Somebody please help me! I have just gotten a used nokia 8260 off of ebay. The guy said that he had cingular service in hurst texas (76054) (tdma). This would work good, I live in macon Georgia, (31210) and also have cingular (tdma). I got the phone today and took it down to get it activated. The guy worked and worked on it but nothing worked. Something was bad. I couldn’t receive or make calls. I could call 611 (cingular tech support) however. I love the little phone but am mad about the activation. I talked to a tech support on 611 and he tried everything he could to get it to work. No luck. He said that maybe the guy I bought it from didn’t have cingular. I looked up the available service in this guy’s area and att&t was the only other tdma option. The guy will not respond to my emails. The tech support guy said that if cingular had issued the original owner the phone than that the phone was probably defective and I could probably get a new one for free, and that’s why it wont work here, but if the phone does not belong to cingular than I am just out of luck. The guy I bought if from will not answer his emails so is there any way of telling which company issued the phone? Maybe by the ESN number or the code on the back under the battery or something. I need help. What should I do with this phone that I cant use????
What you can do is call Nokia, ask them what service is program into the phone whether it is AT&T or Cingular, and what options you have on getting your phone repaired and how much the cost. Next time be carefull it alot of crooks out there.
You can go that route, or you can dispute it through eBay. You are covered through eBay against fraud. If this seller did not deliver what he promised, then you might want to make sure that he doesn't do it to other people as well. Be sure to leave him negative feedback. I'm kind of confused why a Cingular rep couldn't determine for sure if there was Cingular software on the phone...seems they should be able to do that. Another possibility is to call both Cingular and ATT customer service in the area that the phone was from and have them look up the ESN number in their systems. It should be in one of their systems if it was ever activated with them. They should be able to tell you if the phone as been blacklisted or what the deal might be... This worked for me when I bought my phone over eBay. But I did all this before purchasing the phone. You can get some good deals on eBay, but you really have to cover your tracks and know what you're buying...good luck.
the easiest way to do this is on the phone itself. press *3001#12345# on your phone. this will get you into programming, select NAM1 and then look at the next screen. if the first option is SID and the second is SOC then it is Cingular, if the first is SID and the second is OWN NUMBER, then it is AT&T. if you have any questions about it let me know. bigmang781@hotmail.com
What does the alpha tag read? Or you can just power the phone off, then back on and it will show the service provider on the bootup screen.
the alpha tag shouldnt read anything. if is says anything though, it should say the name of the service provider, but usually they are left blank. if you want to put somthing in there, it will show up at the bottom of the startup screen under your number or whatever you put in greeting setting.