FollowFirst of all, what is an IMEI? And what is an IMEI Blacklist? An IMEI is basically the unique number that represents your phone. It has 14 to 15 numbers and you can quickly know your phone unique IMEI number by pressing *#06# on your phone keypad. An IMEI that is blacklisted is basically a phone that was reported lost or stolen. So if your phone IMEI number was blacklisted, this also means that your phone is blacklisted.
A network operator who received the report by its previous owner would put the IMEI number of the phone to a blacklisted database. This IMEI is also called as bad IMEI. So if your phone have a bad IMEI, it is possible that the phone you are currently using might be stolen or was reported lost by its previous owner.
If the phone was reported stolen, the phone will be unusable in most carrier networks even if the SIM card is changed. So, how do you avoid this from happening? First of all, you can always avoid this by not buying stolen phones or not buying a phone from untrustworthy sources. This is because once you bought the phone from unauthorized source, it would be difficult to return your phone once you know that the phone has a bad IMEI.
But, sometimes you could not avoid this and you might be duped by this people and thinking that your phone is a brand new one. The best way is to check the IMEI of the phone quickly and to determine whether it is good or not. Some network operator such as T-Mobile allows you to check the phone’s IMEI at their website. Just go their website and you can simply type the IMEI number of your phone to check whether it is blacklisted or not.
There are also several websites that are offering to check the IMEI is blacklisted or not based on available database from the network carriers. So, make sure your phone does not have a blacklist IMEI before purchase. This would save yourself a lot of headache.