Blacklisted, but unlocked, T-Mobile Galaxy S5 on AT&T

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JoJo2211

Senior Member
Sep 11, 2011
398
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I'm thinking of buying blacklisted TMo GS5 (because of the unlocked bootloader & also because it's cheaper to get a blacklisted phone becuase of the stigma), if I were to unlock it would I be able to use it on AT&T or it's MVNO's? Has anywhere sucessfully tried it? Thanks,
 

daxecutioner24

Senior Member
Jun 24, 2011
1,001
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Last time I checked at&t and Tmobile were sharing blacklisted list. Not 100% sure but I think that was the case a few years ago

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RockRatt

Senior Member
Aug 1, 2010
4,101
3,711
As mentioned above and expanded I think ALL of the big phone companies share the blacklist emei's. I know I saw somewhere that other countries were gonna be doing the same. To help cut down on stolen phones that are bought and then shipped to other countries for use.

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barondebxl

Senior Member
Jul 8, 2011
7,857
2,028
San Diego, CA
Well I did have a blacklisted Note 3 that I was using on at&t. I had no idea it was blacklisted until I tried selling it on Swappa. But it did work for me.

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JoJo2211

Senior Member
Sep 11, 2011
398
62
Well I did have a blacklisted Note 3 that I was using on at&t. I had no idea it was blacklisted until I tried selling it on Swappa. But it did work for me.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

That is strange. If they were supposed to be sharing the database of blacklisted phones how were you able to use it?

Does anyone know for a fact that they are sharing the database? Anybody work at AT&T or T-mObile?
 

barondebxl

Senior Member
Jul 8, 2011
7,857
2,028
San Diego, CA
That is strange. If they were supposed to be sharing the database of blacklisted phones how were you able to use it?

Does anyone know for a fact that they are sharing the database? Anybody work at AT&T or T-mObile?

I have no clue. I bought the note 3 from another XDA user. Used it for 3 weeks then put a listing on Swappa but it was declined cause the phone Imei was blacklisted. Phone worked perfectly fine for the few weeks I had it on AT&T.

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JUSMEJOSE

Senior Member
Jul 29, 2008
1,583
812
Anaheim, CA
I unlock phones etc daily ... and yeah if you have a blacklisted at&t phone you Can't! Use it, unless you go overseas ... But if you have a blacklisted tmobile phone you can unlock it and use with another carrier example (At&t, red locket, h2o) with no problem ....

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risestar2

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2011
53
32
How does a phone that just came out get blacklisted? I'm under the un ow does derstanding that they only blacklist stolen or unpaid phones. Are you saving their now blacklisting phones from other carriers simply because they aren't looking their bootloader?

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mocsab

Senior Member
Aug 16, 2011
3,723
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West Milwaukee
www.shimmeringglass.com
I am not a goody two shoes - far from it - but to me there is something morally wrong with buying and supporting Black listed phones = just to save a few bucks.

you are in effect supporting the people who stole the phone in the first place - I would rather pay a premium price for a new phone and know that I am not getting a deal because of someone elses misfortune than pay less for a black listed phone just to save money,

If you have ever had a phone stolen from you - I think you would agree - buying a black listed phone is not a victimless crime it can perpetrate the original theft and we should all consider avoiding that....all black listed phones are probably not stolen - but how do you know?

my two cents
 
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JoJo2211

Senior Member
Sep 11, 2011
398
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I am not a goody two shoes - far from it - but to me there is something morally wrong with buying and supporting Black listed phones = just to save a few bucks.

you are in effect supporting the people who stole the phone in the first place - I would rather pay a premium price for a new phone and know that I am not getting a deal because of someone elses misfortune than pay less for a black listed phone just to save money,

If you have ever had a phone stolen from you - I think you would agree - buying a black listed phone is not a victimless crime it can perpetrate the original theft and we should all consider avoiding that....all black listed phones are probably not stolen - but how do you know?

my two cents

Most blacklisted phones are either financed or reported lost. That's why they are blacklisted by the carrier. I've never had anybody steal my phone or know of anyone who had their phone stolen. Those who default on their payment deserve to get their phones blacklisted but at that point they are out of the innitial $200+ anyway. So if they're looking to resell the phone to recoupe that money, I'm not sure how that should be looked down upon. Meanwhile those who lose their phones and later go on to report it as stolen because they want to get a new phone thru insurance, get no sympathy from me.
 

MrRuckus

Member
Jun 1, 2009
43
0
Most blacklisted phones are either financed or reported lost. That's why they are blacklisted by the carrier. I've never had anybody steal my phone or know of anyone who had their phone stolen. Those who default on their payment deserve to get their phones blacklisted but at that point they are out of the innitial $200+ anyway. So if they're looking to resell the phone to recoupe that money, I'm not sure how that should be looked down upon. Meanwhile those who lose their phones and later go on to report it as stolen because they want to get a new phone thru insurance, get no sympathy from me.

This. But my friend was caught by this, and there is no resolve for the issue he ran into. Goes like this:

He wanted to upgrade, but his upgrade was not up yet, so he decided to go on craigslist and buy a Brand new in box factory sealed GS3. He did so for something like $450 right after launch. He took the phone out of the box, set it up with his SIM, was on tmo fine for about a month or 40 days or so.
He goes to use his phone, and it wont connect to tmo, wont call via wifi, ect. So he calls tmo. They tell him the phone's original account defaulted and was never paid on, even though it was now on his account, and he had been a customer for something like 12+ years with a 4G tablet, and multiple phones in the past, they said they could do nothing to remove the blacklist. They said it was originally purchased with another GS3. They think it was most likely some kind of identity fraud. Sign somebody up and grab two $450 phones and sellem factory sealed.

He ended up selling it as a blacklisted phone on tmo to an AT&T Sub who unlocked it and used it on that carrier, but at a large loss.

For this reason, I will never buy a second hand phone. Its not worth the risk of losing the amount of money these phones go for off contract. Unless someone can prove the phone is paid off. In which case I probably still wouldn't do it.
 

mocsab

Senior Member
Aug 16, 2011
3,723
1,372
West Milwaukee
www.shimmeringglass.com
Most blacklisted phones are either financed or reported lost. That's why they are blacklisted by the carrier. I've never had anybody steal my phone or know of anyone who had their phone stolen. Those who default on their payment deserve to get their phones blacklisted but at that point they are out of the innitial $200+ anyway. So if they're looking to resell the phone to recoupe that money, I'm not sure how that should be looked down upon. Meanwhile those who lose their phones and later go on to report it as stolen because they want to get a new phone thru insurance, get no sympathy from me.

Proof again that I very rarely know what i am talking about - - apologies -someone I know explained black listed phones differently to me - your explanation makes sense - I appreciate the clarification.
 
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JUSMEJOSE

Senior Member
Jul 29, 2008
1,583
812
Anaheim, CA
Blacklisted ? I clean imei's lol

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

So far only couple of people are able to do the new Galaxy S5 including me .... well the AT&T at the moment ... I'm waiting for a TMobile donor phone to begin the process ...

But I'm not gonna go into details about this kind of stuff ...

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk
 

kawaiichi

Member
Dec 13, 2013
40
5
I thought blacklisted phones cannot connect to any GSM carriers in the US because they share the same IMEI database?
 

i5lee8bit

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2006
491
1,101
escaped New Jersey 🙏🙌
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blacklisted != blocked != reported lost != reported stolen...

there's different situations that warrant where it'll be blocked from and different databases. actually, checkesnfree dot com does a pretty good job explaining it, though it's not 100% foolproof. just run a test with an imei number and see the different response types. they give you a decent list of possible results.

i've run AT&T on an unlocked T-Mobile SGS3 that was reported lost and it still works. because it's blocked from T-Mobile but not blacklisted across all.

hope this gives you some insight. i nearly got ripped by an eBay seller who sold me a fraudulently obtained S5 which i promptly returned and thank God it all worked out (dude had 100% positive across several years too, it surprised the sheeeet outta me). I ended up driving to Delaware (only 40 minutes from me and I had to do other shopping anyway) and got it tax free with my friend's T-Mobile number at $660 instead of $689. paid $25 on eBay for the unlock code and now I'm 100% worry free, bootloader lock free, KNOX free lol, and rooted.

lesson: it's a $650+ investment. be smart. since I'm running it on AT&T anyway, I could have kept that eBay phone which was blocked and not blacklisted, but why bother? who knows what could happen down the line? value would also be down. plus, I made 30 minutes of phone calls with my friend's T-Mo sim card (to be safe, 30, not just 5) just to ensure it also gets region unlocked too. =)

if you do buy it somewhere else, make sure they have a receipt showing it was PAID IN FULL. cash. they could report a stolen CC number down the line too so I wouldn't trust even one paid in full with CC. even then with a cash receipt I would be careful.. they could report it stolen later down the line, collect insurance, whatever! which goes around again to this: it's not worth it, just get it straight from the carrier! it's a freakin $650-$700 device, it's not worth gambling to save a few bucks!
 

hazy4days

Senior Member
Nov 17, 2009
84
9
Blacklisted doesnt necessarily mean stolen. Most of the time some ppls phone is damaged were thr company will demand them to buy another phone instead they report it lost n pay for insurance to get another one easy. It makes sense ur paying for insurance why not use to its full potential?

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Shady545

Member
Jan 1, 2012
38
4
I just purchased a S5 a couple days ago from Craigslist. Meet the person in a T-mobile store and checked the imei before buying it. Everything checked out and I bought it.

A friend once gave me a Verison DroidX. I called Verizon and they confirmed it was Blacklisted. Took it to metro and activated it with no problems.
 

Z51

Senior Member
Nov 28, 2006
1,060
138
My S5 is black listed and working just fine on at&t network. No locked boot loader and rooted all the way. Got it cheap too haha

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

---------- Post added at 01:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:09 AM ----------

Blacklisted ? I clean imei's lol

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

You can't clean the S5 yet...... Waiting on the update lol. I think SPT is gonna get it first

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk
 
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    I unlock phones etc daily ... and yeah if you have a blacklisted at&t phone you Can't! Use it, unless you go overseas ... But if you have a blacklisted tmobile phone you can unlock it and use with another carrier example (At&t, red locket, h2o) with no problem ....

    Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk
    2
    Blacklisted ? I clean imei's lol

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

    So far only couple of people are able to do the new Galaxy S5 including me .... well the AT&T at the moment ... I'm waiting for a TMobile donor phone to begin the process ...

    But I'm not gonna go into details about this kind of stuff ...

    Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk
    2
    Hi, can I unlock it anywhere and still use it? How will I know if it works or not? Is there anyway for them to track the phone down once I use it? I would love to have you unlock it. Where are you located?

    ---------- Post added at 03:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:45 PM ----------




    I heard you can't clean the IMEM on the Samsung Galaxy s5 yet bc the firmware. It's too new. If you can I hope you're located in Socal! LMK!:laugh:

    You can unlock any phone (Blacklisted or NOT!) But for example if you have a (AT&T device [Unlocked] you cant use it here *USA* only overseas) But if you a T-Mobile [Unlocked] you can use here *USA* only AT&T carrier compatible .....
    1
    I am not a goody two shoes - far from it - but to me there is something morally wrong with buying and supporting Black listed phones = just to save a few bucks.

    you are in effect supporting the people who stole the phone in the first place - I would rather pay a premium price for a new phone and know that I am not getting a deal because of someone elses misfortune than pay less for a black listed phone just to save money,

    If you have ever had a phone stolen from you - I think you would agree - buying a black listed phone is not a victimless crime it can perpetrate the original theft and we should all consider avoiding that....all black listed phones are probably not stolen - but how do you know?

    my two cents
    1
    Most blacklisted phones are either financed or reported lost. That's why they are blacklisted by the carrier. I've never had anybody steal my phone or know of anyone who had their phone stolen. Those who default on their payment deserve to get their phones blacklisted but at that point they are out of the innitial $200+ anyway. So if they're looking to resell the phone to recoupe that money, I'm not sure how that should be looked down upon. Meanwhile those who lose their phones and later go on to report it as stolen because they want to get a new phone thru insurance, get no sympathy from me.

    Proof again that I very rarely know what i am talking about - - apologies -someone I know explained black listed phones differently to me - your explanation makes sense - I appreciate the clarification.