Is There Anything I Can Do About Bad ESN?

Actually sir you can flash an iPhone and get a phone unlocked from sprint. I paid to have mine flashed because my aunt was murdered and my phone and my brothers phone were on her account and because neither of us could pay $350 bill every month they wanted their phones background or to pay the remaining balance on each. I paid $89 for my phone to be taken off sprints network and I have cricket now and the phone has worked great ever since. So your information that you're telling people is not true.

The T-Mobile guy didn't know what he or she was talking about. Rewriting the ESN or IMEI is illegal, as in go to jail illegal if caught. And how would you know what to rewrite it to? There are lots of services on the Internet that claim they can do this. Most are outright scams; they will take your money and you will still have a useless phone afterwards. And it can't be done remotely; they must actually have possession of the phone.

What you CAN do is get a used and disabled Sprint SIM; you should then be able to activate the phone as an iPod. Apple does not enforce Sprint's blacklist; it's only if you try to activate it with a live Sprint SIM that you won't be able to do it.

Jae1020 wrote:

Actually sir you can flash an iPhone and get a phone unlocked from sprint. I paid to have mine flashed because my aunt was murdered and my phone and my brothers phone were on her account and because neither of us could pay $350 bill every month they wanted their phones background or to pay the remaining balance on each. I paid $89 for my phone to be taken off sprints network and I have cricket now and the phone has worked great ever since. So your information that you're telling people is not true.

That has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this thread. Phones can be unlocked from a carrier. The IMEI cannot be changed. Cricket doesn't care if you have an outstanding bill with Sprint. They will activate an unlocked phone on their network.

By the way, if you had your phone hacked to unlock it from Sprint as it sounds like you did, realize that the next time you update the iOS, it may end up being locked back to Sprint.

Hey Lawrence - I have a unique situation and after reading your answers here, think you may actually know the answer.

I bought a Sprint iphone 6+ with a clean ESN for my girlfriend's mother who intends to use it in Russia (read: only abroad). The sprint iPhone 6 appears the only with hardware compatible with Russia's networks...

Really, really unfortunately, I didn't discover in my early research that Sprint doesn't have a default intl unlock on it's iPhones like the others. You have to request it, despite there being laws for phones to be intl unlocked (apparently their policy circumvents it).

The biggest problem is that the phone is "hotlined." Essentially it was on lease and the owner walked away from all his/her lines and devices, with lots of debts owed to Sprint (on devices + for service). In 1 year, collections comes for it and I imagine it will at that point get the kiss-of-death; a bad ESN. I really had to press a Sprint rep after buying the phone to get this info on it.

So frustrating—I gained a false sense of validation from the ESN status.

I wanted to ask if you think there's a solution that could at least get this phone working abroad?

I've thought through:

• Can anyone outside sprint do an intl unlock?
• Do I have any legal right to have it internationally unlocked?
• Being within warranty, if apple replaced it for some other reason (i.e. on applecare), would I at least not have a phone on Sprint's hitlist?

  If that did give me a 'fresh start' could I get that replacement phone intl unlocked? Or does Sprint automatically tie it to the original?

Any feedback is helpful, thanks for reading 🙂

So for what reason did you purchase a TMO SIM, contact TMO, or even purchase a bad ESN device to begin with?

The device is useless... either it was reported stolen or it has a hardware issue.

Return it to the seller for a full refund or accept it as an expensive lesson.

No. The whole point of a blacklist is to block the phone from all carriers. Sprint shares with all of the US carriers. In addition, phones locked to Sprint can never be unlocked for any US carrier; Sprint will only unlock for carriers outside of North America.

Return the phone.

Since you think you know more than I do, why are you bothering to ask? Note that the article you linked to is a generic article for all cell phones. It is clearly wrong for iPhones because they have no ROM to flash. The ESN and IMEI is wired into hardware. Everything else (iOS settings, content, baseband) is in RAM. In any case, it is hacking the phone, and, as the article says, it may bring undesired attention to you if the phone actually is stolen.

I Have a blisted phone after I got it back and replaced it. If the phone was locked to a carrier, it should still be able to be started up by using a SIM from the original carrier. Since my iPhone was unlocked I am able to start up the phone withe any SIM. I just cannot activate it with tmoble at least. I calied tmo and told them my story and they said it cannot be removed from the blacklist(only REDDINGTON CAN ). But I'm able to use it as an iPod or a wifi device. I have even wiped it clean and it started up. Are you saying you cannot get pass the hello screen?

Agustomiy wrote:

I Have a blisted phone after I got it back and replaced it. If the phone was locked to a carrier, it should still be able to be started up by using a SIM from the original carrier. Since my iPhone was unlocked I am able to start up the phone withe any SIM. I just cannot activate it with tmoble at least. I calied tmo and told them my story and they said it cannot be removed from the blacklist(only REDDINGTON CAN ). But I'm able to use it as an iPod or a wifi device. I have even wiped it clean and it started up. Are you saying you cannot get pass the hello screen?

I'm pretty sure that in the past six months, the OP has resolved the issue or had their question answered.

Bad ESN usually means it has been reported stolen. And Sprint does not unlock phones for use in the US. You should return it.