Can anyone help - blacklisted phone?

Astraeus

Astraeus

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Ciaran
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Folks

I am after a bit of input as my enquiries to date seem to have led me to a rather disappointing dead end.

I was given a second-hand Galaxy S2 about 15 months ago and it appears to have very recently been blacklisted. I enquired with Orange who have said that they can only discuss the blacklisting with the person who took out the contract and they aren't able to 'repeal' the blacklisting. Ofcom has confirmed that to be the case. However I cannot think that a second-hand mobile phone market could exist if it is this easy for the original seller (in order presumably to benefit from an insurance payout) could simply blacklist a sold phone with no recourse for the buyer.

Does anyone know of any other lines of enquiry I could pursue? I am worried that I have ended up with a worthless, unusable, unsellable handset now. :bang:
 
Who gave it you?... I'd be going back to them as I guess the original owner has defaulted on payment or something similar or maybe reported it as stolen.
You used to be able to get them unblocked but it was made illegal a while ago.
The 2nd hand market has a lot of phones sold as sim free, not on contract and I'm pretty sure these can't be blocked the same as a contract phone.
 
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sounds like you have been given a stolen phone
I'd be handing that one in
 
if you were given it why are you worried about it being worthless
 
Martyn D said:
Who gave it you?... I'd be going back to them as I guess the original owner has defaulted on payment or something similar or maybe reported it as stolen.
You used to be able to get them unblocked but it was made illegal a while ago.
The 2nd hand market has a lot of phones sold as sim free, not on contract and I'm pretty sure these can't be blocked the same as a contract phone.
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Contract or "contract free" makes no difference to blacklisting - all blacklisting means is that the phone has been reported as lost or stolen.

If you buy a phone on contract and default on payment you are still free to sell the phone as you legally own the hardware in full right from the outset. You are simply liable for the remainder of the contract payments so they could take you to the county court for those monies but you would still own the phone in full as it's not HP like buying a car on finance.
 
I am worried that I have ended up with a worthless, unusable, unsellable handset now.
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That is exactly why stolen phones are blacklisted.

It's good to see the system works.
 
The system "works" to a degree, but blacklisted phones can be sold to users in countries that do not share the same blacklist database.

You only have to look at ebay to see the number of phones listed as "full working order apart from no signal" or "will not work with uk networks" to see that they still have a ready market.

Until there is a globally shared database this will unfortunately continue and will mean that there will still be a market for stolen phones, often resulting from violent crime.
 
If you were given it for free then you've got a free broken phone. If you bought it and the original owner has reported it stolen to receive a replacement on insurance after
selling it then they have committed fraud. I'm sure if you dropped the 'stolen' phone into the Police and told them the back story they would be willing to do something about it.
 
You have had the phone for 15 months, and been using it, to now discover it has been blacklisted?

Something is not right there.....
 
Do a checkmend check on the phone, and see which network has applied the blacklist marker.

It isn't unknown for networks to make mistakes when inputting IMEI numbers to the list.

Even then it is extremely difficult to rectify, and will normally mean dealing with the CEO's office as normal CS agents haven't a clue at resolving the issue (they also don't have access to admin functions of the blacklist software).
 
Keith W said:
You have had the phone for 15 months, and been using it, to now discover it has been blacklisted?

Something is not right there.....
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Those were my thoughts exactly.

Dave1 said:
Do a checkmend check on the phone, and see which network has applied the blacklist marker.

It isn't unknown for networks to make mistakes when inputting IMEI numbers to the list.

Even then it is extremely difficult to rectify, and will normally mean dealing with the CEO's office as normal CS agents haven't a clue at resolving the issue (they also don't have access to admin functions of the blacklist software).
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I have run a CheckMend report. It was reported to Orange. I contacted Orange who cannot do anything with it because I was not the contract holder with them. Only the contract holder can deal with the account and they repeatedly hung up on me when I asked if they could confirm when the blacklisting had taken place.

By 'given', I wasn't clear. I was given it by my girlfriend who bought it for me from eBay as a replacement for a handset which I had broken. It wasn't a 'shuffle-across-the-pub-table' job.
 
Dave1 said:
Even then it is extremely difficult to rectify, and will normally mean dealing with the CEO's office as normal CS agents haven't a clue at resolving the issue (they also don't have access to admin functions of the blacklist software).
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That's a sweeping generalisation if I've ever seen one lol. Its easy to sort out if it has been done in error and can be proved. Also cs agents do have access to blacklist/unblacklist a handset as we do it when handsets are lost/found.
 
nickjohnwatson said:
That's a sweeping generalisation if I've ever seen one lol. Its easy to sort out if it has been done in error and can be proved. Also cs agents do have access to blacklist/unblacklist a handset as we do it when handsets are lost/found.
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You might think so, but as someone who worked for a network and was involved in fraud prevention its pretty true. Unless your system is radically changed (I will add I didnt work for Orange, which is where I presume you are, but did have dealings with them), the CSA only has input and remove commands for blacklisting and cannot see the notes or extra comments sections that are used by the backoffice?

I also know that almost all CSA's would have no inclination to push for a removal as there is no way they can tell it was done in error without accessing the relevant accounts (something they generally believe (falsely) that if they did so its a DPA breach).

I stand by the comment, if the OP wants resolution, his only chance is to escalate the issue, and in this case it means to the executive office.
 
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