Hi - I was wondering if anybody has had problems activating phones
they purchased used. I have done this before when buying a
replacement for my Samsung SCH-3500 and had no problems activating it
(even though this model is a probably 3 years old or so).
So I bought a used Sanyo SCP-4500 for my wife to replace a really old
qualcomm phone she had (don't know the model). I can't get service
activated. I've talked with Sprint Customer support twice and even
gone to the Sprint Store. I get the same error every time when trying
to program the phone (it basically tells me an error occurred and to
call Sprint Customer service - what a joke!). I think I need to get
the firmware updated, but the Sprint Store was not able to do that for
me - said the phone was too old.
This doesn't make sense to me. The SCP-4500 is probably about three
years old, but I know several people using Sprint phones that are at
least that old. This phone should work. I just can't get it
activated.
I think if I knew the Home SID value, I could get the phone programmed
myself, but the Sprint folks say this value is obsolete and that I
need to program the IMSI value into the phone, which I'm guessing the
firmware on phone doesn't support. Anyways, this is total
frustration.
Here's another question. If you go to Sprint Store or to a
sprintpcs.com, they only really have a handful of phones to sell.
Currently at sprintpcs.com they have 13 phones, half of which are part
PDA. I don't want a
PDA! I just want a simple, reliable phone. I
know there are a lot more than 13 wireless phones that operate on
Sprint's network - why don't they make more of them available. So you
basically can't buy a phone from them for a street price of less than
$100 (1 phone) - oh unless you activate new service - that doesn't
help me as I've been a loyal customer for over 3 years now.
Thanks for any help.