Six Verizon Wireless Stores Broken Into CENTREVILLE, Md. (AP)- Six stores selling Verizon Wireless phones have been broken into recently and storeowners are taking proactive steps to protect their stores in Easton, Cambridge, Centreville and Denton, police said. Easton police said they have a suspect identified but they don't know why Verizon stores alone are being targeted. Easton Detective Sgt. George Paugh said the suspects travel together from store to store and throw a heavy object through the front door. Then he said they enter the store stealing cell phones, digital cameras, blue tooth kits and other items. Police said some of the break-ins didn't involve any thefts at all. Police said at least $8,000 in products have been stolen. Stolen cell phones and other equipment will not work until activated, according to Verizon Wireless spokesman John Johnson. He also said phone calls can be tracked if the phones are used. http://www.wboc.com/Global/story.asp?S=6490445&nav=MXEFM7m7
That's near where I live! Right across the bay. Couldn't they just blacklist the ESNs on the phones? Or do they want to catch the people.....
Yes, and creating alot of business for the paypal dispute department as well, from all of the people that were unlucky enough to buy one of the stolen handsets.
Not if they don't use them on another carrier... Verizon can only blacklist them on their own system, not other carriers systems.
I always thought that once a phone was blacklisted by a carrier that it couldn't be used at all...... Guess I was wrong.
Maybe the phones will end up in a dumpster somewhere after all OEM face plates and batteries ect. are removed. Those items can be sold on eBay and bring in a great deal of money alone not to mention the digital cameras, blue tooth kits and other items that were taken. It's a very stupid move to break into a store first of all but if they do sell the phones on eBay, they will eventually be caught..... or will they? As money hungry as Verizon is, they'll probably go ahead and activate them just to get the 2 year contract and claim the phones, cameras and bluetooth loss on insurance and come out to the good either way. So maybe they weren't so stupid after all. Again, I'm not in any way saying it's a good thing to break into any home, store or any place that isn't your property but if you're going to break into any cell phone store, at least make it a GSM store. IMEI#'s aren't blacklisted here in the USA but are in the UK, Australia and some other countries. I think what will get them caught will be bragging about what they have done to the wrong person. As for Verizon Wireless spokesman John Johnson saying that the phones can be tracked, he's right but if the insurance pays and doesn't want to pursue call tracing of the ESN's, they'll never be tracked down. @ T Sizzles, since your close, keep us posted on any news if they do get caught. I'd like to see how this turns out. Maybe the one identified suspect will spill the beans on the rest of the clan.
True it depends on the carrier. I know that Sprint will refuse to activate anything that's not Sprint branded, but Verizon, for example, has activated non-VZW branded phones in the past. Not sure about other CDMA carriers.
Alltel will and I think US Cellular is the same way. As long as it's a CDMA phone, E911 compliant and the user has the SPC (if there is one) some CDMA carriers will activate it. Probably was.
