Ok, so i was talking to a friend who works at a cellphone store today, and he gave me an idea (and he has done this) for how you can get money back after getting a cellphone. So here it is:

Right now I'm in australia, but when I get back home i'm going to want a new phone to replace my piece of shit t720 . I have verizon wireless, and right now i have my account on hold for a small fee so that I can keep my number and whatnot. Anyway, let's say I get the new LG that is supposed to come out. I have no idea how much its supposed to be, but lets say its $350. When I buy it, I take out the insurance plan.

To my knowledge, verizon's insurance plan is $3.99 a month, and then $50 to replace the phone if you lose it. You have to wait 30 days after the start of the insurance plan to act on the plan. You can only use the replace feature twice a year. Also, i hear if you lose it, you have to provide a police report (easily obtainable). BUT if you lose it in in irreplaceable manner ("hello, I'm on the Rice U sailing team and my phone fell in the water while I was sailing on Galveston Bay"), no police report is necessary, and no serial number is necessary ....i think.

So, after 30 days or so, I "lose" the phone, pay 50 bucks, and get a brand new phone of whatever I had. I then go and sell the lost phone on ebay for around $300, assuming the retail is $350 for a brand new one.

So there you have it. I just got a brand new phone and only paid $100 net, assuming the figure are correct



A couple of complications:
1) treads on the edge of insurance fraud?
2) many of the figure are assumed, like the phone price and the depreciation of the phone in a month
3) i yet to get a new phone from verizon. The new phone should be cheaper than retail becuase verizon will treat it as an upgrade and subsidize it.

So what do you guys think? This kid has done it many times and it has worked, but with a differnt company. in fact he says that if his antenna breaks or something, he just uses the "kayacking on the potamic" excuase and gets a new phone and doesnt deal with repairs. Also, if the subsidy is significant from verizon, i may make money on the deal or break even.

 

Treads on the edge huh ???
Sounds like 100% THEFT & FRAUD to me.
I hope you get caught.

 

ouch...just scheming man, dunno if i'm gonna go through with it. and if it is fraud, its pretty minor stuff. no one is going to file suit over a cell phone. doens't mean its moral. And i'm sure the insurance pricing is worked out to include instances of people who lose a cell phone and find it again later.

 

Welcome to 2000.

Done that and always worked

 

wont work...esn are listed as stolen...if u sell a lost phone or stolen phone..and they try to activate it...it wont go through....just my 2 cents...and if u want a phone that bad just go out and pay full retail stop being fuckin stingy and try screwing people over...i mean 350 is a lot of money but it isnt worth the headache of fraud....

 

Not to mention that you’re helping contribute to higher Phone, Insurance & Service costs for everyone by scamming the phone/Insurance company.

 

Not outside the country tho.

 

so your trying to scam the company many of us work for?

 

i'm not fucking doing anything. thats why i posted the idea instead of going through with it. i wanted to see what you guys thought. thanks for the input, even if its not positive.

 

You're not the first one to come up with that idea. It's been tried many times before not only in the cellphone industry but also in other areas.

Here's the problem, and I'll tell you right out since you shouldn't be "thinking" about committing insurance fraud anyway.

The original phone that you paid for has an ESN. That ESN is permanently burned into the phone, it's like a serial number, it can be altered but that is illegal. The cellphone company knows your ESN, whether you provide it to them or not, no matter where the phone is [lost]. Once your report the phone stolen, that ESN is blocked/blacklisted.

Nobody, not even me, would be able to re-activate that phone on that carrier. Since Sprint phones and Verizon phones do not get activated overseas, that has no bearing. When you sell the phone on ebay, the buyer will have a worthless phone....remember, nobody can authorise the reactivation of that phone, it's like moving a mountain. Even if you purchased it legitimately on ebay or you didn't know, yadda yadda yadda, it's not going to get activated. It's like having a permanent lien on that phone.

Pretty clever way to help deter fraud, don't you think?

P.S. GSM phones that have IMEIs, there's a int'l database to blacklist those numbers, too. IMEIs are like ESNs. It's like the driver's license database, if your license is revoked in one state, you just can't go to another state and get one. There are loopholes of course. But I'm not going to divulge them.

 

COuldnt have said it better myself.... good explantion ken...

 

ah ok....yeah that makes sense, and in fact is a really smart way to deter people. It was definitely worth the bashing and the negative rep points for that info, cuase God knows i might have done it otherwise, and it could have turned out really badly....