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
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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!
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
I purchased a phone off CL. I tried to put a SIM card in but it doesn't recognize one. So i realized the IMEI number on the back does not match the IMEI number in android OS. It doesn't say 000000 or one of those fake IMEI 049 numbers. It just has another IMEI number. My question is, is there a way to modify the numbers to match the IMEI number i have on the back of my phone?
I actually didn't know it didn't match until i sent it to samsung to fix. I thought it was just a problem with the SIM tray but they stated that the IMEI numbers don't match. As a result, they just sent my phone back without fixing anything.
Please help me out. It's on stock rom and not rooted
Again.. the phone is not blacklisted.. I want to change the IMEI number (software) shown in android OS to match the IMEI number (hardware) that i have shown on the back of my phone. I don't know why it's not the same.
Thanks for your help
when phones are refurbished, they change the imei number so its probably just a refurbished phone. Leave the imei alone. Im pretty sure the imei doesnt affect the phone recognizing the sim card anyway, but i could be wrong on that
TheAtheistOtaku said:
when phones are refurbished, they change the imei number so its probably just a refurbished phone. Leave the imei alone. Im pretty sure the imei doesnt affect the phone recognizing the sim card anyway, but i could be wrong on that
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Click to collapse
They do change the IMEI when they refurbish, but they also put a brand new sticker on it that shows the new IMEI. Also it's a different sticker than the one that comes on a new phone. It's a different size and it positioned differently. Makes it VERY clear if your phone is new or refurbished.
Aznn0, though you may not realize it what you bought is a stolen/blacklisted/insurance exchange/etc S4. It had a bad IMEI and the seller changed it (illegally) and then sold it to you without bothering to mention the device's history.
If you changed it to the IMEI listed on the back of the phone (And I am telling you in no undercertain terms that you should not!) I'd bet latge sums of money that the phone would go dead because the IMEI listed on the back is a blacklisted number.
So Samsung won't touch it ever again. They will never do a repair for you. If it breaks, you're on your own to fix it.
None of this is probably your fauly and I believe you didn't know what you bought. But it is what it is.
Regardless, asking questions about how to change an IMEI are expressly not permitted on XDA. I know you didn't know, so no hard feelings. But don't ask about how to change an IMEI here again.
Skipjacks said:
They do change the IMEI when they refurbish, but they also put a brand new sticker on it that shows the new IMEI. Also it's a different sticker than the one that comes on a new phone. It's a different size and it positioned differently. Makes it VERY clear if your phone is new or refurbished.
Aznn0, though you may not realize it what you bought is a stolen/blacklisted/insurance exchange/etc S4. It had a bad IMEI and the seller changed it (illegally) and then sold it to you without bothering to mention the device's history.
If you changed it to the IMEI listed on the back of the phone (And I am telling you in no undercertain terms that you should not!) I'd bet latge sums of money that the phone would go dead because the IMEI listed on the back is a blacklisted number.
So Samsung won't touch it ever again. They will never do a repair for you. If it breaks, you're on your own to fix it.
None of this is probably your fauly and I believe you didn't know what you bought. But it is what it is.
Regardless, asking questions about how to change an IMEI are expressly not permitted on XDA. I know you didn't know, so no hard feelings. But don't ask about how to change an IMEI here again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea they do put a new sticker on it, but allot of sellers on ebay/craigslist remove the sticker so that they can sell it as "new" and get a few extra bucks. most sellers assume that buyers wont ever find out which is probably true 90% of the time
Thanks for all your replies.
It's weird because I put in both the IMEI numbers listed from the back of the phone and the one listed in android and they came back clean. I used one of those free esn checker websites. I know they aren't 100% reliable but damn..
I thought matching the IMEI number would do the trick.
It sucks...
I'm having the exact same problem! Mine is an s4 active and when I called my phone service provider they didn't tell me that mine was blacklisted or anything either...
error 119 your mobile phone's imei number not match, plz help me
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).
Click to expand...
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.
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.