What does “Bad ESN” mean in buying used smartphones?

When you visit online shopping site like eBay for purchasing mobile, you might have seen “clear ESN” and “Bad ESN” on some of the descriptions. Many of people do not know about the actual meaning of clear or bad ESN as well they do not check status of ESN while purchasing used phone. The mean of ESN is Electronic Serial Number that is used with CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) Phones instead of SIM cards. You can identify specific CDMA cell phone by using ESN number. If the ESN number is good, then person who bought the used cell phone will not face any problem while activating the cell phone with new account for new person. But it is totally opposite for phone with BAD ESN. The simple mean of “BAD ESN” is “DO NOT BUY”. If the phone stands with bad ESN, then you can not activate them on another line or carrier. It happens when the mobile owner did not pay their bill or the most recent account of them is not in good standing or cell phone being reported lost or stolen. Phone with bad ESN cannot be verified by home networks even cannot be used as a cellular phone on the original network.

What does

Complete mean of ESN:

ESN is an Electronic Serial Number that is unique for all CDMA phone in the US. Cellular network use this unique code to phone subscriber and permit them to jump on the network to send message, make calls, browse internet and access all service offered by the provider. The ESN is printed under the battery or on the box either in decimal or hexadecimal version. It becomes more useful to switch mobile network or disable the phone if the phone is reported lost or stolen.

A bad ESN could be due to few things:

  • A lost or stolen phone report
  • A phone is active on the owner’s wireless carrier account, so that you can not react
  • There is money due on the wireless carrier account to which the ESN/MEID/IMEI is attached

How to check for good or bad ESN on cell phone?

Don’t need to waste time and money on bad ESN number, you just need to checkout it before you purchase. For checking bad ESN number, you can follow below steps:

You should contact the seller and ask them to give proof that explains the ESN has not been blacklisted by service provider. This should be verification sheet from your service provider.

You can also ask the seller to send ESN number, so that you can check that the phone is clean. After getting ESN number, you can call at service provider’s hotline number and ask them to check ESN number of phone that you are trying to purchase.

There are also several online sources that you can use to check ESNs for fee or for free. Both swappa.com/esn and www.checkesnfree.com are most reliable ESN/MEID checkers for Verizon device to date. You can use it very simply and easily. You just require 14-digit ESN/MEID number to check ESN. If your device set with Good ESN, then you will get result like “your device is ready for activation” or “ENS is proper”. On the other hand, if ESN is bad, then you will get message like ESN does not appear to be eligible for activation.

What you can do if you purchased phone with bad ESN?

An ESN can be only cleared by the original owner of the phone so when you purchased phone with bad ESN, you have to contact that person (original owner).

Reason to buy phone with bad ESN:

Unlocked phone with bad ESN can not be used on a network, that’s why we think that it is useless. But do you know that phone with bad ESN is not completely useless. Many innovative people purchase it for other uses like test software or applications, use it as spare parts and more. One best thing about this phone is that it is offered at very high discount.

At present, smartphone is more than just like a phone because it offers other capabilities aside from making calls and sending messages. You can use this type of phone as a dedicated music player or movie player. If your phone with bad ESN has high megapixel and lenses, then you can use it as a portable camera. As well, you can use internet service. For Example: If iPhone with bad ESN, then you can use it in order to connect internet via Wi-fi even make video call through Skype and FaceTime.

Read Full Story from: www.ebay.com

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