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Why bother if you can't use it as a phone? The ESN is what makes it connect/work with Sprint's network so the phone would be useless.

Before you buy, is the phone legit? Seems like there's something you might not know about it's origin or something else.

Useless? No way! Bad ESN phones are often $100- $50. For that you get an excellent video player, MP3 player, Wifi camera, and in phone with good GPS, a navigator. 911 also works fine on bad ESN.

Epics are going to be about $250 bad ESN because with flashing so easy they can be used on a number of other providers who don't use Sprints ESN list (cricket, metro, etfc)
 
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I've got good news and bad news.

Bad news is that you're SOL. A bad ESN is death for a phone if you're planning on using it on Sprint (and most other networks to boot). Your friend sucks and you need to get your money back from her. They literally will not even let you pay her account off-- it's against their policy. Worse news is, it's likely that they've already closed her account, so even if SHE wanted to, she couldn't pay her account.

I lied about the good news.
 
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