My husband bought an iphone from a guy at his work. The guy had some vague story about it being his girlfriend’s phone that was lost, an insurance claim was made, and then it was found again, but in the meantime she’d gotten a new phone. I don’t imagine that’s the whole story, but I also don’t believe that it’s stolen.
I needed to get it unlocked so I could use my existing sim card. I can’t remember what network it was on, but I’m on Orange (in the UK) and that wasn’t it. So I took it to a shop that unlocks phones and got it done. My sim card worked there at the shop, but I couldn’t get a signal at my house, which was strange because I had no problem with that when the card was in my Nokia phone. So I put the sim card back in my Nokia and was just using the iphone like an itouch, for music and apps.
Anyway, I put the sim card back in the iphone to see if the first try had been a fluke, and was pleased to find that it was getting a signal at the house. Well that lasted about an hour, and then it stopped. I went into town with it thinking that maybe there was just something about where I live (sort of out in the country) but even in town it just said either ‘no service’ or would say Orange but there was no signal. Now I’m annoyed and have put the sim card back in my Nokia so that I have a working phone, but I’m wondering if there’s something I’ve done wrong.
I just don’t know enough about iphones, sim cards, etc. to really even ask the right questions.
My first thought is that if the guy we bought it from made an insurance claim, he may have reported it stolen, in which case the phone may be being blocked?
Can anyone who knows about these things enlighten me? I don’t like carrying around both the Nokia (as a phone) and the iphone (for the music and apps) and would obviously rather just have the one thing to keep track of.
I’d get in touch with the service provider and ask them - IME they don’t really care about people having jailbroken their iPhones so they might just answer a straight question.
If you can ,I would suggest carrying the iphone full time and note the different reception in different areas, some phones are just better than others at pulling in weak signals and your home may simply be just a bad 3g reception area for some reason. The Nokia may be operating under the edge network, and giving it better signal around your home.
I may be mistaken, but I don’t think we have edge here in the UK. We have 3g and GPRS, my iphone works on both. There is a specific serial number, called the IMEI, tied to each phone that the networks can use to block a phone if it’s stolen or lost. It’s possible that when you first power on the phone is connecting to the network, but shortly after the IMEI is recognised and the phone blocked.
That’s just a WAG, but a cheap(ish) way to try would be to find out what network gives best coverage at home, and buy a PAYG sim for it.
Another possibility is that the phone is just knackered, and your hubby’s been sold a lemon.
Thanks for the replies so far. I’ve phoned my carrier who were less than useful except to say that the IMEI number has been blacklisted by the other networks. I got my husband to ask the guy he bought the phone from, who said it was never reported to the police, just a claim on insurance was made in order to get a replacement.
My next try is to phone the carrier that the previous owner was on (now that I know which one it is) and see if they can help. Or would phoning Apple help at all?
Bunny TVS - I thought about buying a different payg sim card to stick in the phone but the only carrier that gets any signal out where we live is Orange, and that’s what I’m already on. And anyway since it seems that it’s the IMEI number that’s blocked, which is unique to the phone, changing the sim card wouldn’t help.
On second thought, its possible – but not likely – that if the phone is still under AppleCare that you can make a genius bar appointment and they’ll swap it out for you.
It’s worth a shot – www.apple.com and pick your local apple store.
I just spoke to the previous owner’s carrier (who were much more helpful than mine) and they confirmed that I’m SOL. Since it’s been reported as lost to the insurance company it can’t be un-blacklisted. So I can use it for music and apps but not as a phone. I wish I’d known this before my husband bought the thing!
It’s the jurisdiction thing that got me then, not technical. We don’t have black listing here in Canada , so I assumed it was a technical issue.
I would imagine that her only option of she wants to go through the trouble of doing it, is to see if she can clone the imei of a donor phone that’s non operable.
Other wise it’s just a touch at this point, hopefully skype works on it.