Database Info

My phone may be black listed soon, what'next? (IMEI ID LOCK)

Hi all,
I have a SPV3000 from my work and I lost it for a while so I mentionned it to my manager who is going to state it to Orange to get it blacklisted.
The thing is, after a couple of weeks, I have just found my phone again!
I am not feeling I should mention it again to my boss as it sounds really ridiculous and he was kind enough not to argue on the loss. But well, now I have a phone fully working which IMEI code will soon be blacklisted by the 3 main operators in France running a common database on the subject (in case of phones stolen). I may send my phone to a friend abroad who will certainly be able to use it there but is there any tricky solution to be able to use it in France?
What is this IMEI code exactly and how does it work?
BE SURE I AGREE WITH THE IDEA OF BLACK LISTS TO AVOID SO COMMON AGGRESSIONS JUST FOR PHONES...
You may send me private posts in case you are reluctant to have this kind of information largely communicated.

Hi marcel06!
IMEI is kind of like a serial number which your cell company sees.
If you haven't noticed, there is a wiki link under the word for details.
There are no tricks when it comes to IMEI. There are ways of changing it, but that is illegal in most countries.
Because IMEI identifies your phone, thieves could change their phone IMEI to match yours so you would pay for calls made from other phone.
If you really want to use the phone again, you should report that it was found so they won't blacklist you.

levenum said:
Because IMEI identifies your phone, thieves could change their phone IMEI to match yours so you would pay for calls made from other phone.
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Click to collapse
Oh.. no. I'm not sure about those pre-SIM period phone. But I'm definately sure that now, for phones that are using SIM cards, you are not able to charge to others account using IMEI. The controlling mech is the SIM card, the billing information is in the card, not the phone. But the operator will have the power (as I've heard) to disable/track phone by IMEI.

[Q] Way to see if its locked/blocked?

Isn't there a way to see if a phone is locked or blocked?

Kakiller93 said:
Isn't there a way to see if a phone is locked or blocked?
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Click to collapse
Call the service provider you are wanting to use it with and ask them.

DarrellRaines said:
Call the service provider you are wanting to use it with and ask them.
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Click to collapse
Another way?

No. Why not just call the carrier?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Kakiller93 said:
Isn't there a way to see if a phone is locked or blocked?
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Click to collapse
Put a SIM card in and see what happens? It'll request either an unlock code, or not let you do anything if it's locked/blocked.
Phoning an operator would also work.

Yea, if it's locked, a foreign SIM won't work. But it can be unlocked. If it's blocked, it just won't connect to any network, no matter what SIM you put in.
The difference is this: Locked means it needs a unlock code to allow other networks. This was done by carriers as a means to keep cell phones on their networks.
Blocked means it's been reported stolen or lost and won't connect to anything without changing the IMEI (which is in most cases illegal to do for the purpose of unblocking)

deliberate187 said:
Yea, if it's locked, a foreign SIM won't work. But it can be unlocked. If it's blocked, it just won't connect to any network, no matter what SIM you put in.
The difference is this: Locked means it needs a unlock code to allow other networks. This was done by carriers as a means to keep cell phones on their networks.
Blocked means it's been reported stolen or lost and won't connect to anything without changing the IMEI (which is in most cases illegal to do for the purpose of unblocking)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which is why I suggested he call the service provider. If he means blocked the way I took it, then the carrier could provide him with the answer and if it was stolen (not saying the op stole it but could have it) he could assist in the returning of missing property.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Probably blocked...
DarrellRaines said:
Which is why I suggested he call the service provider. If he means blocked the way I took it, then the carrier could provide him with the answer and if it was stolen (not saying the op stole it but could have it) he could assist in the returning of missing property.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
I dont think its loked cuz I could use the phone first (with both of my sim cards), and after 2 weeks i couldnt call after I made a restore, it was exactly after the restore it went like that. But I have 2 simcards different operators, with one of the i get connection, but cant call, but once i could message with it with the other sim I dont even get connection. I've search around and its probably blocked the guy i bought it from has tricked me *********!!!! But I dont understand, I got it with a cardboard and everything.......
MOD EDIT - Language removed.

Talk to the carrier and see if he reported it before cussing him. It might not be his fault.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

[Q] ESN/MEID

hi, I got a bad esn tp2 from ebay. has anybody success in scan for the ESN or MEID in the sprint tp2 with CDMA workshop? I used memory scan and it only return 1 section of readable memory, and i scan that section but nothing found. please help. thankyou

click tools at the very top left and then click security calculator. Enter one of the numbers and it should give you at least one of the other numbers. When I entered the meid Hex it gave me all of them. Look on the barcode on the phone under the battery. You can also report it to ebay and file a complaint with paypal, but good luck with that, lots of horror stories on the net.

no, thats not what i need, i need scan for the esn/meid in the memory so i can change it.

satuday said:
no, thats not what i need, i need scan for the esn/meid in the memory so i can change it.
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Click to collapse
ESN changing is not something you do lightly. First of all you have to at the very least -And I am not even sure this will work to begin with- Change to an ESN from a completely brand new never activated phone to be able to use it on another network. The reason you have to do this is because the ESN's are uploaded into a database and a lot of times there is no other way to get one added to certain networks like sprint (but you can with some networks will add an esn and "flash" to their service like cricket or metropcs) so the reason you have to use a COMPLETELY BRAND NEW or never activated phone is because all modems/phones transmit signals called RF or radio frequencies that have a kind of electronic fingerprint that the network can detect and if they detect that you are using an "electronic fingerprint" from another phone then they will get your ass! What they will do to you I have no idea but I certainly would not want to find out and I would be sure to cover your ass really well dude! Also, is this the paid version you are using? Because it won't work with the free version and all many/most of those supposed "free versions" or "cracked versions" are actually backdoor trojans that turn your computer into a zombie... so yea. wouldn't try it if I were you unless you wanna do a hell of a lot more reading up on it first so you can cover all your bases.
But otherwise it should not be considered illegal in certain regards but is illegal in other regards. Such as: you cannot use two phones on the same ESN. What you can do is what I said however and that is perfectly legal as long as you only use one of the phones: buy a phone for the ESN number then use the *Never activated* esn on the phone to be transferred to the phone you want to use. Like I said though, this is not by any means an easy thing to do.

[Q] Galaxy Nexus stolen, SIM card changed, able to trace back?

Dear forum,
let me just go straight to the point:
My Galaxy Nexus was stolen at work last friday. I tried to use some tracking software like Plan B but without succes, the SIM card had been changed allready.
Now here comes the part that gave me some hope.
When I went to My (Gmail) Account at the Android Market today (using my desktop), I noticed 2 things:
- First thing is that the record from the column "Carrier" has been changed from "Vodafone" to "KPN', so I think I can assume here that someone put another SIM card in it.
- Also at the column "Last Used" I see "February 13, 2012", which is yesterday (monday).
I was really wondering if there is a workaround or something to get more information (like the phone number of that SIM card?) than just the carrier of that SIM card and when it was last used?
Thanks in advance~
Anthony Elbers

During the night push a remote lock app to the device, if they haven't changed the google user login by then. Then just lock the device. If the app shows it set a screen message offering reward for return. Better still make it scream while at work tomorrow.
Sent from my HTC HD2 using xda premium

ForgetfulGuru said:
During the night push a remote lock app to the device, if they haven't changed the google user login by then. Then just lock the device. If the app shows it set a screen message offering reward for return. Better still make it scream while at work tomorrow.
Sent from my HTC HD2 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
The thing is, I only work at fridays and saturdays. I also think that the person is smart enought to not bring the phone to work when I'm around.
I thought maybe if I could get some more information with a workaround, I could catch the thief myself instead of waiting for him/ her to give it back (which probably isn't going to happen).

I hope you informed your managers.
You could have a look through the available apps in the market see if there is anything you can use to lock the phone remotely and or push some really nasty messages to it. If you ain't using why should they get the use of it think there may be some way of remotely wiping the phone aswell. Then at least it would be of no use to the thief anyway. Sorry I can't be of more help. I allways make sure I activate any built in phone finder and instal lookout, so never really had to deal with the issue
Sent from my HTC HD2 using xda premium

Prey worked for me before.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium

Android_Monsters said:
Prey worked for me before.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Note that the phone is stolen and SIM card has been changed allready. As far as I know you need to configure Prey on the phone itself, so not really remote like Plan B.
I'm still curious if there is a workaround to get more information about the SIM card than just the "Carrier" and "Last Used"?
Like.. are those the only two things that get stored or is there more information about the SIM card that I could get without having the phone itself?

If you have the IMEI you can contact your network and ask they put a block on the phone, a lot of the time it also blocks it off other networks as well.

i think the info about the sim like its number is by far more important than map location because if you got the thief's number then you can report that number to the police and mobile network .

MrLadoodle said:
If you have the IMEI you can contact your network and ask they put a block on the phone, a lot of the time it also blocks it off other networks as well.
the_metal said:
i think the info about the sim like its number is by far more important than map location because if you got the thief's number then you can report that number to the police and mobile network .
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This is pretty much what I'm aiming for since I allready have contacted the police and gave them the IMEI of the phone. They said like something like "We'll see what we can do", but I thought there would be some workaround (yeah I'm using this word alot) to get more information of that SIM card.
I think I can assume that the column "Carrier" which is shown on the screen, is read of the SIM card?
Question is, if anything else is shown somewhere in my Gmail (since it's linked to my Galaxy Nexus) or at the Android Market or something that might be of help?

do you know that mobile carriers can identify everything to a handset with just an IMEI
i don't know what is the procedures in your country but i think you should call that carrier and ask for directions especially if you have a proof of purchase or something similar
i wish you could luck friend

the_metal said:
do you know that mobile carriers can identify everything to a handset with just an IMEI
i don't know what is the procedures in your country but i think you should call that carrier and ask for directions especially if you have a proof of purchase or something similar
i wish you could luck friend
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My question is, did you inform your carrier? Here, when that happened to my friend who wasn't too tech saavy, I called his carrier, had the phone blocked right away, and told them what network it was on via the same information that you received via email. The actually contact the manufacturer and the police and were able to track it down on their network, find the phone and press charges. That IMEI number is huge as it tells the carrier what exact tower the phone is connected to. In densely populated areas, that's 1-2km max. Cross reference the people at work that live in that area and boom. Done like dinner.

Did you try Samsung Dive website??
www.samsungdive.com

the_metal said:
do you know that mobile carriers can identify everything to a handset with just an IMEI
i don't know what is the procedures in your country but i think you should call that carrier and ask for directions especially if you have a proof of purchase or something similar
i wish you could luck friend
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
onlymojo said:
My question is, did you inform your carrier? Here, when that happened to my friend who wasn't too tech saavy, I called his carrier, had the phone blocked right away, and told them what network it was on via the same information that you received via email. The actually contact the manufacturer and the police and were able to track it down on their network, find the phone and press charges. That IMEI number is huge as it tells the carrier what exact tower the phone is connected to. In densely populated areas, that's 1-2km max. Cross reference the people at work that live in that area and boom. Done like dinner.
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Click to collapse
Yeah I know that, but I called both the police and my carrier and gave them my IMEI and asked if they could do such thing.. and both said that they can't do such a thing, ONLY if the phone has the original SIM card... I think they just don't want to help me at all.
amritpal2489 said:
Did you try Samsung Dive website??
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Click to collapse
Tried that one. But I need to set it up on my phone first. Keep in mind that the phone is allready stolen and the SIM card has been changed.

possible counterfeit hox / corrupt imei ??

Ok so I purchased a used hox on craigslist the other day. When I first put my sim card in after purchase I was unable to get a data connection using the pta apn. I had network connection and was able to make/receive calls and texts, but had no data connection. I was getting the "misconfigured apn" error in network settings. After some googling I found that I need to switch my plan to an att LTE plan (I am in a covered area). I am not the account holder, and it would be a day or two until I could get in contact with the account holder, so I just threw in the wap.cingular or phone apn and was able to get an hspa connection fine. So I rooted the phone and unlocked the bootloader (using htc dev) without a problem, flashed a few custom roms, everything is working 100%. Except for last night when I finally decided to switch my plan over with AT&T and try to connect to LTE. After about an hour on the phone with technical support, they concluded that I don't have an AT&T phone, which I am certain I do.
I am guessing that the only way they could tell that I didn't have an AT&T phone was from the IMEI which they asked for at the beginning of the call. So I checked the IMEI on the box against the IMEI on the phone and they are different. The SNs match, but the IMEIs are different. I checked out the phone IMEI online and it came back as invalid. (For the record I also checked the box IMEI against the lost and stolen phone database and it was not found)
So, basically, I am wondering if this issue can be caused by something that I did (ie rooting, bootloader unlock, rom flashing, etc) or if I was somehow sold a tampered device or if this is something to be concerned about. Its not a very big deal if its something I did, I understand the risks associated with rooting/unlocking/flashing etc.

henchdiesel said:
Ok so I purchased a used hox on craigslist the other day. When I first put my sim card in after purchase I was unable to get a data connection using the pta apn. I had network connection and was able to make/receive calls and texts, but had no data connection. I was getting the "misconfigured apn" error in network settings. After some googling I found that I need to switch my plan to an att LTE plan (I am in a covered area). I am not the account holder, and it would be a day or two until I could get in contact with the account holder, so I just threw in the wap.cingular or phone apn and was able to get an hspa connection fine. So I rooted the phone and unlocked the bootloader (using htc dev) without a problem, flashed a few custom roms, everything is working 100%. Except for last night when I finally decided to switch my plan over with AT&T and try to connect to LTE. After about an hour on the phone with technical support, they concluded that I don't have an AT&T phone, which I am certain I do.
I am guessing that the only way they could tell that I didn't have an AT&T phone was from the IMEI which they asked for at the beginning of the call. So I checked the IMEI on the box against the IMEI on the phone and they are different. The SNs match, but the IMEIs are different. I checked out the phone IMEI online and it came back as invalid. (For the record I also checked the box IMEI against the lost and stolen phone database and it was not found)
So, basically, I am wondering if this issue can be caused by something that I did (ie rooting, bootloader unlock, rom flashing, etc) or if I was somehow sold a tampered device or if this is something to be concerned about. Its not a very big deal if its something I did, I understand the risks associated with rooting/unlocking/flashing etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what method did you use to unlock the bootloader? If you used the one without HTCDev found here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1734558 it changed the IMEI number. You can put it back though.

gunnyman said:
what method did you use to unlock the bootloader? If you used the one without HTCDev found here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1734558 it changed the IMEI number. You can put it back though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually used the method outlined here, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1671396, which is probably a similar method under the hood I guess. How would I go about returning the IMEI to stock? Is it as simple as opening mmcblk0p4 in a hex editor and changing the 11111111 back to CWS__001?

henchdiesel said:
I actually used the method outlined here, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1671396, which is probably a similar method under the hood I guess. How would I go about returning the IMEI to stock? Is it as simple as opening mmcblk0p4 in a hex editor and changing the 11111111 back to CWS__001?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope.
the method you used doesn't TOUCH IMEI. IMEI and CID are two different things.
did you happen to notice when you got the phone if the bootloader said locked? or was it re-locked?
I suspect if it's the latter then whoever had the phone before you did used the "without htc dev" method to unlock and didn't copy back the unaltered partition when they were done.
There are ways to rewrite the correct IMEI to the phone. I don't know how, and discussion of it is forbidden here. Maybe someone who can help you will send you a PM.

gunnyman said:
Nope.
the method you used doesn't TOUCH IMEI. IMEI and CID are two different things.
did you happen to notice when you got the phone if the bootloader said locked? or was it re-locked?
I suspect if it's the latter then whoever had the phone before you did used the "without htc dev" method to unlock and didn't copy back the unaltered partition when they were done.
There are ways to rewrite the correct IMEI to the phone. I don't know how, and discussion of it is forbidden here. Maybe someone who can help you will send you a PM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The phone did say locked when I got it. It may have been re-locked, but there is no way for me to be sure. I guess if anyone has info about repairing my IMEI and could pm me I'd really appreciate it. Otherwise I guess I'm out of luck. Thank you very much for your help.

henchdiesel said:
The phone did say locked when I got it. It may have been re-locked, but there is no way for me to be sure. I guess if anyone has info about repairing my IMEI and could pm me I'd really appreciate it. Otherwise I guess I'm out of luck. Thank you very much for your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if it said LOCKED then IMEI got corrupted by some other means. Sorry I can't be of more help. I do have a suggestion though.
Find one of those Cell phone stores that advertises flashing phones to some other carrier. Maybe THEY have the means to fix your IMEI.

gunnyman said:
if it said LOCKED then IMEI got corrupted by some other means. Sorry I can't be of more help. I do have a suggestion though.
Find one of those Cell phone stores that advertises flashing phones to some other carrier. Maybe THEY have the means to fix your IMEI.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm just glad it was something that I screwed up as opposed to my buying a tampered/stolen device. Mods can probably close this thread, mark it as "solved" or something like that, before we get too far into the IMEI modding stuff. Hopefully I can get this figured out on my own. Thanks again for your help.

Hit me on gtalk. Ill get u fixed up seriously tho. Pmed
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium

It's likely not an IMEI issue....but more likely you don't have an LTE SIM. Symptoms are just that.

Op said the Imei numbers between phone and box don't match up
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

18th.abn said:
Hit me on gtalk. Ill get u fixed up seriously tho. Pmed
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
best person to contact for your issue...
not a big deal...if you have the stick on the back on the phone or the box
imei, sn, mb....you good...