Stolen Phones
 

If a phone is stolen and I have the SIN and IMEI of it does it mean that I can call the carrier and lock the phone down? Because I was told differently today.

I was at the telus store today and I noticed that they had a paper box iphone 4s on display and i laughed. He said that their displays got stolen too much so company decided to change it up.

Then I asked why couldnt they just lock the phone down to a brick, since they probably had the IMEI and everything and the phone was obviously connected to their network. The rep said that was a myth and there was no way to do. Just an urban legend he said. What do you guys know for a fact or believe?

The rep is right.

I inquired about this with rogers as well in the past. It isn't that they can't/have no way of doing it so much as they don't want to do it.

Yup. The rep is correct. The most they can do is block the IMEI to prevent the phone from registering on their own network.

In Europe it can be blocked. Here, they don't care. In Europe when a phone is imei. Locked it is just a brick, unless sold here in America.
Posted via RS Mobile

It'd be too much of a hassle to lock down every stolen phone.

Here's a tip:

Don't be stupid and leave your phone out in the open!. I've seen so many instances where I go to a restaurant and people leave their phones on their table. Sometimes unattended. :fulloffuck:

before it would be useful as belus are CDMA and robbers uses sim card, so its easier to track... now that everyone is using sim cards and they all use the same frequency, you can steal a phone from bell and use it on robbers no problem and no one can track it... especially a smartphone, where you just reset it back to factory settings... any security tracking software on that phone would be gone.