Bad ESN

[TWong1200]

I see a lot of phones for sale on eBay and Craigslist tha state that they have bad ESNs. Are these things basically unusable on Verizon unless flashed to another carrier like MetroPCS or others?

And how does an ESN go 'bad'?

Thanks

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[droidbionic]

non-paid phone bills

 

[TWong1200]

Ah...makes sense. So until the bill is paid, they are useless?

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[LtKen]

ESNs dont really go bad, they're just blacklisted in Verizon's databases.

Unpaid bills and stolen phones will prompt an ESN to be blacklisted.

As far as I know, there's no way to remove the phone from the blacklist.

 

[TWong1200]

Gotcha....and really the only way to verify that a phone does NOT have a bad ESN is to try to activate it, I assume?

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[LtKen]

Verizon will tell you the status of an ESN if you call them.

Generally, the phones on Craigslist and Ebay are stolen with bad ESNs.

 

[TWong1200]

Gotcha...thanks for the info