How To Activate A Stolen Cell Phone
NOTE. If you have lost your phone or had it stolen, and are trying to track it, read HERE. Now, a new application for the Google phone changes all that.
Mar 28, 2014 How to Track your GALAXY S5 if it s LOST or STOLEN... Easy and fast. no external apps Tips Tricks part 1 It also works when SIM changed. With this method.
Get your lost, stolen or damaged Sprint cell phone replaced at PhoneClaim.com. Most Asurion claims are eligible for free next day shipping and usually take less than.
BAD ESN # / Carrier wont activate the phone - What 2 Do
Edit Article How to Activate a Cell Phone. Three Methods: Activating a New iPhone Activating a New Cell Phone Activating a Used Cell Phone Questions and Answers.
Resources. Find used Sprint phones with clean ESNs on Replace Your Cell. You May Also Like. How to Activate a Sprint Phone Over the Phone. Thankfully, in a world.
Finding that your cell phone was been stolen can be a gut-wrenching experience. It is your connection to the world and all of a sudden it is ripped from your life.
How to Change the Clock from Analog to Digital Mode on a Samsung Rugby 4 Cell Phone.
How to Activate iPhone IMEI Blacklisted and Blocked
Many mobile phone repair stores offer phone buyback programs to their customers and end up buying back a phone that they re unable to activate due to a bad IMEI phone number that s been blacklisted by the carrier.
This can often happen when the initial check at the time of the buyback resulted in a clean IMEI number.
This can be very frustrating knowing that the value of a blacklisted IMEI phone is often significantly lower than non-blocked IMEI phones. Fortunately, you still have some options and, in most cases, you might not end up losing any money.
Of course, the best precaution to buying back a blacklisted IMEI phone is to check before you buy it. There are plenty of IMEI and ESN check websites on the internet that are free and instant.
You must be careful as some of them work better for certain carriers and while they re pretty reliable, they can never be 100 correct.
Identify Hybrid CDMA/GSM Phones. If the phone is unable to activate on a CDMA carrier such as Sprint or Verizon, the blacklisted IMEI could still have the ability to be used on a GSM network. Many of the phones manufactured lately come with a GSM standard, micro or nano SIM card slot and have GSM radios allowing for use on a GSM network. Likewise, many of them come factory unlocked, even if one of the major providers sold the phone. Such an example is the iPhone 5 from Verizon. If you happen to have a bad ESN iPhone 5, you really don t have a problem – it comes factory unlocked. You won t be able to use it on Verizon again, but you should have no trouble using it on another GSM pre-paid carrier in the USA or Internationally. In fact, a phone sold as unlocked has a 15-20 better value than if you sold it on Verizon. One of the first models of this type was the Blackberry Storm several years ago. I remember customers wanting cash would offer extremely an low price knowing it had a blocked ESN number with Verizon – but not knowing that the phone came factory unlocked and was good for AT T or T-Mobile. All that was needed was a setting change to deactivate the CDMA radio and activate its use on a GSM network. Lastly, make sure that the bad IMEI phone that has a GSM SIM card slot actually has a radio and the correct cellular bands to allow service. Some phones, such as the original Nexus, had a micro SIM card slot, but the radio connected to it was only connected to the 4G network, not the GSM quad band network.
2. Customers Use of Free Carrier Unlock – Many times the customer might sell you the phone while they re under contract and the phone hadn t yet made it s way to the blocked bad IMEI list. You could ask the customer while there with you to call the carrier and request that their phone be unlocked. Each carrier is fairly lenient after six months of service when it comes to unlocking the device if the account is current and in good standing. If the phone ended up becoming blacklisted after you bought it, you could at the very least already have it unlocked and it could be used on other pre-paid carriers or used internationally and for free.
3. Pay for Unlock and Sell Internationally – If you don t happen to luck out and have a hybrid GSM/CDMA phone, or you can t take advantage of the carrier s customer unlock policy, you ve still got options. You can still unlock the bad IMEI phone through many of the unlock providers out there without a guarantee that you could reuse it through the main domestic USA carriers. You can still unlock the phone if it s on AT T – just don t expect to reuse it on their pre-paid partners networks.
Our retail store close to Miami had a lot of customers from Haiti and the Dominican Republic. We would unlock these bad IMEI phones and keep them aside for customers that wanted to bring back unlocked phones to use in their home country. We would of course ask if they planned to use it in the USA before selling them the phone.
If these types of customers don t walk into your retail store, Craigslist or eBay should find a savvy buyer who frequently travels back to an international country or has a business established to sell these blacklisted IMEI phones with no issues. Just make sure to post the phone accurately, making sure to disclose it has a bad IMEI or ESN, and offer no guarantees or returns for any activation issues.
Blacklisted and bad IMEI numbers can sometimes be a big headache. Knowing that you can unlock them with certain restrictions of use in the US still gives you many selling options domestically for international customers. It could even be an added revenue stream if you ve previously stayed away from buying back such phones to make some extra money by not refusing the buy back blacklisted IMEI phones.
Warnings/Notes:
Just because a phone is blacklisted, on a lost or stolen list, or has a blocked IMEI, this doesn t mean that the phone was stolen or that it s illegal to buy it back from someone.
It is a crime to knowingly buy back stolen product. Ask your customer how they got the phone in a polite way if you find it on a blocked IMEI list before buying it back.
Never buy back a known bad IMEI phone.
Make sure to ask your unlock supplier if their service covers blocked IMEI devices. If so, make sure it s covered for various originating carriers and if any additional charges or unlock commitment times are different.
Written By: unlimitedcellular
Here we are going to disclose some Dirty industry secrets: You purchased a Cell phone on eBay but when you call your Cell phone company they tell you the phone has been reported Lot or Stolen, Or it has an Unpaid bill.
What does that mean to you. You will have to contact your supplier and request an exchange or a refund.
Why Would the Cell phone company say that. For a few reasons,
The phone was actual reported lost or stolen but then found by someone who donated the phone and it ended up by a refurbishing company and then sold on eBay. many charity programs will sell their phones to a refurbishing house. But this is actually only happening a very small .
The phone has a unpaid bill, usually when you switch phone companies and you leave behind a bill even if its 0.01 the phone will get flagged, some phone companies if you spend a few minutes with them on the phone they will clear that off and will then activate the phone, if the bill is larger they do not that so easily.
It is still on a active account, this does happen from time to time, a person will switch phone companies but will forget to cancel service for what ever reason but then donate the phone without realizing that someone else might run into a problem, usually customer service will not remove it from an account without the owner being on the phone, and being that this is something sellers don t know you will have to request an exchange or refund from the seller.
They want you to buy a new phone from them so they will make money from selling you a new phone they don t make money by switching your number to a phone you didn t buy from them or they want to make sure the phones coming onto their system is with the latest technology. It is known that some companies will take all phones that is being sent back to them for whatever reason and they will add the ESN to there system as a Bad ESN and they will sell it them self s to prepaid companies buying Bulk minutes from them, that way they can insure only new phones come onto their system, Sprint is well known to be doing this, and there maybe nothing wrong with the phone other then they want it to be new.
So in that case you have 2 options. 1, send the phone back to your supplier for an exchange or refund. 2, take the phone to another Cell phone carrier to get it activated, with this option the phone most be compatible with their system, for example if its a Sprint phone try Cricket, if its Verizon you can try Alltel contact the service provider to see if the phone is compatible with them.
We want to make a very important point here, no reputable seller will intentionally sell you a phone that has a Bad ESN, there is no way of checking that before hand, bare that in mind before you leave your Feedback. 99.9 sellers will gladly resolve this problem with you as soon as you report it.
We welcome your comments on this review.
Resources. Verizon Wireless; You May Also Like. How to Activate a Verizon Cell Phone. Verizon Wireless offers several different cell phone brands, models and plan.
A sad and growing refrain is How can I trace my stolen cell phone. Cell phone theft is high on the list of most cash hungry thieves since it is an easy item to.
