Forum Discussion
Telus no longer Blacklists Stole Phone IMEI numbers
So kids phone got stolen today at knifepoint and multiple attempts to contact Telus to report the phone as stolen has resulted in nothing but them tying to sell me an Avanti service for $8 to protect...
You should be able to disable the device in the Apple Account associated with the device. Telus should also blacklist the device, which will apply to all North American carriers, some South American carriers, and a few in Europe as well. Most stolen devices end up on Asia though, where blacklists from North American carriers are not shared.
Blacklisting doesn't work and I would be surprised is any carrier actually provides it as a solution anymore. It is more of a placebo solution to make the customer "feel good" - like those pedestrian buttons to control traffic lights that are not actually connected to anything. There is also no "disabling" by vendors - too many phones and too many arguments about who the current legitimate owner is. The most that Apple will do is "cause the phone to wipe/reset itself" if the thief is that dumb as to start the phone and open the OS without first going to flight mode (hiding it from cellular and wifi signals). Of course if he can't boot the OS (no apple id) then they have to use other tricks to install a new OS version; but as you say if they go to countries that do not support international intellectual property rights then it is game over and the phone will be reborn as a "renewed" phone on some online seller.
