Damn guys! Check this out $50k worth of cell phones stolen from an ATT store!
I'm originally from Connecticut, and my mother just emailed me this news story about $50k worth of cell phones stolen from an AT&T store, that's a lot of frinkin cell phones!
http://www.wfsb.com/news/16890680/detail.html?treets ... »
http://www.wfsb.com/news/16890680/detail.html?treets ... »
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stephen5688 said:
WOW I hope this means cheap iphones on eBay 😉
nope. stores did not have them on july 4th.
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i know this will prolly get joe going here, and its not intended in that manner, but....
this is where i think CDMA is better. all those stolen phones could be tracked by ESN in the stores inventory and locked out. Then when they start popping up on ebay or craigslist, you can get the seller.
with them being GSM, there isnt really a way to "tag" the phones as stolen, is there?
Anyone can just pop their SIM into it and be on their way, right?
this is where i think CDMA is better. all those stolen phones could be tracked by ESN in the stores inventory and locked out. Then when they start popping up on ebay or craigslist, you can get the seller.
with them being GSM, there isnt really a way to "tag" the phones as stolen, is there?
Anyone can just pop their SIM into it and be on their way, right?
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ATT can run an IMEI sweep and see what SIMs are being used with the stolen phones. Wether or not they do it is up to them.
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bwag717 said:
ATT can run an IMEI sweep and see what SIMs are being used with the stolen phones. Wether or not they do it is up to them.
And what port out all those ATT "customers"? I think not....They will make up the 50K (usually inflated anyway) with Insurance and service fees from those who end up with those phones.
Lets be real here. This is not a catastrophe. PErhaps a God Send for ATT...Not the sales reps though.
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They will disconnect anyone that can't give a good reason why the have stolen phones. This happened to my store when UPS employees were opening our shipment and stealing the phones out. ATT did an IMEI sweep and found them in NYC with prepaid SIMs. They blocked the IMEI so that no one can use them on any network (they brick the phones over the air). They will only do it if they will lose more than what the stores insurance will pay out.
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bwag717 said:
They will disconnect anyone that can't give a good reason why the have stolen phones. This happened to my store when UPS employees were opening our shipment and stealing the phones out. ATT did an IMEI sweep and found them in NYC with prepaid SIMs. They blocked the IMEI so that no one can use them on any network (they brick the phones over the air). They will only do it if they will lose more than what the stores insurance will pay out.
Pre paid being the stumbling block...IM guessing ONLY the pre paids were catured and disconnected....I am not so sure ATT would put a long time post paid customer out of their income stream should they buy a phone off Ebay.....
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I've heard that they do brick post paid lines if the customer uses a reported stolen line. I'm not the authority on stolen phones, but I know that they can trace IMEIs if they want. If this is a COR location they probably will trace them to show the insurance that they were stolen and not misplaced. I get at least 2 stolen phones that I know are stolen cause the person trying to get prepaid says "they found the phone". Total BS but only once have I tried to activate one in POSI and it said that this IMEI is blocked due to a stolen phone claim.
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bwag717 said:
I've heard that they do brick post paid lines if the customer uses a reported stolen line. I'm not the authority on stolen phones, but I know that they can trace IMEIs if they want. If this is a COR location they probably will trace them to show the insurance that they were stolen and not misplaced. I get at least 2 stolen phones that I know are stolen cause the person trying to get prepaid says "they found the phone". Total BS but only once have I tried to activate one in POSI and it said that this IMEI is blocked due to a stolen phone claim.
they also block it with the feature POSA on it. it's prepaid phones from national retailers that were either sold out but never activated on prepaid ...
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no not true at&t does have a way of tracking a phone and what kind of phone you are useing
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It is not used. The enterprise directory can detect the current phone connected to the sim card it is NEVER enforced. If they file a police report that is another story.
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ccareatatt said:
It is not used. The enterprise directory can detect the current phone connected to the sim card it is NEVER enforced. If they file a police report that is another story.
thats what I'm supposing. ATT does not care unless its a pre paid situation. They won't go after post paid without a court order no matter where they bought their phone.
I don't worry about my phone getting stolen because the user would have to come up with 6 digits to make it work and it is set to lock upon the use of any other SIM card,
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It's probably less than 100 phones, the media just likes to hype the cost when the retail price of a lot of phones are around $500.
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