Legal Situation With Stolen Phone

deepspeed

Not sure if this is the best place to post, but thought might get most exposure from people who might know... but...


My dad had his phone stolen recently,

Reported it and the IMEI num to Vodafone/Gardai etc..

My question is:

I heard that there was a new law brought in allowing operators (vodafone in this case) to barr the IMEI of my dad's fone from their network now so it is useless to the thief no mattter what SIM card he/she uses,

Is this true???

Does it apply to other networks also, or worldwide (e.g. can mr. thief sell the phone in the usa or uk or nigeria, and it will work on any network??)

Thanks,

Sleipnir

The IMEI can be banned but the ban only works on the three networks in Ireland.
If the phone was used in the states or wherever it would work.

netman

I also understand that the various tools people use to unlock phones have a feature to change the IMEI code, so all of that is pretty much pointless...

Unless it's some junkie who's going to trade the phone for some crack.

shepthedog

Should these posts not be in the Mobiles/PDAs section, not the for sale section?

Lord diablo

the process is called blacklisting and it is fairly hard to change the imei of a phone, u actually have to tell the network ie vodafone u want the phone blacklisted. At the mo it does only ban them on the irish networks but they are working it out to ban it across europe.

Barrie

iv a 3650 and iv got it secured thers software on various sites to prevent ppl activating ur fone il giv u sum sites if u want.was it a dear fone????

Jammer

the fone would be flashed...and ur software gone...

Barrie

suppose so but maybe the person isint so smart,and wuldnt go through the bother of bringin it to a shop!!!!!!!!