Everyone is speculating , the guy never paid his bill , the guy paid with false details , the phone was stolen in a batch

It may help if people dealt only in what we know and not what we think happened , Three have never said it was stolen or not paid for , they used the excuse the phone was not been with the sim it was issued with

And as a basic ruer thats not a valid reason to get it blacklisted , unless.............


but thats speculating


I think Three should recognise the innocent loser here is the Op and offer something , either the proper reason why it was blacklisted or a free refurbished phone

The only person who wins by blacklisting the phone is the guy who sold it .Three don't endear themnselves to the op for they way he as been treated .
Op , can't you make contact with the seller , do you have any details still .

I'm not really speculating. I'm just saying whatever the reason, be it a, b or c three should offer some explanation. not just blacklist it for a completely spurious reason.

Maybe you were......

It's purely down to the fact that 3 do not recognise eBay has being a valid way of selling their phones and therefore will not validate any eBay payment as being a valid proof of purchase.

Well yes. but even if the OP was given the phone buy the guy he bought it off three's teatment is still short of acceptable.

focus on the first part of that post...

if your gonna buy a phone on ebay make sure its fully unlocked lol failing that pop in to your local cex see what they have

It was in the second part where you were speculating , that the guy had stopped paying and it was all a scam and possibly involved using a stolen credit card

Appologies if I have misread the quote

No you read it correctly. TBH i get frustrated with the fact that some posters on threads like this miss the point of what i'm saying and keep saying the same thing louder and louder as if i don't understand what they said. So out of frustration i end up trying to paint a very clear scenario to make the point clearer.

My only point really is that regardless of the legitimacy of three's assertion that it's stolen, the thing abou the sim is nonsense and they need to justify why they're blacklisting it.

No it's not. They have no legal or moral obligation to do anything for the OP.

Morally yes IMHO

If this happened to you , you would not want to renew your contract next year

I certainly wouldn't

Three should have considered requested the phone back and replacing it with a refurbished phone not just bricking it

Lots of people innocently sell their phone upgrades as they are happy with their current phone and it offsets the cost of the new contract without ANY problem

I'm not talking about doing any thing for the OP, (forgetting for a minute that he is actually a three customer,) i'm saying that before bricking his phone they should offer an explanation. to someone. the police even.

The same thing has happened to me. I bought a Sony Ericsson K850i on Ebay, which was unlocked from 3's network. It was then blacklisted this week, about 2 months after I started using it. Fortunately my ebay seller has given me a full refund and I will return the phone to him, but it appears that 3 will blacklist any phone if used with another SIM before the duration of the contract is complete.

I'm not sure how legal this actually is, on the assumption that the seller continues to pay their bills, but there you go.

Cheers,
Jez

No, the OP has bought a product that a service provider are preventing him from using. To do that they have to provide a legitimate reason as they are rendering something he has purchased as useless. If Three have a valid reason for doing so then it's fair enough, if not then they are leaving themselves wide open for legal action because they'd have no right to block a phone without a valid reason.

The OP doesn't have to prove the phone is not stolen at all. If the OP thinks it is stolen then they should visit the police station to report the fact that it's been sold to them, if not they could face handling charges because they've held on to the property and done nothing about it (that's IF Three are saying it's stolen of course).

The onus really is on Three. The OP has purchased the phone and the next thing that happens is Three take action against him. They need to be able to justify that action. If it turns out it's as a result of the phone being stolen the OP needs to report it to the police station that he's been sold stolen property. If it turns out that the seller was the owner of the phone and so didn't steal it, but Three had a contractual interest in it and so the seller didn't have a right to sell it then the OP can still make a complaint of fraud because they've been left out of pocket while the seller has profited from the sale.


They don't have to give exact details to the OP. They should in theory be able to confirm if it's stolen or not, but regardless of that if Three have cause to block the phone then the OP is in a situation where he needs to speak to the police. If Three doesn't have just cause to block the phone then he needs to quite rightly demand Three unblock the phone asap or face complaints and possible civil action.

I would imagine if he was already on Three that he has a handset anyway.

Seems straightforward to me. It is being used by someone other than the contracted user and with a SIM/number other than the one attached to that contract, therefore it is blacklisted.

It's 3's prerogative to do this and no doubt there will be something in the contract T & C's that says they can. The villain here is the guy who sold it - not 3. The victim is the guy who bought it.

Yeah he could be really lucky and have had to have bought a replacement , an E616 at a budget price instead of a nice N95


There are handsets and there are handsets

It's not though, the blacklist is for stolen phones, that is all. you can't report something as stolen on a whim.

Stolen has a fairly clear definition in english and in law. it's not up to three to re-define it.

Where does it say the blacklist is only for stolen phones.

Surely if the person took a contract out and didn't pay, leaving money owed for the subsidised handset, then it's stolen?

Found this. I didn't know it was illegal to change a phones IMEI number:
" Home Secretary David Blunkett introduced a new law making re-programming IMEI numbers punishable by up to five years in jail under the Mobile Phones (Reprogramming) Act 2002. This new law became active on the 4th October 2002 . (this new law does not effect handset unlocking)".

Report to whom? It belongs to 3 and they haven't been paid for it - they have the right therefore to turn it into a brick.

How exactly do you know that it hasn't been paid for??? That's my point. they aren't saying it's not been paid for just that it's not being used with the correct sim.

You being serious??? For one the DEIR who maintain the list say it's for 'lost or stolen mobile phones'