After selling the phone, the seller loses the incentive to keep paying their bill. After receiving a replacement phone, if you find the phone that you thought was lost, you can sell it.Īnother scenario is when a financed phone is sold before it’s paid off. There are a few common scenarios where people end up with blacklisted phones.įor example, after losing your phone, you report it to your insurance company as lost, and the phone is blacklisted. As a result, the phone cannot connect to cell towers in the United States, and you can’t use it to connect to the internet or make calls.

A device that is on the blacklist will have restricted services, and local authorities may even seize the phone.Ī phone that is blacklisted will have a bad Equipment Serial Number (ESN) or International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number.

If you’ve never heard the term before, you may be wondering, what does a blacklisted phone mean? The blacklist is a database of all the ESN or IMEI numbers that have been reported by phone carriers, insurance companies, or other entities.

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