Apple gave me a stolen replacement phone!

[Scholzpdx]

As some of you know from a thread that I posted earlier in the week that my wife and I dropped AT&T for Straight Talk. AT&T was happy to unlock my iPhone 3GS 16GB (purchased from another AT&T customer, while they were on contract mind you) but were unable to unlock my wife's iphone 3GS 8GB.

Request number: 81****
Thank you for contacting AT&T Customer Care about unlocking your iPhone.
We cannot complete your request because this iPhone was previously reported as lost or stolen by an AT&T customer.
Thank you for your business. For other questions about our wireless service or iPhones, contact AT&T Customer Care at (800) 331-0500.
You may also check the status of your unlock request by clicking the link for AT&T's Device Unlock Status Portal.

Sincerely,

The AT&T Customer Care Team

What the hell?

This is my wife's third iPhone 3GS as her first two locked up from software failures (both on 4.3) and never turned on again. The third phone we went to an apple store near Libertyville Illinois (I am in the Navy and was based near there) in January of this year, and the clerk we were issued gave us her current iPhone 3GS as a replacement. I could tell it wasn't 100% new, but it was told to us that it was refurbished.

One major question, if it was stolen, wouldn't AT&T block it from the network!? I love how they take my subsidized-price payments and then when I leave them they tell me the phone is stolen.

And now I'm shit out of luck in terms of unlocking it! I've never, ever heard of this happening!

[Subyman]

So, contact the apple store. You didn't take the phone without a receipt did you? You always, always get a receipt otherwise the employee can screw you.

[Paperlantern]

Probably happens more often than you think, the fact that its stolen never comes to light though.

Someone loses thier phone, reports it stolen, then finds it a couple days later in the couch cushion but never informs AT&T that it was found because it still works.

I dunno, only thing I can think of.

[bigrash]

That sucks. Contact Apple to explain the situation.

[TuxDave]

Originally Posted by bigrash

That sucks. Contact Apple to explain the situation.

Yeah let me know when you call customer service and IF they screw you over, then it'll be something to rage about,

[Scholzpdx]

I'll be contacting them later today when I can get the IMEI from my wife. Hopefully they can do whatever they can to let me get my phone unlocked. I want to keep the phone, and I'm not looking for a new one. I just want to be able to unlock the phone that I've been paying massive subsidized prices on.

This really sucks. Do they log where they get their phones from?

[thetechfreak]

Originally Posted by Scholzpdx

Do they log where they get their phones from?

IMO they do keep a record like this. Felt bad seeing your problem

[Slamrish]

I used to be a technician at Apple, the stores have a hands off approach with stolen product. Only because they cannot track it properly, the replacement phones you receive are re-manufactured phoned for the most part. Only a small percentage are actually NEW phones. What does happen though when we sent customer phone's back to Apple and get back stuff sometimes we would have a phone in a box that didn't go through any type of the process aside from having the serial number replaced. It was something I heavily complained about to management, but it always occurred multiple times a week. I actually paid attention to these finite details as I am sure some of the other people I had worked with didn't really give a fuck.

They also have every visit recorded, if it was a normal transaction (Not at the Genius Bar) the EasyPay Touches the employees use can be used to search for all your purchases via your receipt ID, Email Address or Credit Card number. If you went to the Genius Bar they have a system called iRepair which stores it all by Serial Number and your personal info! (This is why it's very important to register your Apple Products!)