Sen. Schumer Reintroduces Cell Theft Deterrent Bill

When I worked for at&t I encountered customers who were trying to activate phones that the bought used all the time, Before we activated it, we were supposed to run the IMEI to see if it had been stolen, but neither nor anyone else I knew ever actually did that.

And there were a number of people who tried to activate T-Mobile phones or even Verizon phones and who didn't know that they couldn't use them on at&r. And they didn't understand why I couldn't unlock a T-Mobile phone.

I felt bad when i had to tell them that they just paid $100 for a phone they can't use, but what can you do?

with at&t you dont even need to activate the phone all you have to do is stick in your sim card and your good to go even if the phone is reported stolen as long as its a at&t phone

Sl1CK65 said:
with at&t you dont even need to activate the phone all you have to do is stick in your sim card and your good to go even if the phone is reported stolen as long as its a at&t phone

Wrong. If the phone has been put on the imei block list this will not work.

at&t and T-mobile most have reps that suck at there job cuz i have seen phones that are reported lost of stolen and then recovered and with a working sim card able to use the phone without removing the block

You must not know what your talking about. I could lose a phone and suspend the phone line for being lost or stolen and you would still be able to use the phone. Suspending your line only disables the phones usage on your sim card. Adding a phone to the imei block list blocks the phones imei from being used on the ATT network with any sim card. They are two different things. So maybe you should clarify what your talking about before you go typing stuff. 🙄

'Phones' cannot, at present, be suspended, only SIM cards, the suspension can be removed simply by putting in a different SIM card.

When a customer calls in to change the IMEI on their line, the agent is (technically) supposed to check the IMEI to see if the phone has been reported stolen. But neither I nor anyone else I ever talked to during my time at at&t ever bothered to actually do that. Nor did QA ever deduct points from you if you didn't do it, so even though it is in the policy, there was basically no one at at&t insisting that you actually had to follow the policy.

T Bone said:
'Phones' cannot, at present, be suspended, only SIM cards, the suspension can be removed simply by putting in a different SIM card.

When a customer calls in to change the IMEI on their line, the agent is (technically) supposed to check the IMEI to see if the phone has been reported stolen. But neither I nor anyone else I ever talked to during my time at at&t ever bothered to actually do that. Nor did QA ever deduct points from you if you didn't do it, so even though it is in the policy, there was basically no one at at&t insisting that you actually had to follow the policy.

Phones cannot be "suspended" but the imei can be blocked which prevents that particular phone from being used on th...
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The IMEI can indeed be blocked but it isn't, and neither customer care nor retail stores have the ability to do so at present.


When I worked for at&t customer care, I couldn't have blocked an IMEI if I had wanted to, the system did not give us that option.

As of mid-2012, ATT's Small Business End User Care, Customer Care (general, non-FAN customer care), Technical Service Desk, and Business Data Support teams can all create cases through their CS applications which are forwarded to a team devoted to DLC (Device Life Cycle). This team of case workers has the ability to add IMEIs to a national blocklist. The blocklist, as is obvious, allows ATT (and soon partners) to bar, or "suspend," the device from being used on the network. The removal process for the blocklist is the same; requiring a case to be created and forwarded to the DLC team. So as of present, ATT customer care can block IMEIs within about 24-48 hours. They can of course still suspend SIMs as well in real time. Since you are a for...
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I quit and found other work in August 2010.

So if you found other work in 2010 don't act like you still know current policies and procedures, because as you should know, things are always changing.

Could you be more condescending please? I don't think I've been insulted enough.

But anyway I didn't quit because I found other work. I quit because I got tired of being insulted and abused all day by obnoxious customers and I was starting to hate the entire human race.

I wasnt being condescending, I was just saying. When you are posting saying "at the present time" and you don't really know whats going on "at the present time" it misleads people who know nothing and come to this website and get information based on what we are posting.

I always try to make it clear when I discuss policy that I haven't worked there in a while and some details may be out of date.

But even though I no longer work there I'm not totally ignorant either....I still have my old contacts and I keep up to date on sites like this one.

But while at&t policy does change, radical changes are rare.....changes to the decision flow and procedure tend to be minor, and in fact, what happens is that they tend to waver back and forth on some things, for six months of the year you're supposed to do one thing, then for the next six months you're supposed to do another thing, then you go back to the first thing. For example, they go back and forth on whether you're supposed to waive the upgrade fee. ...
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When customers call to 'activate a phone' they usually mean 'activate the SIM card', which does indeed need to be done by customer care, and obviously if they are trying to activate a T Mobile or Verizon phone they are going to encounter problems, hence the call to customer care.