Blacklisted Mobile Phone

[alcad]

To cut a long story short I brought the Mrs. a brand new Orange PAYG Mobile phone from a reputable store at the start of Jan, Then last week it stopped working saying "SIM card registration failed". After a call to Orange they said another network had blacklisted the phone as someone must have reported it lost/stolen. There advice was to take it back to the shop for exchange.

The shop are unwilling to exchange it as it is technically not faulty & Orange are currently looking into why it has been blocked with its security department, which so far has taken them all this week to no avail.

I was just wondering if anyone had any experience of this or any knowledge about blocking phones i.e. how can someone block a phone that is owned by another person?

Also is there any trading standards regarding getting a replacement phone from the store?

Alan.

[Plotloss]

Each handset has whats called an IMEI number which is unique.

Someone has the wrong IMEI for your phone listed somewhere.

At a guess.

[TheLemming]

I would pursue the shop as a first port of call, the phone may not be technically defective, however there could be a strong arguement that it isnt "fit for purpose", as it's unuseable.

It might not be the shops fault, but that may be the easiest way to resolve it.

Have you tried escalating the issue? speaking to the store manager or the regional manager / head office?

That would be my next step were I in the same situation.

Good luck with this one, sounds like a nightmare to resolve if they wont exchange the phone.

[Mr E]

Plotloss said:

Each handset has whats called an IMEI number which is unique. Someone has the wrong IMEI for your phone listed somewhere. At a guess.

Damn good guess sir.

I assume they've blocked the phone and not the sim card?

[ywouldi]

This happened to my GF's phone on monday. Turned out her gran had got a new phone on a new network, her previous phone being on Vodafone (like my GF's), tried to transfer the credit over, only got the numbers mixed up which resulted in my GF's phone being blocked for 21days. A "direct" approach to Vodafone resulted in it being unblocked straight away!

Ben

[alcad]

Yes its the handset that has been blocked.

I guess someone has in error or maliciously given our IMEI number has being stolen.

I have spoken to the shop manager and i am planning another visit to the shop in the morning (When its nice and busy!) Hopefully i will leave with another handset.

At one point the shop did seem to imply that we had told the phone company it had been stolen and were trying it on to get out money back!