02-03-2011 03:03 PM
02-06-2011 08:12 AM
02-11-2011 06:03 AM
02-17-2011 08:20 AM
04-17-2011 09:52 AM
04-17-2011 09:56 AM
04-17-2011 05:47 PM
04-18-2011 09:34 PM
Buyers can avoid alot of this by READING the product description instead of blindly bidding because the phone they want is cheap. It seems all common sense goes right out the window around here. Buyers buy a bad esn phone knowing it had a bad esn then they leave the seller negative feedback because the phone had a bad esn! How much sense does that REALLY make? Aside from that, if your phone gets broken, you can always buy a bad esn phone, use it for parts and fix yours. That's quite a good use. I broke my V3m in half not long ago. I bought a bad esn V3m and put my board into it's housing. My V3m worked again.
05-25-2011 08:07 AM
07-15-2011 11:41 AM
07-19-2011 11:13 PM
my friend bought sprint device with bad ESN. just put in local cdma sim card and the phone work great.
as I read about Bad ESN, I think bad esn doesn't mean someone who sell bad esn phone is thief. may they have big bill on sprint or verizon and won't to pay the bill. or just want get phone in cheap prices then sell it after few month. none knows....
as I know bad esn phone has good margin and there alot international hungry buyer for US bad esn phone.
Illegal or not I don't know about US regulation for bad esn phone.because I'm not american citizen 🙂
10-05-2011 02:34 PM
I bought a lost or stolen phone my self and i canceled the payment with the credit card company and im oredering the same phone again just from amazon this time.
10-08-2011 03:36 PM
I learned this the hard way. I have never done this before and will NEVER do it again, but I allowed a friend to sell her phone under my account. I have a perfect feedback score. The buyer got the phone and it had a bad ESN. I was stunned. Anyway, he contacted me thank God instead of going directly to e-bay. I immediatly refunded his money and even sent him a pre-paid postage express mail box to send it back to me. I was upset and then everyone I know (they all have pre-paid phones) told me to sell it again as long as I advertised it with haveing a bad ESN. They explained that people buy them to put on pre paid accounts. I did contact Sprint and it turned out that she had never paid her bill. She owed $565.00 and needed to pay it to clear the ESN. Well, she wasn't going to pay it, just like she did not pay me. So, I had to refund over $200.00 to the buyer out of my pocket. It was well worth it to save my feedback score. I now have the phone and am going to sell it with advertising it having a bad ESN. This is why I am not so sure it is a "scam". Now, if you look under the items some one has sold or is selling and they have sold numerous bad ESN phones, then possibly something is fishy. In my opionon, if a buyer READS how it is listed, they wont buy a bad ESN phone. I also read some very good information from e-bay regarding why they are allowed to be sold.
10-15-2011 07:06 PM
When you sign a contract with Sprint, for example, the phone that you receive is discounted heavily for agreeing to keep an account in good standing for 24 months. If you look closely at the agreement, you will find that if you default for any reason within the first 24 months, i.e.: non-payment, cancellation, etc, you will owe the retail price of the phone. Full price for a 4g smartphone can be as much as $400-500.
The payment balanced owed on a "Bad ESN" phone is quite often the full or pro-rated cost of the phone. People cancel the account and then ignore the payment demand for the cost of the phone. Of course, there are bad accounts where somebody has run up a huge bill and disappeared. There are also scammers that sign up for an account, and then immediately resell the phone.
After talking to eBay, I talked to Sprint representitives about the ESN issue. The reason that eBay can sell the phones is because Sprint has not lodged a formal complaint. It has nothing to do with legalities, morality, karma, etc. The people I talked to were vague on their reasoning.
To protect yourself, if you do not see the words "CLEAN ESN", ask the seller and keep the correspondence. If you get burned, eBay and PayPal will both protect you..
11-06-2011 07:30 PM
Bad esn doesnt always necessarily mean theft. I have a friend who got his phone wet and filed an insurance claim right away. We took all the steps to try to fix it, but he didn't really ever bother to see if it would work because he just assumed it was done. Few days later we try to turn it on just for kicks. It did not work but I suggested that the battery might be dead and I put mine in. The phone ended up working. And continued to work with no issues whatsoever. He figured he would keep the new replacement phone since it was brand new. He is real into mint condition electronics so in his opinion he came out on top for only $100.
He thought he could straight up sell his old phone, but I had to inform him about the whole ESN thing, and how that phone will most likely be marked as a bad ESN. But I told him that he could still get decent money for it if he offered returns, explained that the ESN was bad and that at one point it suffered water damage.
He had an EVO 4G back when it was still a hot phone, so it was great for activation on another carrier or even as a media device. Apple, Samsung and other companies charge a few hundred for WiFi only devices/MP3 players in the phone form factor. Galaxy note, ipod touch etc. So after it was all said anddone some guy/gal bought it to use as a media device at home and on the go in their car.
But pay attention, people are good about listing if the ESN is good or bad. If you get screwed, that is why there is buyer protection. Buy from ppl with great ratings. Dont think it is Ebays responsibility to govern this issue. And you got alot more protection than if you went with some clown off craigslist or other sources.