Hi. My daughter lost her Blackberry three months ago on a weekend trip to Blackpool. We reported it as stolen to O2 and told them to bar the phone as we live in Sunderland and thought there was little or no hope of ever seeing it again. We ordered her a new sim and she was relegated to one of our back-up phones.
Amazingly, someone has found the phone and returned it to us but O2 say they cannot un-bar a phone once it has been barred. This seems ridiculous to me as I am the account holder who had the phone in the first place, not someone who has bought a dodgy phone off ebay......Any advice/help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

You can request for the network provider to unblock the phone, there is a IMEI central database and they put a flag against this special number. They can unflag this not a problem, I'm afraid they are BS you. All they want your daughter to do is sign up for another 24 month contract on a new phone. So I would insist that you write an email to one of O2s directors and complain to get this resolved as customer services are just a bunch people eating maltesers whilst talking to you.

I am sure in Sunderland there will be shops that will un block the phone
Usually costs about £5

This won't be a problem as you can prove your the rightful owner and its not stolen...

Is there a difference between a phone being locked and a barred phone?

If the phone has been blocked / barred via IMEI - they mean the same. Contact O2 to see what they have done with this IMEI for the blackberry.

Locked is locked to a network (eg Orange), but you can pay (eg Orange) a fee (usually £10-£15) to them too unlock.

Barred is the IMEI (serial) number of the phone will be blocked and the phone cannot be used in this country as a phone again, unless the original account holder contacts said phone co. and asks for it to be unbarred....like the OP has tried.

How do they do that?

The block is on the IMEI and changing it is illegal.

Changing the IMEI number is illegal and not advised. I think he may be referring to unlocking from a specific network so any SIM can be used??

As I said earlier it just seems daft that me, the original owner of the phone (which was un-insured, so no claim has been submitted) cannot get the bar lifted.

Scroll down until you find O2 and email the CEO - Ronan Dunne

http://www.ceoemail.com/

Thanks, have fired off an email but don't hold out much hope...

Let us know how you get one.

I have a similar problem with an IMEI number - I bought a Nokia Lumia 800 off eBay a few months ago...came to sell it last week but can't as the IMEI number has a 'lost' flag next to it. Seems the original seller 'lost' the phone and now am stuck with it unless I can get the marker taken off...and eBay won't help as it is outside their 45 days refund period.

Have you got in touch with the seller? There was a thread on here recently where the OP got her money back.

Yeah, tried a few times but they are not responding - not that I thought they would do

Thar's the problem with buying mobiles on ebay. Too many fly by night assholes selling phones, then reporting them lost after 2 months.

I lost my phone reported it to tmobile then I found it a couple of days later and I just rang tmobile back and they unblocked the handset no problems.

If you have a proof of purchase they should un bar it for you

Surely this is fraud [on their behalf]. I'm guessing they've reported it lost to claim on their insurance, insurance fraud? And a fraud against you. Is it not worth reporting to police, maybe that way you may have some chance at getting your money back or at the very least you'll perhaps stop them defrauding others

My partner did this, she had it barred by Tmobile, then when it was returned she phoned up and had it un barred, it was as simple as that, they just asked for security details to prove she was the owner.

Yes Very Easily. Can be done by simply changing part of the IMEI number.

Managed to resolve this now – have had the ‘lost’ marker against the IMEI number removed so that I can now sell the phone.

In theory, yes, I should go to the police and report it as insurance fraud – but, I would very likely then lose the phone to them or it would drag on for ages so I have gone for the easy way and will now just sell it on and be very, very wary about buying a phone again on eBay.

Thanks for the ceo link stevie. Fired off an email to Ronan Dunne (O2's CEO), received a non-automated reply saying they would aim to resolve the complaint within 5 working days. Did NOT receive a response within 5 days so fired off another email expressing my disappointment etc.
Amazingly, the day after, I received a phonecall from a lovely lady named Debbie who said that O2 have reviewed their policy on un-barring Blackberrys (?????) and my daughters phone should be okay to use from then onwards (which it was). Cue very happy daughter..... It just goes to show that you basically do get fobbed off by the first line of customer service. It's just very frustrating that it takes so much effort to accomplish a relatively simple task.

Which it's worth mentioning IS ILLEGAL!!

Depends which country it's done in.