Questions about IMEI Blacklist

[xkc2020]

 THIS IS NOT ORIGINALLY MINE: I saw this on Fido's forums, and would like clarification from Telus on this matter. The original Thread on Fido is here: Fido Link

The only edit I've made from the original post is changing the word Fido to Telus.

BEGIN QUOTE:

I am familiar with the new IMEI blacklist that has recently been rolled out by the national carriers and I support the move as an effort to curb phone theft from consumers. But I have some concerns about potentially massive holes that would allow abuse of the initiative.

As I understand it, if I buy a phone from a carrier and it is subsequently lost or stolen, I can call my carrier and have the IMEI blocked by adding to a blacklist. Further, this blacklist is shared by all of the participating Canadian carriers and by many international carriers, so it will be blocked on those networks too. So far so good.

Now, I have a few additional questions and I'd really appreciate it if someone from Telus could answer each one separately.

1. If I buy a phone directly from a manufacturer, say Apple, and I use it on Telus(and call to have the IMEI added to my device equipment history list), if this phone is later stolen, can I call Telus and have it added to the blacklist?
2. If I buy a phone from someone that bought it from Telus, would they be able to later call Telus and have the IMEI blacklisted?
3. As a follow up to question 2, if I buy the phone from someone that bought it from Telus, can he and I call Telus to have the IMEI removed from his account list and added to my account equipment list? Would that prevent him from subsequently being able to have it illegitimately blacklisted? If it removed his account and is added to mine, can he still have it blacklisted?
4. If a phone is illegitimately added to the blacklist, is there any mechanism to have it removed from the blacklist?
5. If a phone is bought on subsidy from a carrier and the buyer defaults on their contract (say they "disappear") will the IMEI automatically be blacklisted by the carrier?

 The scenarios I am imagining for abuse (and have now read about) are:

• Someone buys a phone from a carrier, sells it, and then calls his carrier to report it as stolen in order to make an insurance claim for a new phone. If, when it was sold to another person, the new buyer was able to have it added to their account and thereby prevent the shady original buyer from blacklisting it, that would close this avenue for defrauding the carrier and the new buyer.
• A couple breakup. One partner had both phones under their name and calls to have the IMEI of the other person illegitimately blacklisted. Can that be remedied after the fact?

I understand that it may be in the interests of the carriers to discourage buying from anyone but their stores, but the fact is that sales to occur outside of the carriers. The answers to these questions is important in order to determine whether the new blacklist is being used or could be used to undermine confidence in buying phones from outside the carriers, which was never the intent of the blacklist proposed by the CRTC.

END QUOTE

[Dark_Knight · Accepted solution]

Answer to your questions --

1) Yes, even devices purchased directly from the OEM can be added to the blacklist. Once the device registers on a carriers network, it can be blacklisted. Unlocked or otherwise.

2/3) Yes and no. If you bought a TELUS phone from a 3rd party, they would be able to track the IMEI to the account it last registered on, thus preventing (in most cases) the device from being blacklisted by the previous owner. That said, if you purchase an unlocked device from another carrier (Rogers, Bell, etc), if the customer still has an active account with that carrier, they could definitely call their carrier to have it blacklisted, which would immediately cease functionality on the TELUS network.

4) Depends - In the above scenario with unlocked devices, you are likely SOL. If it is a phone that was originally purchased from your carrier and then re-sold, you have a much better shot. 

5) Absolutely not - In those circumstances, the carrier will suspend/cancel the account. They do not blacklist IMEIs for delinquents. 

One of our fellow users posted this link the other day. It's a good place to check if a device you are interested in purchasing has been blacklisted - http://www.protectyourdata.ca/protect-yourself/ 

From personal experience, i've been burned too many time to consider purchasing a phone from a 3rd party. i buy all my phones unlocked from the OEM. No contracts, no subsidies, no worries. Haha

Hope that was helpful. 

P.S. You thinking about purchasing a new device?

[xkc2020]

Thanks! I have an unlocked phone that has been blocked only on the telus network. It works fine on every other network (ran it for 2 weeks on both bell and rogers after it stopped working on telus), so it gives me pause to the reasoning of why it doesn't work. The person who sold it to me has tried to disappear off the map, disconnected their number, but I forwarded their new number and their address to the appropriate authorities.

I buy semi-broken phones and recondition them to like-new with a disclaimer that it is a seller refurbished device. This was the only transaction that went wrong, a week down the road after the customer received it. This is out of the 90 or so transactions I make a month. Now I'm out about $80 for a new motherboard with a new IMEI programmed in.

Thank you for your help!

[YCX]

Is there a timeframe within which the prior owner could blacklist the phone? For Fido, it is 60 days after the prior user used the phone for the last time, does this apply to Telus too? Like, the prior owner could not call Telus reporting "Stolen" after 60 days?