Verizon: FYI On Activations and Used

[possumwater]

Sure, just as you can now with an iPhone that's been activated already.

For almost a decade I've bought CDMA smartphones with bad ESNs for cheap on eBay, and used them as the same kind of device that eventually Apple sold as the iPod touch. (And for development.)

Especially after 2005, when smartphones started getting WiFi. I kept some around just for use with my Slingbox and Slingplayer on WinMo. It was quite cool to have little handheld TVs available in the bathrooms or for watching on the porch or late at night in bed If my wife wanted to watch one show on the big TV, I'd use a WiFi phone with an earplug to snuggle beside her and watch a different channel.

In fact, I keep a couple of bad ESN phones charged up for when the grandkids visit. They love playing with them, and I'm not afraid of them being broken.

Heck, I'm looking forward to cheap bidding on some of the first bunch of CDMA iPhones that people default payment on. Of course, if someone figures out how to flash them on Cricket or something, the price stays high.

Very smart! I like how you think.

 

[possumwater]

Speaking of backups....

I wonder if Verizon's OTA backup service will be enabled for the iPhone? Doubtful and not really necessary given iTunes, but would be a "nice to have."

Does Verizon charge for this service to "dumb phones?" Seems like the carriers try to juice every last dime they can for everything...

 

[kdarling]

Why use VZ's backup service (which is free only for the primary line, I think)?

Doesn't everyone store their contacts and calendar on Google nowadays?

Just activate your phone, set up your Google account on it, and sync. Done.

Or did y'all want it for something more?

 

[Olivia23]

What does the recent history of my posts have to do with this thread? You got a problem with me just send me a PM if you need to vent or if its that time of the month for you.
No need to clutter the board with off topic posts or personal attacks.
Yes, I do like AT&T and Im very happy with their service like many others. I dont care what you buy or you dont.
Have a good day.

Wow... what an as*! You think because a woman gets mad at you or has an opinion it must be her time of the month!!! I bet you're single.

 

[tjb1]

Why use VZ's backup service (which is free only for the primary line, I think)?

Doesn't everyone store their contacts and calendar on Google nowadays?

Just activate your phone, set up your Google account on it, and sync. Done.

Or did y'all want it for something more?

Its free once you activate your account online which is just putting your number in and picking a password.

 

[thetexan]

Does Verizon charge for this service to "dumb phones?" Seems like the carriers try to juice every last dime they can for everything...

Last time I checked it's free for anyone who signed up for Verizon's online billing, which is essentially free. However I'd never consider using that service as I just sync everything with Google anyway which is not only free but carrier agnostic.

 

[Tom G.]

I have not been with Verizon for several years now, but when I last was the 'Backup assistant' program was charged to my phone. If I remember correctly it was a monthly charge. One of the reasons I believe they "nickel and dime" their customers to death.

When ever I had to go to their store I felt I had to check to see if I still had all my fingers when I left. My brother-in-law told me the other day that he felt basically the same. With him it was if he needed to take a shower when he left.

Verizon is a large corporation like AT&T or Apple, beware as you go down that path and keep your eyes wide open.

 

[kdarling]

I have not been with Verizon for several years now, but when I last was the 'Backup assistant' program was charged to my phone. If I remember correctly it was a monthly charge. One of the reasons I believe they "nickel and dime" their customers to death.

Yeah, I remember paying for that. They used to charge for the backup assistant program, but not any more.

 

[Applejuiced]

Wow... what an as*! You think because a woman gets mad at you or has an opinion it must be her time of the month!!! I bet you're single.

Guess again Olivia

 

[whiteyanderson]

Backup assistant is now free for all lines if you set up an online account. I just checked it out today as a matter of fact when I was perusing our account.

 

[thetexan]

Backup assistant is now free for all lines if you set up an online account. I just checked it out today as a matter of fact when I was perusing our account.

I guess it'd be useful for those paranoid folks who believe the evil minions at Google love reading all your personal information and getting a good laugh in at your expense, yet too cheap to pay for Mobile Me and too lazy to sync with iTunes on a regular basis. Does Apple's API even allow applications to pull your contacts and upload them to a server? Verizon is bound by the same rules as normal developers are when it comes to designing applications anyway so backup assistant may never come around on iOS.

Some of Verizon's vCast apps are really useful. There's a free Shazaam-like one that you can get that'll identify unlimited songs for free and you can set it up to email you the information on the tagged song automatically.

There's also the NFL app which gives you a ton of NFL information along with free real-time streaming of the NFL Network, useful for those of us under Time Warner's reign without access to the NFL Network.

 

[JRoDDz]

Another thing everyone thinks the sim cards are so awesome because you keep your contact on them...what if your phone is lost or stolen? Verizon uses Backup Assistant to keep your contacts online.

I use google contacts on my iPhone. Nothing gets put on the sim card.

 

[Interstella5555]

What does the recent history of my posts have to do with this thread? You got a problem with me just send me a PM if you need to vent or if its that time of the month for you.
No need to clutter the board with off topic posts or personal attacks.
Yes, I do like AT&T and Im very happy with their service like many others. I dont care what you buy or you dont.
Have a good day.

dude....not cool.

 

[Maven1975]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

For all you future iPhone on Verizon users, you should keep the following in mind:

1. If your iPhone becomes lost or stolen, contact Verizon to let them know ASAP. They will block the ESN so the phone will not be tied to your account.

What's cool about Verizon is the fact the phone is now worthless, as it can never be activated by anyone but you again. Having your phone stolen sucks, but at least you know that your phone is a mere brick and is not being enjoyed by the thief. On GSM, all the user has to do is pop in a SIM and the phone works again.

2. Accounts that are past-due will have the ESN on the account permanently blocked until the account is up to date.

Keep this in mind when you are ordering used CDMA iPhones via eBay or Craigslist. If the phone was stolen, or the account holder is past due on his or her account, then the phone will not work. There is no pleading to Verizon to get them to activate it as they will refuse to. Only the original account holder can activate a phone with a blocked ESN by reporting that the phone is no longer stolen or by paying the account balance.

Before paying the seller, always contact Verizon with the ESN of the phone you are buying to ensure that it is clear and ready to activate, otherwise you maybe stuck with a phone that will work fine but be as useless as a paperweight.

I view these as bad reasons to switch to Verizon. Yes, its cool that your phone becomes a paperweight if lost or stolen, but it will bendlashed to work on alltel my friend.

What if someone lost their job or wants out of their contract. With these terms you love so much, you are not able to sell your phone to pay the ETF without serious risk of a ESN block. "Screwing the person you sold the phone too" Even if you clear ip the account, it's at the carriers discretion to unblock the ESN and that can take up to 90 days.

I also see the resale value of Verizon devices lower because of it being locked down to CDMA. Once enough people get stung by dirty ESN numbers, pitting and moaning here on the boards, you will see more dislike for what you think is Verizon genius.

 

[kdarling]

Does Apple's API even allow applications to pull your contacts and upload them to a server?

Yes, but the app is supposed to ask you first, at least one time, or have a permission checkbox that you click. Some do, some have cheated. In any case, yes.

Some of Verizon's vCast apps are really useful. There's a free Shazaam-like one that you can get that'll identify unlimited songs for free and you can set it up to email you the information on the tagged song automatically.

That one was actually written by the same company that did Shazaam.

Interestingly, it was downloaded over 10 million times from Verizon in less time than it was downloaded on iPhones later on.

That was one of the rare public acknowledgements of just how many apps Verizon customers used even on dumbphones, and an indication of why Verizon wanted to be able to have their own app store additionally available on the iPhone. Even little BREW apps have made over a billion dollars.

There's also the NFL app which gives you a ton of NFL information along with free real-time streaming of the NFL Network, useful for those of us under Time Warner's reign without access to the NFL Network.

Their sports apps are big favorites, I've heard.

 

[DougFNJ]

To add to the OP's info as I do this all the time on Craigslist,

To activate a Verizon phone, you power off your existing phone, and on the phone you are looking to activate, dial *228 when prompted, dial 1. It will ask for the phone # you want to activate and the passcode, you hear some music, and then its activated.

I don't know if that info was already posted, I lost patience reading through the 75% garbage trying to read to the useful information which seems to be the rule rather than the exception these days on this website

 

[djransom]

Their sports apps are big favorites, I've heard.

Yes I love the iPhone sports apps. My favorite is Sportstacular by Yahoo. I'm sure all the VZW iPhone customers will enjoy the apps.

 

[vachargerfan]

There's also the NFL app which gives you a ton of NFL information along with free real-time streaming of the NFL Network, useful for those of us under Time Warner's reign without access to the NFL Network.

Which app streams NFL network?

 

[drummingcraig]

For all you future iPhone on Verizon users, you should keep the following in mind:

1. If your iPhone becomes lost or stolen, contact Verizon to let them know ASAP. They will block the ESN so the phone will not be tied to your account.

What's cool about Verizon is the fact the phone is now worthless, as it can never be activated by anyone but you again. Having your phone stolen sucks, but at least you know that your phone is a mere brick and is not being enjoyed by the thief. On GSM, all the user has to do is pop in a SIM and the phone works again.

2. Accounts that are past-due will have the ESN on the account permanently blocked until the account is up to date.

Keep this in mind when you are ordering used CDMA iPhones via eBay or Craigslist. If the phone was stolen, or the account holder is past due on his or her account, then the phone will not work. There is no pleading to Verizon to get them to activate it as they will refuse to. Only the original account holder can activate a phone with a blocked ESN by reporting that the phone is no longer stolen or by paying the account balance.

Before paying the seller, always contact Verizon with the ESN of the phone you are buying to ensure that it is clear and ready to activate, otherwise you maybe stuck with a phone that will work fine but be as useless as a paperweight.

Good info.
Not as simple as putting a new AT&T sim inside the phone.
My guess is we will have tons of people with problems buying used CDMA iphones.

I pointed this out in another thread to a poster who is planning on paying full retail for a VZ IP4, and then selling the phone later at a "hefty price" when the iP5 comes out.

The used market on the CDMA phones is not going to be as fruitful for the sellers or as convenient for the buyers for the very reasons mentioned above. Not to mention the fact that a big driving force behind the GSM 2nd hand market is that the majority of the world uses GSM systems so the market for those iPhones is huge.

 

[GolpherZX]

Which app streams NFL network?

Verizon's NFL app does the streaming. It is what use to be on sprint for some time (or at least the right to use the NFL trademark and stream).

 

[sorchard]

The used market on the CDMA phones is not going to be as fruitful for the sellers or as convenient for the buyers for the very reasons mentioned above. Not to mention the fact that a big driving force behind the GSM 2nd hand market is that the majority of the world uses GSM systems so the market for those iPhones is huge.

Although the GSM world has its techniques for preventing stolen phones from being used - the UK for example runs a central "blacklist" of lost/stolen phones which all of the UK networks subscribe and update to. If your phone is blocked on one network, it's blocked on all of them, so it is easy to test if buying a used phone. (conversely, some countries, such as I believe Turkey, operate IMEI whitelists where the individual handset has to be approved)

I believe that there might be a European blacklist too, that we also use.

 

[drummingcraig]

Although the GSM world has its techniques for preventing stolen phones from being used - the UK for example runs a central "blacklist" of lost/stolen phones which all of the UK networks subscribe and update to. If your phone is blocked on one network, it's blocked on all of them, so it is easy to test if buying a used phone. (conversely, some countries, such as I believe Turkey, operate IMEI whitelists where the individual handset has to be approved)

I believe that there might be a European blacklist too, that we also use.

I was actually referring to legit phones primarily. If I am not mistaken, GSM networks are more predominant worldwide then CDMA. Therefore giving second hand GSM iPhones a larger market vs. off contract VZ iPhones.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Do you guys realize how easy it is to change the ESN if you know what your doing? I bet you will see plenty of ads on Craigslist offering to do this for the iPhone.