Hey all,
A few years back I bought a spare phone off ebay. My main phone just broke and when I went to activate the spare, of course, it was imei blacklisted. I don't care that much since I have little $$$ into it but I've been trying to read up on the blacklist and have found little information.
After some research it seems that there are companies who claim that they can fix the problem (I've seen imiefix.com discussed on this board). I have no intention of doing that to my phone since the phone is worth less than the cost of the service but I struck up an email conversation with someone who claims to perform the service. In the discussion he told me that he actually clears the IMEI from the blacklist of certain companies and does not change or mask IMEI's or do anything else to change the phone. (he has provided me videos showing a phone on the blacklist before he does what he does and how the same IMEI is off the blacklist after his service) but I am still skeptical.
The main question I asked him was whether his service only removes the IMEI from the individual carrier's blacklist or if it removes it from the national and global blacklists (ie. will his service remove a T-Mobile blocked IMEI only from T-Mobile but leave it globally blocked for other carriers). In is response he provided this information he told me that phones are blocked for 2 reasons, 1) lost or stolen phones 2) failure to fulfull contractual obligations (ie. didn't pay subsidy). He told me that only lost/stole phones end up on the global or national blacklist, and that phones blocked for failure to pay are only blocked by the individual carrier.
is this information correct?
anyone have experience with these services?
I am conflicted about this blacklist thing. Yes, we need to find a way to protect consumers from theft and even carriers from fraud, and we shouldn't encourage the sale of stolen goods. But who does it benefit? the consumer? of course not. It is almost exclusively to the benefit of the carriers and manufacturers who get to pump more and more of their exorbitantly expensive phones into the market while thousands of useless phones sit around or end up in landfill. And, since there is such a delay in the time that it takes for phones to end up on the blocklist, and since the carriers seem to do nothing to stop fraud (ie. selling phones then reporting them stolen) the only people this hurts are the poor saps who dish out hundreds for a phone on the aftermarket just to have it locked on them a few months down the road.
A few years back I bought a spare phone off ebay. My main phone just broke and when I went to activate the spare, of course, it was imei blacklisted. I don't care that much since I have little $$$ into it but I've been trying to read up on the blacklist and have found little information.
After some research it seems that there are companies who claim that they can fix the problem (I've seen imiefix.com discussed on this board). I have no intention of doing that to my phone since the phone is worth less than the cost of the service but I struck up an email conversation with someone who claims to perform the service. In the discussion he told me that he actually clears the IMEI from the blacklist of certain companies and does not change or mask IMEI's or do anything else to change the phone. (he has provided me videos showing a phone on the blacklist before he does what he does and how the same IMEI is off the blacklist after his service) but I am still skeptical.
The main question I asked him was whether his service only removes the IMEI from the individual carrier's blacklist or if it removes it from the national and global blacklists (ie. will his service remove a T-Mobile blocked IMEI only from T-Mobile but leave it globally blocked for other carriers). In is response he provided this information he told me that phones are blocked for 2 reasons, 1) lost or stolen phones 2) failure to fulfull contractual obligations (ie. didn't pay subsidy). He told me that only lost/stole phones end up on the global or national blacklist, and that phones blocked for failure to pay are only blocked by the individual carrier.
is this information correct?
anyone have experience with these services?
I am conflicted about this blacklist thing. Yes, we need to find a way to protect consumers from theft and even carriers from fraud, and we shouldn't encourage the sale of stolen goods. But who does it benefit? the consumer? of course not. It is almost exclusively to the benefit of the carriers and manufacturers who get to pump more and more of their exorbitantly expensive phones into the market while thousands of useless phones sit around or end up in landfill. And, since there is such a delay in the time that it takes for phones to end up on the blocklist, and since the carriers seem to do nothing to stop fraud (ie. selling phones then reporting them stolen) the only people this hurts are the poor saps who dish out hundreds for a phone on the aftermarket just to have it locked on them a few months down the road.
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