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The IMEI blacklists don't work across borders. My sister in law's Blackberry was stolen from her at a mall in South Africa. It was reported and added to the IME
by buyx 12y ago
The IMEI blacklists don't work across borders. My sister in law's Blackberry was stolen from her at a mall in South Africa. It was reported and added to the IMEI blacklist. A few months later I accidentally added her old PIN as a BBM contact and ended up chatting to a chap in Nigeria.
It isn't farfetched to assume that network providers don't really care about stolen phones in the third world. Until they do, IMEI blacklists won't mean much.
- tzs 12y ago> It isn't farfetched to assume that network providers don't really care about stolen phones in the third world. Network providers probably don't care about stolen phones in the first world. If they could find a way to ignore domestic IMEI blacklists without too much public outcry, they probably would. In the US, the top four carriers make almost $8 billion per year selling theft insurance to their customers [1]. I don't have a cite handy, but I recall reading that they also make a huge amount selling replacement phones to people whose phones were stolen. Samsung planned to do a kill switch on its phones to fight theft a while ago, and the carriers blocked it. Many believe they blocked it to protect those insurance and replacement phone profits. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/iphone-kill-switch_n_4308924.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/iphone-kill-switch_...
- gadders 12y agoSometimes IMEI blacklists mean too much. There was a batch of cheap Chinese counterfeit phones in Bangladesh (IIRC) that all had the same IMEI. One got stolen, the IMEI got blocked, and all of that make of phone was unusable. Background info here: http://www.moremag.pk/2012/11/08/3-million-mobile-phones-in-pakistan-are-having-same-imei-number/ http://www.moremag.pk/2012/11/08/3-million-mobile-phones-in-...