Despite my warnings not to go to crowded dance floors & concerts with a wide open purse with the cell and iPod Touch and my daughter does just that, and her luck ran out last week when she got her LG Voyager Titanium cell phone stolen. I had purchased theft-replacement insurance and they are sending me a replacement Voyager in few days.
The insurance company “Asurion” asked for all my phone FCC & cell ID data so that’s now logged into their system. Will this phone be flagged as stolen if the thief tries to re-activate it?
According to the Verizon guy I talked to at one of their stores a while back, pretty much yeah, it locks the phone out of the system so it can’t be used.
Incidentally, I’m told this is a reason why it can be risky to buy cell phones on eBay, since you won’t know if the phone is still useable until after you get it and try to activate it.
Aye, phones have a unique id for the handset and a separate one for the subscriber.
Phone companies can lock the handset out of a network with no problem.
It’s also possible (but tricky) to convince them to unblock a handset if you find the phone.
That said, I believe it’s possible for a knowledgeable person to change the unique id of the phone. But they’re more likely to just sell it for parts or flog it on e-bay.
No sure about Verizon - but I “lost” my AT&T phone about six months ago & had to buy a new phone (no insurance). AT&T told me I could reactivate the phone if I found it - which I did about 6 weeks later (slipped under the driver’s seat in the car). Since I had a newer phone, I gave the older phone to my husband, who was able to reactivate it with his own AT&T number (with my participation in the reactivation process).