Mobile phone blocked

savergrant

Paul74 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

Paul74 said:

Ermm,,

flaneurs_lobster said:

Paul74 said:

Seems like a really specific scam that makes buying a 2nd half phone extremely risky. Surely Music Magpie and others are aware of this? Shouldn't they explain this when selling mobile phones??

Explain what exactly? That at any time after you purchase a phone from them a previous owner can claim that the phone has been stolen from them thus causing the phone to be bricked?

Kind of destroys their entire business model.

Errmm, exactly. This practice shouldn't be allowed. Thanks for your extremely helpful input anyway.

Not in any way meant as a criticism of your genuine complaint, rather a real concern at the way phones can be made non-operational by fraudulent and/or malicious actions by previous owners.

Apologies for the misunderstanding! Yes, this practice should not be allowed. Maybe Music Magpie did act faithfully, but there's a major technical glitch as you say. I'd be suprised if this scenario doesn't happen quite often. So I fully expect Music Magpie & the other phone recycle companies to be fully aware of this situation. 

Surely I have grounds for a legal claim?

If music magpie are prepared to replace the item after over a year then you will not be out of pocket but they will be. The solution is for secondhand retailers to register all items which are sold to them and the police to investigate any which are subsequently reported stolen. It is extremely unlikely that someone will just discover that a mobile tablet was stolen over a year ago, so it looks like insurance fraud or a genuine mistake and reporting the wrong item as stolen. Either way it makes no sense to deactivate a perfectly good electrical item when we are supposed to be reducing our waste footprint.

ballyblack

"police to investigate any which are subsequently reported stolen."

Ha Ha!  no chance

Paul74

savergrant said:

Paul74 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

Paul74 said:

Ermm,,

flaneurs_lobster said:

Paul74 said:

Seems like a really specific scam that makes buying a 2nd half phone extremely risky. Surely Music Magpie and others are aware of this? Shouldn't they explain this when selling mobile phones??

Explain what exactly? That at any time after you purchase a phone from them a previous owner can claim that the phone has been stolen from them thus causing the phone to be bricked?

Kind of destroys their entire business model.

Errmm, exactly. This practice shouldn't be allowed. Thanks for your extremely helpful input anyway.

Not in any way meant as a criticism of your genuine complaint, rather a real concern at the way phones can be made non-operational by fraudulent and/or malicious actions by previous owners.

Apologies for the misunderstanding! Yes, this practice should not be allowed. Maybe Music Magpie did act faithfully, but there's a major technical glitch as you say. I'd be suprised if this scenario doesn't happen quite often. So I fully expect Music Magpie & the other phone recycle companies to be fully aware of this situation. 

Surely I have grounds for a legal claim?

If music magpie are prepared to replace the item after over a year then you will not be out of pocket but they will be. The solution is for secondhand retailers to register all items which are sold to them and the police to investigate any which are subsequently reported stolen. It is extremely unlikely that someone will just discover that a mobile tablet was stolen over a year ago, so it looks like insurance fraud or a genuine mistake and reporting the wrong item as stolen. Either way it makes no sense to deactivate a perfectly good electrical item when we are supposed to be reducing our waste footprint.

I get your point, but getting another phone from Music Magpie is simply kicking the can down the road! - it could very easily happen again in 1 month, 12 months time........who knows!

I would rather buy a new phone then pursue Music Magpie for a refund or at least fair value for this current phone. It should be up to them, the carriers & insurance companies to get their acts together & work to ensure these scams do not happen again & pursue the original sellers.

Jon_01

Paul74 said:

savergrant said:

Paul74 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

Paul74 said:

Ermm,,

flaneurs_lobster said:

Paul74 said:

Seems like a really specific scam that makes buying a 2nd half phone extremely risky. Surely Music Magpie and others are aware of this? Shouldn't they explain this when selling mobile phones??

Explain what exactly? That at any time after you purchase a phone from them a previous owner can claim that the phone has been stolen from them thus causing the phone to be bricked?

Kind of destroys their entire business model.

Errmm, exactly. This practice shouldn't be allowed. Thanks for your extremely helpful input anyway.

Not in any way meant as a criticism of your genuine complaint, rather a real concern at the way phones can be made non-operational by fraudulent and/or malicious actions by previous owners.

Apologies for the misunderstanding! Yes, this practice should not be allowed. Maybe Music Magpie did act faithfully, but there's a major technical glitch as you say. I'd be suprised if this scenario doesn't happen quite often. So I fully expect Music Magpie & the other phone recycle companies to be fully aware of this situation. 

Surely I have grounds for a legal claim?

If music magpie are prepared to replace the item after over a year then you will not be out of pocket but they will be. The solution is for secondhand retailers to register all items which are sold to them and the police to investigate any which are subsequently reported stolen. It is extremely unlikely that someone will just discover that a mobile tablet was stolen over a year ago, so it looks like insurance fraud or a genuine mistake and reporting the wrong item as stolen. Either way it makes no sense to deactivate a perfectly good electrical item when we are supposed to be reducing our waste footprint.

I get your point, but getting another phone from Music Magpie is simply kicking the can down the road! - it could very easily happen again in 1 month, 12 months time........who knows!

I would rather buy a new phone then pursue Music Magpie for a refund or at least fair value for this current phone. It should be up to them, the carriers & insurance companies to get their acts together & work to ensure these scams do not happen again & pursue the original sellers.

It's odd that EE would have blacklisted it this long after it was sold to you?   They should have checked the last time the owner used it, which in this case would have been over a year ago.  You could call them and ask their fraud team to look into it.

Or, someone at EE has taken a lost/stolen report and entered one digit wrong on the IMEI blacklisting system and placed the action on the wrong handset.  I can't think of anyway of checking that. Data protection gets in the way. . .

Paul74

Jon_01 said:

Paul74 said:

savergrant said:

Paul74 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

Paul74 said:

Ermm,,

flaneurs_lobster said:

Paul74 said:

Seems like a really specific scam that makes buying a 2nd half phone extremely risky. Surely Music Magpie and others are aware of this? Shouldn't they explain this when selling mobile phones??

Explain what exactly? That at any time after you purchase a phone from them a previous owner can claim that the phone has been stolen from them thus causing the phone to be bricked?

Kind of destroys their entire business model.

Errmm, exactly. This practice shouldn't be allowed. Thanks for your extremely helpful input anyway.

Not in any way meant as a criticism of your genuine complaint, rather a real concern at the way phones can be made non-operational by fraudulent and/or malicious actions by previous owners.

Apologies for the misunderstanding! Yes, this practice should not be allowed. Maybe Music Magpie did act faithfully, but there's a major technical glitch as you say. I'd be suprised if this scenario doesn't happen quite often. So I fully expect Music Magpie & the other phone recycle companies to be fully aware of this situation. 

Surely I have grounds for a legal claim?

If music magpie are prepared to replace the item after over a year then you will not be out of pocket but they will be. The solution is for secondhand retailers to register all items which are sold to them and the police to investigate any which are subsequently reported stolen. It is extremely unlikely that someone will just discover that a mobile tablet was stolen over a year ago, so it looks like insurance fraud or a genuine mistake and reporting the wrong item as stolen. Either way it makes no sense to deactivate a perfectly good electrical item when we are supposed to be reducing our waste footprint.

I get your point, but getting another phone from Music Magpie is simply kicking the can down the road! - it could very easily happen again in 1 month, 12 months time........who knows!

I would rather buy a new phone then pursue Music Magpie for a refund or at least fair value for this current phone. It should be up to them, the carriers & insurance companies to get their acts together & work to ensure these scams do not happen again & pursue the original sellers.

It's odd that EE would have blacklisted it this long after it was sold to you?   They should have checked the last time the owner used it, which in this case would have been over a year ago.  You could call them and ask their fraud team to look into it.

Or, someone at EE has taken a lost/stolen report and entered one digit wrong on the IMEI blacklisting system and placed the action on the wrong handset.  I can't think of anyway of checking that. Data protection gets in the way. . .

Have tried calling them, they won't tell me anything other than the phone IMEI that I gave to them has been blocked, for reasons they cannot discuss. So I don't think it's an input mistake.

PHK

Paul74 said:

savergrant said:

Paul74 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

Paul74 said:

Ermm,,

flaneurs_lobster said:

Paul74 said:

Seems like a really specific scam that makes buying a 2nd half phone extremely risky. Surely Music Magpie and others are aware of this? Shouldn't they explain this when selling mobile phones??

Explain what exactly? That at any time after you purchase a phone from them a previous owner can claim that the phone has been stolen from them thus causing the phone to be bricked?

Kind of destroys their entire business model.

Errmm, exactly. This practice shouldn't be allowed. Thanks for your extremely helpful input anyway.

Not in any way meant as a criticism of your genuine complaint, rather a real concern at the way phones can be made non-operational by fraudulent and/or malicious actions by previous owners.

Apologies for the misunderstanding! Yes, this practice should not be allowed. Maybe Music Magpie did act faithfully, but there's a major technical glitch as you say. I'd be suprised if this scenario doesn't happen quite often. So I fully expect Music Magpie & the other phone recycle companies to be fully aware of this situation. 

Surely I have grounds for a legal claim?

If music magpie are prepared to replace the item after over a year then you will not be out of pocket but they will be. The solution is for secondhand retailers to register all items which are sold to them and the police to investigate any which are subsequently reported stolen. It is extremely unlikely that someone will just discover that a mobile tablet was stolen over a year ago, so it looks like insurance fraud or a genuine mistake and reporting the wrong item as stolen. Either way it makes no sense to deactivate a perfectly good electrical item when we are supposed to be reducing our waste footprint.

I get your point, but getting another phone from Music Magpie is simply kicking the can down the road! - it could very easily happen again in 1 month, 12 months time........who knows!

I would rather buy a new phone then pursue Music Magpie for a refund or at least fair value for this current phone. It should be up to them, the carriers & insurance companies to get their acts together & work to ensure these scams do not happen again & pursue the original sellers.

The problem here is that the providers are doing what the law requires them to do. A law that was written in the 90s and came into law in 2002. Mobile Telephones Act 2002. The law was written to solve another problem (changing the IMEI to get around a block) . 

The act sets out what providers MUST do when a phone is reported stolen. but back then scams like youve experienced weren't around. A reseller can only build into its terms what to do if this happens. Generally, they will replace the phone then either recover the money from the original seller or claim on their insurance. 

It was hoped that Telecommunications Infrastructure App, or the Telecommunications Act 2022 would resolve this but it didn't. 

In short, speak to your MP about getting the law changed. 

prowla

The phone manufacturers have put in place a system whereby they can disable phones but have no mechanism to return the (alleged) stolen or lost items to their owners, who may simply have forgotten to change it in their app, started a different account, passed away without sharing the password, or whatever.

They have no interest in putting things right, because their projected outcome is that they sell a new phone, so why should they do something to harm their sales?

DE_612183

Have you contacted Ofcom?

Paul74

DE_612183 said:

Have you contacted Ofcom?

Yes, they are not interested, due to it being specifically handset related. I did mention that I have concerns about how the carrier is allowed to block a phone, but got stonewalled.

Paul74

Have called the CAB who told me to contact Action Fraud. Have reported this to them, but regarding getting the phone unblocked, no one seems able to tell me or take action on what to do. Getting ridiculous & extremely frustrating.