Scammed by cell phone seller -seeking assistance
 

So I've been ripped off buying a cell phone off a guy from Craigslist. Yeah I know buyer beware... Even though did the usual meet in public spot, plugged my Sim into phone to test and it all seemed to pass the sniff test. Guy even seemed pretty easy going and forthright. Course few days later can't connect to cell network anymore and find out phone was just blacklisted. Simple misunderstanding? Tried calling/texting the guy and he doesn't reply and blocks me...don't think it's a simple misunderstanding anymore.

Don't know what the forums thoughts are on these scumbags... But what if I thought that somebody here might know the guy? I think he knows it's next to impossible to get in caught and I think he was a little too brazen and I have a name, phone number and what I think is his background...

Anybody care to help?

uhhh... call the police?

Police would hardly do anything, best you can do is just record it for their own records. just take it as an expensive lesson and move on.

well, post the guys info here for our reference.. maybe rs can do some digging and find our more.. although any sort of justice will be hard to come by..

this world is so dishonest and its fucking gross. people work hard to hard for their money and its so easily taken with no consequence

Not much of a lesson to learn here, unless you plan to never buy used phone again. OP, sorry to hear this. Hope the guy gets run over by a bus soon.

strong username to post content ratio

Talked to police. Very unlikely chance of arrest. Spoke to Rogers they can't/won't do anything citing confidentiality. However they do say I too many blacklisted phones end up being associated with one account will ring bells internally.

The seller was either being too open thinking no one can track him down or is assuming someone else's identity. If it was my name that he was using I'd want to know, wouldn't you?

Using the name from both his voicemail msg and my caller ID I did some googling and his background does match up with what he told me of himself. Hes supposed to be a ubc accounting student and may be in to tracking cars. Again if he is impersonating me I'd want to know.

As for my low post count- it's funny what having kids and getting a career going does to your time to posting on forums...

Uhh, nobody said anything about your post count...?

That being said, try posting the guy's info/appearance on here, as well as a copy of the original ad. It's likely that guy is a Craigslist "regular" and others have been scammed by him before, or will be in the future.

Likely, Rogers blacklisted his phone because he was delinquent on his payments.

Phone was probably either on contract and he didn't make payments or he used a stolen credit card to buy phone and once they figured out it was purchased with stolen card phone was blacklisted, way more common then you'd think.

So dangerous to buy a phone off craigslist, would never do it myself risk isn't worth the reward of a cheaper phone.

OP,

Sorry to hear about your experience. I hope something works out in your favour. If anything, karma will bite hard.

Just a reminder to everyone that this stickied thread exists in the Mobile Phone forums. it's old but please, I encourage you to read it if you ever decide to buy a phone!

http://www.revscene.net/forums/60431...ed-phones.html

This is ringing a very loud bell for a past post here on RS.

Someone not quite so tired might want to try looking back a year or two.

How exactly can a cell phone company black list a phone? Can't you just reflash the firmware and you'll be good?

Or is the IMEI hardcoded into the phone and cell phone companies can lock phones out this way?

Most likely this is what happened seller has one of those cellphone insurance. He sold the phone had then reported it stolen carrier, then blacklisted the phone. Seller gets money a new phone and you lose.
But here's a consolation price for you OP that blacklist is only over here in Canada. Go to Ebay or something sell the phone and hope you get your money back or more.

Moral of the story is
Be wary of buying almost new or released phones

Hardcoded. Each handset produced has a unique IMEI.

From Protect Your Data. Protect Yourself., you can do 2 imei searches per day.

Anytime a GSM, HSPA or LTE wireless device is reported as lost or stolen to a participating Canadian wireless service provider, that device’s unique IMEI number will be added to a shared national blacklist (the “Blacklist”). Any device appearing on the Blacklist will be blocked, and participating Canadian wireless service providers will not allow it to be used on their respective wireless networks.

There's usually a 24-48 delay for other carriers to see blacklisted devices from other carriers. And you still can't stop the device from being flagged by the owner after the fact.

Wow, that is interesting. I ignorantly thought there would obviously be a way around this.

Participating US carrier blacklists do use the Canadian database too.

Cut your losses, and try to sell it on eBay or online to someone international.

Post person's info here as well.

The phone will work outside of North America, so sell it to someone on eBay. Also, never buy a contracted phone on Craigslist. Only buy phones which were bought outright for full price with no subsidy.

For example, you can buy an iPhone 6 Plus on Craigslist, if the receipt says it was purchased for full price. You can't really get that blacklisted.

The original buyer can't report it as stolen?

I had this shit happen to me, but I found out by unlocking the phone and moving to another carrier the phone would work again. I kept using it for 2 years until Apple Store screwed up my battery exchange and they gave me a refurb unit

An eye for an eye makes the world blind... Just cut the losses.

I once bought a brand new in box iRock

Wanted the iPhone 5 BNIB cause it was for a friend but ended up being a fucking rock.

Was furious for the rest of the week but oh well you live you learn

Yeah, and then the same dude goes on to scam another guy because he realizes he can get away with it.

People with insurance plans on their phones do this all the time.

If it was me, I'd be doing everything I can to get my money back.

I once bought an iRiver PMP off someone. I inspected it at the time, but got home and realized the screen was full of artifacts and couldn't tell at the time because the dude put on some wallpaper to hide it.

He was avoiding my calls, texts, and emails.

Ended up hunting down all his info including his home address and home number.

He ended up meeting me for a full refund the next day with some bullshit excuse.

Fuck that.

People need to help accountable for their actions. If you spend you life cheating people of their hard earned money, you're a piece of shit. Pieces of shit like that deserve to have caution signs all around them and their name.

You can't expect to let people off the hook and leave it "at a lesson learned". Help the community out and prevent this from happening to another person. If you were furious, why would you knowing put someone else through that when you can prevent it?

^ I'm all for roasting the scammer but selling it international or to someone on eBay is not going to make anything better