Re: bad esn#

I bought a supposedly "new, never opened" Blackberry 8830 from ebay. I'm sure you can fill in the rest. Anyway, when I contacted Sprint to activate it, they didn't mention anything about a lost/stolen phone or an outstanding balance. They just said that they didn't show the ESN as being registered on their network. Does anyone know if there is anything I can do? I filed a claim with pay pal, but the seller has cancelled his ID on ebay so I'm not terribly hopeful...

Well, if it's not a Sprint branded device, they won't activate it...ever.

If it IS a Sprint branded device, then the activation person should have transferred you to tech support so they could get another section to activate the ESN (sounds silly but tech support has to contact the other section to do it). It usually takes about 20 minutes to get it activated...in rare cases it can take 24-48 hours.

If it's not a Sprint branded device, I would try contacting the seller for a possible refund. If that doesn't work, contact ebay and/or paypal.

i have a little problem...my wife washed her sprint upstage...so like a select few i bought another upstage from ebay and turned out to be stolen. Now i have two upstages that do not work. Is there any way of making the stolen upstage work with the washed upstage's esn number or any other way of making it work????

Stolen phones can't be used ever.
Do a search on how to recover a wet phone.

This same thing happened to me. I bought a Virgin Mobile phone off of ebay, and called VM when I got it, to activate it, and they said the ESN on the phone wasn't on record with their company, and there was nothing they could do about it. So now I have a useless phone. Did you ever figure out anything about it?

I have a question for everyone that has been screwed over on Ebay by buying phones with bad ESN's.

What are the sellers feedback ratings like?

• 5 feedback @ 100%
• 75 Feedback @ 95%
• 25,349 Feedback % 99.7%

Just curious. Before I bid on things, I thoroughly research the seller. Click on their feedback and read down through the items. Click on sold items and read the descriptions. Try to find the negative feedback ratings and see if you can decipher what may have happened in past auctions gone awry.

Ebay is full of crooks, especially in the cellphone department. Cell's are easily stolen, easy to ship, and garner an excellent profit for thief's.

Upon searching for your next prized phone, make sure the seller has a feedback rating in the thousands with at least a 99.XX% Feedback rating. Sellers with a feeback this high are in this for the long haul. Dig through and find the negative feedback left by the buyer and make sure it has nothing to do with bad ESN's.

Good luck!

Like you McLovin (great username by the way), I research extensively the seller before I even think about buying something from them. You have to because eBay and Paypal don't have a backbone. I've been screwed so many times by dishonest sellers on eBay.

Folks,

I ran into the same ebay thing. Bought a blackberry on ebay and can't activate it now,since it was marked lost.

I contacted the seller and he is ready to take the return.

Should I try to fix the ESN or just return the phone?

Thanks,
DJ

I'd return the phone. Wait for the refund, then send the phone back with tracking so that the seller knows you are sending it back. You don't know what mess you'll have to go through in order to clear the bad ESN

Hello,

I recently sold my Sprint PPC 6800. When the buyer went to Sprint they told him he could not activate the phone because the ESN # was bad. I called Sprint and they told me that it is because I owe them a balance and that there is absolutely nothing they can do to unlock it until I pay my balance in full. This is BS to me because I paid $500.00 for it from Sprint a few months ago and I had been with Sprint service for 2 years. I bought my PPC 6800 with cash almost 2 years after being with Sprint. It was not part of any promotion or anything. It is not stolen and has never been reported stolen. It's legally mine and I only used it for like 2 months. I just can't believe this is even legal. I am an honest person and don't want to "screw over" the buyer that paid me $200.00 for it. I didn't even know what an ESN # was until now and I have to either find a way to get it unlocked or refund the buyer's money. Anyway...Is there ANY way around this? Can anyone help me get my ESN # unlocked?!?!?!?

I need to know if anyone can help me unlock or clear an ESN#.. I have two TREO 700P.. can anyone help?
I am new here.. so I don't really know how touse this place.. I'll keep looking.

You'll have to contact Sprint, have them look up the history of the phones and decide if paying the balance left on them worth it. Also, I believe Sprint won't clear bad ESN# more than twice, that's why folks need to be careful when buying cell phones like that because you could get burned.

REP points given for good post. Thanks

Thanks! Rep points right back