Mobile phone blocked

Emmia

Paul74 said:

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.

You're not going to get the phone unblocked. I'd get yourself another one (ideally a brand new one without a previous owner)

DE_612183

in that case send a "letter before action" to magpie - claim for the full cost of the phone

PHK

Paul74 said:

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.

As I explained above. The provider is doing what it is required to do by law. 

The contract between you and Music Magpie seems to say you should get a replacement phone. Which is what they are doing. 

If you are unhappy with that then you should complain to them. If you then remain unhappy then you'd have to make a claim in the small claims court for whatever value you think they owe you. 

Paul74

My point is there should be a way of unblocking the phone by all the parties concerned talking to each other.

I do not need a new phone, the one I have is perfectly fine. Getting another recycled phone from Music Magpie is insane. Is all they are going to do is give me another recycled phone leaving it open to getting potentially blocked again. 

I doubt I’m the first that this has happened to.

The public should be warned about buying 2nd hand phones until there’s a process in place to reverse this madness.

Jon_01

Paul74 said:

My point is there should be a way of unblocking the phone by all the parties concerned talking to each other.

I do not need a new phone, the one I have is perfectly fine. Getting another recycled phone from Music Magpie is insane. Is all they are going to do is give me another recycled phone leaving it open to getting potentially blocked again. 

I doubt I’m the first that this has happened to.

The public should be warned about buying 2nd hand phones until there’s a process in place to reverse this madness.

The issue is, the networks have no process of transfer of ownership of a phone. Once it registered on their system, the original owner can at any point call and report it lost/stolen.  They have no system for this, because there's nothing in it for them!

Until they are forced into doing something, nothing is going to change. They are abiding by the legal terms of the contract they agreed with the person that bought the phone from them...

flaneurs_lobster

Jon_01 said:

Paul74 said:

My point is there should be a way of unblocking the phone by all the parties concerned talking to each other.

I do not need a new phone, the one I have is perfectly fine. Getting another recycled phone from Music Magpie is insane. Is all they are going to do is give me another recycled phone leaving it open to getting potentially blocked again. 

I doubt I’m the first that this has happened to.

The public should be warned about buying 2nd hand phones until there’s a process in place to reverse this madness.

Until they are forced into doing something, nothing is going to change. They are abiding by the legal terms of the contract they agreed with the person that bought the phone from them...

This is the part I don't understand, the control/implementation of this "blocking".

If I buy a phone from (say) O2 together with an airtime contract then I can contact O2 if my phone is "stolen" and they'll block it?

If I buy a phone/airtime from O2, then swap my airtime to Vodafone, who can block my stolen phone? O2? Voda?

If I buy a phone from Samsung and put in PAYM SIMs from Three and EE, who can block my stolen phone? Three? EE? Samsung?

If I buy a phone from Argos and put in a PAYG SIM from Asda......

and so on.

savergrant

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.

I think they are acting reasonably given the timescale. The only thing would be if anything in their point of sale or seller's terms explicitly guaranteed that this would not happen. Unfortunately as has been said there is no way to register a change of ownership of these devices so the original owner could report it as lost or stolen at any time. The only safeguard is the paperwork held by the likes of Music Magpie saying how they came by the device. If they are insured against this then their insurance company should be able to liaise with any insurance claim regarding the 'stolen' item and hand over information to the police. There has to be a deterrent to false reports of theft or secondhand sales will be killed off by high insurance prices.

savergrant

flaneurs_lobster said:

Jon_01 said:

Paul74 said:

My point is there should be a way of unblocking the phone by all the parties concerned talking to each other.

I do not need a new phone, the one I have is perfectly fine. Getting another recycled phone from Music Magpie is insane. Is all they are going to do is give me another recycled phone leaving it open to getting potentially blocked again. 

I doubt I’m the first that this has happened to.

The public should be warned about buying 2nd hand phones until there’s a process in place to reverse this madness.

Until they are forced into doing something, nothing is going to change. They are abiding by the legal terms of the contract they agreed with the person that bought the phone from them...

This is the part I don't understand, the control/implementation of this "blocking".

If I buy a phone from (say) O2 together with an airtime contract then I can contact O2 if my phone is "stolen" and they'll block it?

If I buy a phone/airtime from O2, then swap my airtime to Vodafone, who can block my stolen phone? O2? Voda?

If I buy a phone from Samsung and put in PAYM SIMs from Three and EE, who can block my stolen phone? Three? EE? Samsung?

If I buy a phone from Argos and put in a PAYG SIM from Asda......

and so on.

I guess that when you put a sim into the device that device is registered with the network you are using. If you then report it stolen the network will then blacklist it so that it cannot be connected to any network with any sim. So my guess would be any provider whose network you have connected to, but only if it was report as stolen to them.
So in op's case someone has informed ee that the device has been stolen and they have informed other networks 

PHK

flaneurs_lobster said:

Jon_01 said:

Paul74 said:

My point is there should be a way of unblocking the phone by all the parties concerned talking to each other.

I do not need a new phone, the one I have is perfectly fine. Getting another recycled phone from Music Magpie is insane. Is all they are going to do is give me another recycled phone leaving it open to getting potentially blocked again. 

I doubt I’m the first that this has happened to.

The public should be warned about buying 2nd hand phones until there’s a process in place to reverse this madness.

Until they are forced into doing something, nothing is going to change. They are abiding by the legal terms of the contract they agreed with the person that bought the phone from them...

This is the part I don't understand, the control/implementation of this "blocking".

If I buy a phone from (say) O2 together with an airtime contract then I can contact O2 if my phone is "stolen" and they'll block it?

If I buy a phone/airtime from O2, then swap my airtime to Vodafone, who can block my stolen phone? O2? Voda?

If I buy a phone from Samsung and put in PAYM SIMs from Three and EE, who can block my stolen phone? Three? EE? Samsung?

If I buy a phone from Argos and put in a PAYG SIM from Asda......

and so on.

It’s all set out in the law, if a phone has been used on an account then the provider MUST block the phone if the account holder reports that the phone has been stolen. 

That bit can only be changed if the law is changed. So that’s is why Ofcom can’t change things. 

Paul74

savergrant 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.

I think they are acting reasonably given the timescale. The only thing would be if anything in their point of sale or seller's terms explicitly guaranteed that this would not happen. Unfortunately as has been said there is no way to register a change of ownership of these devices so the original owner could report it as lost or stolen at any time. The only safeguard is the paperwork held by the likes of Music Magpie saying how they came by the device. If they are insured against this then their insurance company should be able to liaise with any insurance claim regarding the 'stolen' item and hand over information to the police. There has to be a deterrent to false reports of theft or secondhand sales will be killed off by high insurance prices.

Music Magpie have now back tracked. They are saying the phone is outside of it's warranty, so tough luck. I have to try & get EE to unblock it 🙈