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AT&T now blacklisting stolen or inproperly scanned phones.

AT&T to launch new blocking service for stolen devices on July 10th | The Verge

AT&T has started blacklisting phones reported stolen or improperly scanned out of their stores recently. The only issue is they seem to have no number to call to check and see if an IMEI is on the blacklist. This means before you pay for a used or refurb phone online, you need to make sure they have a return policy or that you can meet with them and try your SIM card in it first.

As a side note, the same goes for any pre-paid service that uses AT&T towers such as Red Pocket or Straight Talk.
 
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While it's good in the sense that very few folks seek out and trade in stolen phones, I'm bothered that you can't check either. Verizon will let you read off a phone's ESN number and tell you if it's blacklisted or not. While it's not a perfect system, it does help screen out potential useless phones before you buy them used. There should be some equivalent for this program.

Something else I wonder. What if I pick up an unlocked/ International One X or Galaxy Note 2? Will those automatically be excluded from the system and you can only buy "AT&T" phones now? :thinking:
 
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While it's good in the sense that very few folks seek out and trade in stolen phones, I'm bothered that you can't check either. Verizon will let you read off a phone's ESN number and tell you if it's blacklisted or not. While it's not a perfect system, it does help screen out potential useless phones before you buy them used. There should be some equivalent for this program.

Something else I wonder. What if I pick up an unlocked/ International One X or Galaxy Note 2? Will those automatically be excluded from the system and you can only buy "AT&T" phones now? :thinking:

Not that I know of. Their system is not only using devices they have IMEI's for (AT&T) they're just blocking certain devices in their system.

I agree with the fact that its stupid you cant check them first. Another thing that bothers me is I work in a used cell phone store, and we had one Fusion that took three weeks to lock. When we put a store SIM in it yesterday, it took 8 hours to lock up. This is supposed to lock up immediately according to the AT&T security rep I spoke with over the phone. The good news is we were able to get it unlocked by calling Airvoice (The pre-paid service on the card) and explaining the situation. So we didn't have to get a new card. However, the phone of course remains locked and cannot be unlocked except from the person who reported it. And naturally AT&T won't disclose that information.
 
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Not a big deal back in the day your ESN would be blacklisted and upon trying to activate the carrier would confiscate the device. I had a buddy who was a tech back in the late 90s and all the stolen phones he kept would later end up in the hands of exporters who shipped them to India.

-------> Not surprised one bit. :dalek:
 
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:thinking:Hi I am new here. You all seem very knowledgable. I am so sick of never getting help from AT&T That I just cancelled with them and paid them $315 to do it. They jacked me around when I tried to return a Galaxy note until when I finally got to the right place, it was past 30 days. So now I have the Note but no service, I requested an unlock but so far no code. When I do get it unlocked can I use a different co. for phone service? I will just use the web while I am home. Thank You for any info about this
 
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