Bought a phone with Blacklisted IMEI, what can I do?

[iveroon]

So earlier tonight I traded my iphone 7 256gb + $100 with a 7 plus 128gb. Only to find out that the phone's IMEI has been blacklisted.

I have checked everything, the serial number and the IMEI is a perfect match to the original box that was given to me. The phone has not been reported stolen or lost either. I checked the serial number on Apple and it has a valid purchase date, and is still under warranty until april 2018. But it does not cover blacklisted IMEI and only covers defects, also I am not the original owner of this phone.

It seems like it has been blacklisted due to the previous owner not paying the outstanding balance. Is there anything I can do to unblacklist this IMEI? Can Public Mobile help me find out the original carrier of the Iphone 7 plus? Please help me, I am very broke and absolutely can't afford a new phone.

[computergeek541]

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@iveroon wrote:

I have checked everything, the serial number and the IMEI is a perfect match to the original box that was given to me. The phone has not been reported stolen or lost either. I checked the serial number on Apple and it has a valid purchase date, and is still under warranty until april 2018. But it does not cover blacklisted IMEI and only covers defects, also I am not the original owner of this phone.

It seems like it has been blacklisted due to the previous owner not paying the outstanding balance. Is there anything I can do to unblacklist this IMEI? Can Public Mobile help me find out the original carrier of the Iphone 7 plus? Please help me, I am very broke and absolutely can't afford a new phone.

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The Apple serial number check doesn't tell you that the phone has not been reported lost or stolen.  The valid purchase and warranty date just means that Apple has a record of selling it and that it didn't just suddenly vanish from the warehouse inventory. 

As for the phone being blacklisted for non-payment on an account, that is quite possible, although that's not what the national blacklist was even intended for. That is speculation of course.

Also consider the possibility that the person may have found the phone, stolen it from someone else, or even reported it as lost/stolen in order to benefit from an insurance claim.

Those are just a few possiblities, but it is also possible that the person you were trading with is not even the person who original purchased the phone and may also be an innocent victim.

Original box with matching serial numbers and IMEI is a good start when looking for a used phone, but it's no foolproof.  It's not impossible for a theif to also take the phone's box as well as the device, especially if it's taken from someone's home.

Either way, you'll have to reach out to your trading partner to work this out.  If the person isn't co-operative, small claims court may be your only option.

As far as I'm concerned, because the phone that you traded for doesn't work, I would reported your previous phone as now stolen and have it blacklisted. 

[Wonder_why]

try this but I have not used there services, Google search for you 

http://www.imei-index.com/remove-blacklist/

[paulie]

Probably too late ...  but for others use this free tool...

https://www.devicecheck.ca/check-status-device-canada/

[arshad464]

Better to sale a person who give gift someone outside Canada.

[Mana]

This is why I feel that it is not a good idea to buy used phones from strangers.

@iveroon are you able to contact the seller?  Have you tried?

Maybe don't mention anything about phone being blacklisted, maybe just ask for your phone back.

Was it a shady person?  What the deal too good to be true?

[ShawnC13]

@iveroon, there seems to be more and more of this appearing in the forums every day now unfortunately.  If you have your old phones IMEI I would report it stolen as technically that is what has happened to you, although I am sure that this person who you traded with has since sold it to someone else.  I am sorry to hear about this.  With these scams it is even hard to check IMEI when purchasing as it could be clean when you get it use the phone for a bit then it appears on the list.

[will13am]

@iveroon, sorry to say this but you have been scammed by the seller.  I read about this from the forums I frequent every other week.  About the only thing you can try to do to restore functionality is contact each of the carriers to find out which one blacklisted the phone for non payment to find out what the outstanding balance is to see if they are willing to remove the blacklist with payment from you.  Personally I would not do that because it's a waste of time.  The outstanding balance is worth more than the phone.  One way to recover a bit of money is to sell it to someone who will use it in other areas of the world that is not affected by the North American blacklist.  Anyway this scam is very widespread in buy and sell forums like Kijiji.  Here's another Public Mobile customer who recently got scammed.  Hard lesson learned, don't buy used phones from strangers unless you are willing and able to stomach this kind of outcome.  I really feel for your loss.

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Phones-Hardware/Has-anyone-else-experience-their-phon...

[MoreYummy]

Contact the seller for solution if it was black listed due to no payment.

However it might be the seller tried to scam you by selling a black listed phone to begin with.