Database Users

IMEI issue on a USA T-mobile MDA

Hi,
I just bought a MDA off ebay and the phone works great!
BUT the problem is IMEI numbers dont match ANYWHERE!!
Box, Back of phone and *#06# They are 3 different #'s
I can still make and recieve calls and go on the net.. phones works properly.
Is there anyway some1 could have changed the IMEI? Or is there a Rom flash that could have done this?
OR could a Unlock have altered the IMEI?
And is there a way i can change the IMEI to the same one as the one on the back of my phone?
The Seller has agreed to refund my money, but I want to exercise all my options b4 I return it. Bc the price was actually great!
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks in Adv!
Brit.
:thumbup:
PS i did search for this issue and did come accross some good threads, but there was alot of "THIS IS ILLEGAL" i know this so please post somthing meaningful...

Your best bet is to get your money back. At best the phone was serviced and the guts placed inside the wrong case by accident (which would explain 3 different IMEI) but at worst there could be something hinky in the phone's history that will come back to bite you as the current owner.

I wouldn't worry about it.
1) The phone works
2) You know the phone's actual IMEI
That's all there is to it. Don't worry about it.

both of you bring up a good point.
I am leaning towards keeping theh thing b/c of the price i paid for it b/c of a mislabeling of the auction. It was a super low price..
I will check to see if the guts were changed, there probably will be a sign if the casing was opened.
Can you give signs to look for tampering?
Second, I read were some1's IMEI changed b.c of a Unlock could this have happend to my MDA?
Thanks for you replies agian!

HTC (or T-Mobile Warranty) might me able to confirm if any (or all) of the IMEIs you have are from serviced phones.
As for the Unlock changing the IMEI, I know one user reported it but I seriously the validity of their story.
I've CID unlocked 5 HTC Phones (3 BlueAngels, 2 Wizards) and SIM unlocked them also with the IMEI never being changed.
Just remember though, if there is something hinky and the phone is hot you can lose the phone and never see your money.

I would imagine that if the phone was put up for sale, sold, shipped, turned on and found to work and it is hot, the heat has probably cooled considerably. Or, in other words, if it was going to be banned by the network, I would think it would have already happened. As far as unlocking changing the IMEI, I second the above. Few things are impossible but a simple unlocking changing the IMEI has to be close. If it was my phone, I'd first look for some obvious sign of tampering. Crooks aren't very smart (they are crooks, after all) so it shouldn't be hard to find. If nothing jumped out at me, I'd shrug my shoulders and call it mine.

Cool, I will call HTC.
I just called Tmobile and they said that they dont BAN phones, they just ban simcards. but I doubt they would admit the truth.
the phone working is a Positive sign to me.
But I will call HTC and confirm. ALSO I will Call Paypal and see if i have any kind of warranty to buying a stolen item.
if all else fails i will return the phone to the seller.
Brittany

the IMEI should look exactly like the IMEI on the back of the phone rite? not shorter or longer?
i will reverify if its' shorter or something. b/c i read some where about a 17 and 15 digits are needed.
ALSO say if my MDA was stock right out of the box would the phone have these 4 lines on the top left corner in red with some numbers and stuff.. possibly rom info and model info?

Usually the stickers with IMEI numbers are difficult to forge since it requires a special paper (Nokia at least) and a special kind of file.
Although the theory of mixing boards, cases and boxes is very plausible there's still the chance that the IMEI on the back of the phone is the hot one. You can always try to change back to it (but taking note of the one stored presently in ROM for future use) and see if it gets barred/blocked or you get a visit from the authorities :twisted: In any case, this forum's posts could help to prove your innocence in court (just kidding :lol: )
As for the procedures to achieve it, get back to me via PM
cheers

Well i took it to a local Tmobile store and they exchanged the phone for me. WOOT! WOOT! this was a pure sealed one. so prob solved.. now i just have to do a CID and Sim Unlock and upgrade to the latest rom.
Any recomms? i will try to do my NEWBIE duties and search and learn, if anyone wants to make it easy for me. well hooka sista up!..lol
Brit

Wow! Not bad! If the 2.26 ROM is already on it (I got a new one a couple days ago on warrantee and that was the case), you may want to think twice before changing that. I've been real happy with 2.26 and it's gotten to where the ONLY thing I bother changing in the registry is the glyphcache and menu settings and I uninstall OZ, the DAT MailTrigger thing and the Hotspot login utility. And...bonus time....you don't void the warrantee that mayb prove handy in the future.

Moral of the story.. get 3 old phone, inter change their IMEI (e.g. stickers and box) .. go to different local store to get 3 new phones

So last night i did
1. Sim Unlock
2. CID Unlock
3. installed AIM (wifi friendly)
4. Upgraded the rom to 2.26
5. installed Agile Msnger beta verson
phone's running like butter! Thou after i installed AIM phone RAN really sluggish! but i think it was b/c i put my orig sim card with 150 entirees.
so i rebooted charged the phone to 100% and did the rom upgrade from Tmobile's webiste..
the phone runs like a charm now.. I just need to find a good Instant Messenger software, wiht profile and away msg so my friends to hit me up with a huge txt msg bill..
I came, i read, i learned, i conquered the mda!

Has anyone unlocked their g1 running on cyanogen?

Well, the story goes like this:
Bought a g1 and the second logical step was to put in cyanogen. After a while I thought that an unlocked phone would be even better. Went online and purchased the unlock code and tried to use it while running cyanogen. Did not work. Flashed to rc29, tried again, did not work. Then I went to another unlock provider and this guy, gave me the same code as the first, based on my IMEI ( I don't have a fake IMEI), he tried it as well and did not work. Then he searched for different version of the code based on the IMEI for different htc products ( it seems that they have some accounts with htc and for IMEI they receive the unlock code). We also tried it with a goldcard which only made my g1 scream that I don't have a simcard inside.
Bottom line, did cyanogen mood do something to the unlock procedure ( hard locked the phone on tmobile - on tmobile the phone works fine) ? Or I just happened to have a weird phone, Thank you.
Btw, my unlock code is 92179512. Feel free to try it. It would be funny as hell if it were to unlock someone elses phone, and if it does, let me know as well.

I unlocked my phone on a MUCH older version of CM, so I wouldnt be able to tell you if anything has changed to effect the process. However, if you're a TMO customer, you do know that after 90 days they will GIVE you the unlock code for free, right?

I also have unlocked it on Cyanogen mod, but I believe I was on 4.2.7.1 at the time.... not that long ago really.... but T-Mobile does indeed give away the unlock code for free, and it worked flawlessly.

Neither the ROM, SPL or radio can effect the simlock. It's not Cy's ROM that's causing the problem...
What do you mean 'it doesn't work'? Does the phone reject the code?

Thank you for the reply. Well the problem is that I don't have a contract with Tmobile since I don't have the money for it. I bought it off from someone and used Tmobile prepaid sim card, which works fine. And, because of that, Tmobile won't provide me with an unlock code .
Regarding the code, when I type in the code it says network unlock unsuccessful, so I can't do much about it. I'm trying to update to the latest stock donut and see what happens.

Ah that sucks :-( I really can't of any options for you, since any codes generated will always be the same...

nope -
cmcx_linux said:
Thank you for the reply. Well the problem is that I don't have a contract with Tmobile since I don't have the money for it. I bought it off from someone and used Tmobile prepaid sim card, which works fine. And, because of that, Tmobile won't provide me with an unlock code .
Regarding the code, when I type in the code it says network unlock unsuccessful, so I can't do much about it. I'm trying to update to the latest stock donut and see what happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
notice in the replies above, that cyanogen nor spl, nor anything software related can change your unlock status.
you already have an unlock code, and since you've had it generated from two different sources, i believe that code is correct for THAT IMEI number. that being said, did you copy the imei number from the sticker on the inside, or from what the phone shows in "PHONE INFO" ? I'd make sure they both match.
i also have a phone that is flacky about SIMs. haven't found an explanation yet, I think some of the boards have bad solder joints, or there is another hardware problem that causes similar errors. no proof yet.
try a friends Tmo sim card, and if his is recognized, and allows data connection, you'll know it's your phone that is locked, and that all the hardware is working. i'll bet you entered the wrong code because the sticker inside was wrong, or you fat fingered it. just a guess.
good luck, please update the thread when/if you find a definite answer.

I would bet the IMEI on the sticker and on the board are different... where did you buy said phone and for how much? It could very well be a refurb, which will have bits and pieces from several different phones, and thus could have the SIM locked guts for phone 666 and the case from phone 888 type thing.

Yep, checked it 10 times the first time I bought the code online. The same imei in about this phone is on the sticker. After I saw it did not work, I went to a local unlock shop around my place and the guy there checked it again more than 6 times. So.. weird eh? And both guys got the same code from HTC based on that IMEI

Sounds like this may be a hardware error. If that is the unlock that is generated then it should just work. The unlock does not really pertain to the rom or anything else that people usually mod. Also, maybe ask that dude why he was giving up that phone, maybe there is really something wrong with it.

the only other thing left is get an turbo unlocker chip that sits between SIM and phone
pain in ass to install but I have done it with out cutting the SIM card
I am guessing someone had typed the code in incorectly .. they can be permiatly locked if wrong code has been entered
also just because it was another person does not mean their MEI source wasn't the same
I guess they worked out they work ,,, I payed $5 for mine .. now 4x the price
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NEXT-SIM-TUR...wItemQQptZPDA_Accessories?hash=item4cec3cab8c

The unlock codes sources are all the same. I lost over 100$ trying to get unlock codes from them but 80% of them don't work (only the ones for htc phones). I use a turbo sim with my G1 and is really easy to install. just buy one and cut your sim where the CHIP from the turbo sim is located. It works flawlessly.

Im just throwing this out there to say that I was able to successfully unlock my g1 with CM 4.2.10.1
Other than that I would just be repeating what was already said if I was to give any advice.
Best of luck man.

If you live close to pasadena
cmcx_linux said:
Yep, checked it 10 times the first time I bought the code online. The same imei in about this phone is on the sticker. After I saw it did not work, I went to a local unlock shop around my place and the guy there checked it again more than 6 times. So.. weird eh? And both guys got the same code from HTC based on that IMEI
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome to try it with my sim card. But you're probably far far away.

tmo will give out unlock code
kusotare said:
I unlocked my phone on a MUCH older version of CM, so I wouldnt be able to tell you if anything has changed to effect the process. However, if you're a TMO customer, you do know that after 90 days they will GIVE you the unlock code for free, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, they will give you an unlock code after 90 days of being a customer and every 90 after the last time you got an unlock code. They will give you an unlock code the same day you buy the phone if you meet those requirements.

Sorry if this is irrelevant to the rest of the thread, but assuming I unlock on JF 1.5 (yea I'm behind) to ATT, and wipe everything to install a HeroUI ROM of some sort, will the unlock still be in effect or will I need to unlock the phone again?
Thanks.

dshyang50 said:
Sorry if this is irrelevant to the rest of the thread, but assuming I unlock on JF 1.5 (yea I'm behind) to ATT, and wipe everything to install a HeroUI ROM of some sort, will the unlock still be in effect or will I need to unlock the phone again?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll be ok.
I actually like JUST did it on a coworkers(I admit, going from WiMo to Android is a learning curve, but its easy), he got his from craigslist, had JF 1.5 on it. He used it for like a week, complained about sluggishness (he did have like 20 apps constantly running) Anyway, after a few beers and lurking here (it was when I was deciding what HTC to get) we decided to go to CM (latest build). Everything went fine step by step.
I cannot vouch for your particular ROM but for CM it was fine.

Bricked Ozone Help

I believe I've bricked my Ozone. It powers on and stays at the HTC screen. I've done a factory rom update with no success. What are my options? Is there anyone on the forum that offers repair?

I'm in the same boat. Got a Verizon Ozone from a someone who decided that the phone was dead for good. It would be nice to get it up and running though as I'm kind of in need of a smartphone at the moment.
What I've heard is that all he tried to do was the official 6.5 upgrade but, in the words of Dr. House: everybody lies. The bootloader reads SPL-0.44.0000 and I've been able to flash the official 6.5 CEDAIMG.nbh from an sd card but nothing changes there either; it just sits at the first HTC screen.
Of all the options I've read about, the last is a goldcard but I have also read that the Ozone/Cedar doesn't have one yet. Is that worth looking into? Any ideas what's actually going on with the phone that makes it hang?

Hit the back button... sorry for the double post. =)

That's pretty much what happened to mine. I called HTC and sent the phone in for repair.

Keep this post updated as to how that goes. If it works out, I might give them a call too. Were you covered by any sort of warranty? Any big hurdles to jump over to get them to replace the device? Any cost to you?
Fingers crossed that it works out!

So far I believe it's covered under warranty. They called me Monday and asked for the factory sim card to repair it. I wonder if it needs the sim card in to do a factory rom install? I should hear back soon.

Hmm... That's kind of weird. I wouldn't think they would need it. =/ I just called PCD today and got the address for sending my mobile in with instructions to remove all cards. Hopefully someone else gets assigned mine. =)
My friend didn't dig up the SIM since I'm planning on using the phone between Washington and Vancouver, B.C. so, hopefully they don't ask for it in my case!
Thanks for the update!

Don't ship UPS. I did, and they charged me $16 - said it was because of their address.

Well, I'm off to the Post Office to send this thing to NY. Hopefully the turnaround time is reasonable and if they can't/won't actually fix it, I can get it back in case xda discovers anything out about this problem.
Let me know if you hear anything else about you phone.

I got mine back today. According to the paper work they had to replace the phones main board. This thing is bone stock. It's carrier locked too, I don't know how to unlock it. I can't program it because it wants me to press the send key to activate which dials *228. But I need to dial *22890. Dunno how to do this when it won't let me dial anything.
Time to try to do a non factory rom and brick it again!

I think it took about 3 weeks. Did you send yours with the sim card just in case they need it?

Did any ozone users try the new verizon 6.5 rom to fix the bricking?

I did. No luck.

I can deal with 3 weeks if need be... glad to hear your phone is back though! Are you on Verizon? I assume so if you're dealing with an Ozone but can never be too sure. =) What do you mean by "carrier locked"? Are you refering to the SIM slot? The stock Ozone comes locked to their Vodaphone SIM and you have to call Verizon or pay for an unlock code. If they changed the mainboard then it's probably like a brand new phone. HTC Snap on VZW Sim Unlock
I actually don't have a SIM attached to my account right now since I moved back to my old phone and the card is boxed up somewhere... =/ If they ask for it, I'll just be telling them that I don't have plans to be using it and will SIM unlock the phone when I go to the Phillipines. My phone just hit NY so, I'll let you know what happens to me!

Rhodium500 said:
Did any ozone users try the new verizon 6.5 rom to fix the bricking?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Totally didn't catch this question up above! Yeah, I did also... using both the USB and SD card methods. The bootloader looked like it worked just fine but when the phone would go to boot for the first time, it would freeze at the first HTC screen. I mentioned this in another thread but the Sprint Snap apparently had an issue with similar symptoms which resulted in a hotfix from HTC..
I unpacked it and it looks like just a PRL. If only there was a hotfix like this for the Ozone; would have saved me a bit of time.

i337M Abrupt Signal Loss

Hi everyone,
So about five days ago I was in the middle of using my Galaxy S4 (I think I was playing a game or something) and all of the sudden my cellular signal dropped out completely—from 4 bars to zero with a little X in it. There it's remained ever since.
My first thought was that I ought to reboot the thing and see if that would solve anything. The answer was no.
My second thought was that maybe my contract was up (as that was due to happen this month), and rather than auto-renewing, they kicked me off. Weird, but possible. But that's not it: I phoned up my provider and they said that all systems are go, there are no outages, your account is active for a week still, and even past that contract expiry I'll just get bumped to month-to-month and never experience a blip in service. So that's not it.
So then I put my SIM in another unlocked phone, and lo-and-behold, it connects just fine. So clearly the problem is with my phone.
My i337M is running Liquid Smooth 2.9 and KToonSez' kernel. I decided to make a nandroid and flash back to stock ROM/kernel. Still I could not connect to the network.
I can only think of two potential problems. First, I unlocked the phone myself via FastGSM.com's tethered USB method. It was a Bell-locked phone, and I'm on Rogers. This was accomplished back in July, and since then, there haven't been any issues to speak of (i.e., the unlock worked flawlessly). I tried to see if those unlocks ever expire, and couldn't find any reason why they ought to. I personally don't think it's that, but I mention it out of interest in being thorough.
Second, I messed around with my phones NVData a few weeks back to enable the AWS network via this method. I didn't experience any signal problems after doing so. Again I mention this out of interests of being thorough. Could that have had something to do with it? I suppose I could try flashing back my original NVData, but honestly I don't see why that would suddenly kick in now since I did it weeks ago originally.
Any thoughts? This is really bizarre, and it sucks being without connection.
I was also thinking of flashing back to stock and going to a Bell shop to see what happens when I put a tester SIM in.

It sounds to me like it's hardware related. Don't see anything you've done that would have caused it. I'd flash back to stock and if it still persists I'd file a warranty claim.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app

Hi, thanks for your reply.
An additional thought's occurred to me: I lost signal at or about the same day I setup Android Device Manager to allow for remote lock/wipe directly from Google. That couldn't possibly be responsible for signal loss, could it...?
Currently flashing back to stock, and I'll unroot/restore kernel/restore NVData and make it look factory, and see what the store says about it. Hopefully I don't have to pay for another unlock at some point.

Okay, this is very messed up. Nobody has any idea why my phone isn't getting signal. I can scan for networks and everything shows up, but in any case with any SIM it says "unable to connect to network". It doesn't matter what ROM I'm on. I flashed back to stock and updated to latest using KIES of all things, which found a firmware/modem/baseband update, and still no dice. I don't know what to do with this thing except take it to an unlocking store that might be able to figure something out for me, but it'll cost me. This is messed, I've never had to get someone else to look at my tech for me.

Okay, so the situation is that it most probably is a hardware failure related to the radio.
I am a Rogers customer who bought the phone from a guy from CraigsList who apparently got it from Bell. I went into Bell and explained the situation, and they scanned the IMEI and printed me out a proof of purchase of the guy's name and told me I should take that to the Bell service centre, and it doesn't matter if I'm not the guy. I also had them check to see if he reported the phone stolen; it turns out he did not—though it should be known that if he had done so, then that could have very well been the reason I wasn't getting signal from anyone, as all providers across Canada apparently share their blacklists with one another now (including the little guys like Wind/Mobilicity).
So now I am in the process of making it look like it's never ever been hacked before: I shall restore my NVData, unroot, and update everything using KIES, and then perform a factory data reset. I'm also on the hunt to figure out what the heck the "flash counter" is and whether or not I need to reset that, but perhaps since mine is the i337M Canadian variant, I don't need to worry about that. (Any advice on restoring my phone to factory condition would be welcome, thanks.)
Edit: Figured out TriangleAway and everything associated. I'm all stock now and ready to bring it back to the factory.

MAJOR UPDATE: PROBLEM IDENTIFIED
So I got my phone back from the factory today. They reported that everything is 100% a-ok on the hardware/software side of things. The radio IC is NOT blown as was suspected.
You know what they said? The problem is on the network. I have a story to tell that I think people should hear, as I've learned something very valuable today and people need to learn this lest they get conned themselves.
Today I phoned in Rogers again, armed with new information, to ask what's up. They ran the IMEI number, and this time... it's come up on the blacklist.
It wasn't there last week. In fact, it wasn't even there an hour ago. It actually only appeared there as the clock ticked past midnight Eastern time... as that is EXACTLY 90 days from when the phone was reported missing. It took them a long time to track down this information.
To reiterate, I did not steal the phone. I bought it from a guy on Craigslist who had it brand new in box with the screen-protector sticker still on the front of it. I checked it out, tried it, and unlocked it myself and have been using it since July without issue, until a week ago.
There is the trouble of, why now? Why only now does the IMEI come up blocked? What the senior rep at Rogers thinks happened was that the guy had it delivered to his house, didn't sign for it, kept it in box, reported it as "undelivered", and flipped it to me for cash. Insurance has meanwhile hooked him up with a new phone, and the factory kept my phone in the "we're looking for it" pile for the requisite 90 days, after which they officially publish its IMEI as "blacklisted". That would explain why it worked for a while but doesn't now; and this 90-day TO THE DAY period is the same for Rogers as it is for AT&T apparently (which is where the rep used to work for 10+ years).
I am in possession of stolen property. I've little hope of recuperating my losses. I've been advised to file a police report, and I think I will actually, given that I've got a receipt with the "anonymous" guy from Craigslist's name on it which I had printed out from Bell after they scanned the IMEI number for my factory warranty receipt. This phone will officially never work in Canada, as there is no way for it to be removed from the blacklist. I've been very unfortunate in this case, and it's a real shame.
People should take note: If buying a phone, ALWAYS do it in-store and have the IMEI number run first to check and see if it's on the blacklist. Next, have the phone transferred into your name so that the IMEI and you are officially linked, and the guy can't report his gear stolen or lost. That should suffice in most cases... except in the case of insurance fraud, which is my case, where there is a 90-day delay period in the IMEI number being added to the blacklist (which is why it didn't come up on the blacklist last week when I had the Bell rep run it in-store for me). Another point of interest is that in my case, I found it was possible to lose service BEFORE the number is on the blacklist—assuming the Bell guy didn't run the number wrong last week.
So f**k me. All I can do is try to hack the number, I guess, or find a way to spoof the IMEI.
Edit: Unf***ing believeable—I somehow reenabled data and texting by messing around with QPST. Calls still not happening, though.

Note 4 locked by Rent-A-Center

I just bought a Note 4 from a pawn shop. I checked the IMEI with as many online free checking services that I could find. After I connected it to wifi, I started getting these pop ups saying that the phone is owned by Rent-A-Center and it needed an unlock code. I did a little searching and I guess this is a fairly new thing as of a few months ago. I was able to return it to the pawn shop and cancel the transaction, so I was lucky, but other people who have had their phones for months are all of a sudden getting these messages and being left with no real recourse.
I know this is part of the risk when buying a used phone, but I wanted to see if anyone knows a work around for this? I saw some people were able to install CM and then had no more problems. Someone else was talking about deleting certain partitions that don't get wiped during a factory reset. So does anyone have some good info on this problem??? And just a warning to anyone buying a used phone, you might want to call Rent-A-Center and ask them if they have anything to do with the IMEI number in question. If they are going to lock out a phone, they should find a way to be listed on the free checking services.

Here is a good thread with some info
Found this thread here on XDA
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/help/rent-center-locked-galaxy-s5-t3070877
It has some good info about various ways to get around the problem. I just wonder if RAC will eventually blacklist these phones instead of just having a software lock.