MEID still active?

[Jayse]

I bought a used, but in VERY good condition Moto Droid on ebay the other day. It arrived just today, and when I try to activate it, customer service tells me that the MEID is still active on someone else's line. It wasn't reported lost or stolen, but it's still active. Besides getting a refund or a swap from the guy on ebay, is there anything I can do to have verizon clear the MEID?

 

[ramcharger1979]

I bought a used, but in VERY good condition Moto Droid on ebay the other day. It arrived just today, and when I try to activate it, customer service tells me that the MEID is still active on someone else's line. It wasn't reported lost or stolen, but it's still active. Besides getting a refund or a swap from the guy on ebay, is there anything I can do to have verizon clear the MEID?

Contact the previous owner(the seller on eBay) and ask him to take the phone off of his account. Some people sell there phones before switching to a new one.

 

[Puddlejumpernva]

The phone could possibly have been activated fraudulently. There are victims of identify theft who have had phone lines activated for them and don't even know it.

Are there any entries in the call history? Does the phone have a number assigned to it?

I was stuck with a phone a while back under similar circumstances. I wasn't able to get a hold of the individual who sold it to me (go figure) but I was able to get through to the victim of the identity theft. Even though he tried to get Verizon to release the MEID for me, it never was cleared. I wound up selling the battery and cover on CraigsList and throwing away the phone.

Always, ALWAYS call Verizon with the MEID/ESN to verify its not a stolen/lost phone or active before buying any used phone!!!

 

[Jayse]

Contact the previous owner(the seller on eBay) and ask him to take the phone off of his account. Some people sell there phones before switching to a new one.

I bought it from a re-seller on ebay. He bought the phone from someone else, and sold it.

 

[Jayse]

Are there any entries in the call history? Does the phone have a number assigned to it?

No. The phone came wiped, and reset to factory. And when I call to activate it, it asks me for a phone number to activate it on, so I would think that there is no number assigned to it.

 

[Scooter70]

I'm willing to bet that the phone came from the Google I/O Conference. Here's what I had to do to get mine working. This came from another forum:

"I had this same problem... Someone gave me their Google IO droid as a re-gift since they already had an Android phone and I already had a Verizon account. I was really surprised when I pressed activate and it just worked without any sort of prompt for information.
I initially called VZW customer service from my existing phone and was told I couldn't activate the free droid because it was assigned to another account. After much research turning up nothing, I decided I would just call customer service FROM the free phone, couldn't hurt, right?

Bingo! Worked. Here's what happened...

I pressed 0 to speak to an operator and was routed to "corporate customer service" (not exactly sure of the name, somehow different from consumer, anyway). I had to press random numbers for the SSN/Tax ID because I wasn't sure what to press since just "#" was not an option.

I told the rep what the deal was and she took the free Droid off the temporary account then transferred me to customer service where they activated the phone on my account. I'm glad I figured it out, but it would have been helpful if they were a bit clearer in the instructions with that.

Then you can call *228 and do an Option 3 to put it on your line. I just did it and got my new Droid working in place of my old BlackBerry.

 

[Jayse]

Well. A little more info. It didn't come from an I/O conference. It belonged to an ordinary Joe, who bought it from Verizon. The seller that I bought it from on eBay has written proof from Verizon that the ESN is clear and should activate on any account. So they are in contact with Verizon and will let me know how it goes.

In the meantime, I bypassed the activation screen and am having fun messing around with it. Definitely a different ( and BETTER) experience than my ERIS. Hopefully I get to keep it and not have to return it for a refund. I think for $280 and not a single scratch or chip on it was a good price for a DROID. Not to mention every function actually works and doesn't lag, or force close or any of that garbage.

 

[jennay22]

So, where you able to activate your droid?? I had a similar problem when I bought my bb curve on ebay last year. I bought it from a store on ebay that buys phones and then resells them. They have a 14 day return policy and excellent feedback so I was comfortable buying it from them. I got the bb and called verizon to activate it and they told me that I couldn't since the MEID was still in use or it was bad, I can't remember. I email the ebay store about this and they tell me to print out a return label and send the phone back for a full refund. They have no idea why the phone would have a bad MEID. The next day as I am ready to pack the phone to ship back, I decided to call verizon one more time to make sure that the phone is no good. I give the csr the MEID and he is able to activate the phone that second. No problems with the phone. I emailed the ebay store again to say that I will be keeping the phone since it is up and running. I'm not sure why the first csr couldn't activate my phone. I even gave her the MEID twice. I just recently bought a droid and it's a great phone. Hope you are having fun w/ yours!

 

[Jayse]

Yep. The eBay seller was actually able to get in touch with the previous owner, and had them clear the MEID for me. Just out of the blue one night I was laying in bed at like 3 AM and couldn't sleep, so I got my DROID out to fiddle with it some more and thought I would try to activate it just for poops and laughs. Lo and behold I entered the last 4 of my serial and a minute later it said my phone had been activated.

 

[Stasha]

I am glad that I am not alone in this situation. I just bought an Eris off ebay and went to activate it and found out it was still active on someones account. The phone it's self needs to be activated but it is still on someone's account. I am hoping that the seller is able to contact to old owner to get this taken care of. I really don't want to mess with having to send the phone back and try finding another.