looking up ESN's

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

Wow, a new annoyance at VZW. I called them to check on a couple of
ESN's for phones I was considering to buy. I have done this in the
past with no problem at all. I just ask them to make sure the phone
will be compatible on VZW, so I'm not buying a paperweight. Well this
time they said they were busy, they would call me back. I was busy
too, so I said, please e-mail me. Which they did, a short while later.
Here's the ludicrous part. The response was that they can't check
ESN's anymore, until I "buy the phone first". Well if I'm checking an
auction sale and want to make sure someone's not ripping me off or
selling a stolen phone, wouldn't I need to check this out prior to the
purchase, not after? Additionally, after I buy the phone I would go
online and activate it, not ask if it was compatible. Of course they
followed up by stating that any phone I bought from VZW would be
warranteed, as if I could afford their prices, let alone the fact that
they don't carry models that I want.

Is this why I've stuck with VZW all this time? Customer Service isn't
really doing me any service, in this case.

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

momcat_one wrote:
> I almost forgot. Can any of you agents out there look
> these up for me?

How about just trying to activat them on the web?
Won't that reject it if it's not compatible?

And... isn't *any* phone with an ESN going to
be compatible? I thought ESN ==> CDMA.

So do the ESN swap on the web. If it works
just swap your current ESN back.

Or are you trying to find out if they have been
stolen, reported, and "blacklisted"?

-Quick

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

Quick wrote:
> And... isn't *any* phone with an ESN going to
> be compatible? I thought ESN ==> CDMA.

TDMA (IS-136) and AMPS phones also have an ESN. GSM phones don't (they
have an IMEI). Don't know about iDEN (Nextel).

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 02:28:50 GMT, "slim stick"
<tim.2.pender.xspamz@verizon.net.not> wrote:

>the phone could have a balance outstanding on last account that used it or
>it could be lost/stolen/etc.

Or the phone may have a vendor lock... phones are sold for less than
cost. Sometimes vendors will lock the phone so only they can
provision the phone... VZW does this on almost all it's phones
nowdays.

So you may not be able to tell from just the ESN... you might have to
actually try provisioning the actual phone and see if it works...
Customer Care can't do this by themselves.

My rule of thumb is if it wasn't originally sold by VZW then you have
no assurance it will work on VZW.

That having been said... any CDMA phone without the vendor lock can be
proviioned to work on VZW even if the specific model was not
originally sold by VZW and there is no profile for the phone in the
billing system. It can be provisioned as a generic phone. This may
not utilize all features of the phone but you will be able to place
and receive calls...