2009 said:
If the phone was stolen it's gone.
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Click to collapse
It's gone for good and I know it can be used overseas, but I still can't understand why the IMEI doesn't show as locked.
As I said the phone is under contract which means I'm still paying for it while the carrier doesn't care to block its use so I might have chances to block payments.
The IMEI can probably be cleaned by Amazon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can easily google IMEI change services also programs too so do these really work?
I made a mistype
Spell check typed Amazon
Don't worry about it, it's gone now move on.
Whether they clean it out not it won't be returned
Bump! So I still wonder if the IMEI can be changed since I see many services doing it online.
Also the phone's IMEI still looks unlocked!