T-Mobile gets jacked, around $8.2M in phones vanished like a David Copperfield act
So here’s what we just heard: one of T-Mobile’s warehouses were broken into over the weekend and around 36,000 phones were stolen! The phones stolen are said to be worth around $8.2 million! Yeah peoples, not fun. What’s even crazier is that the majority of what was stolen were the Sidekick devices. T-Mobile’s actively tracking the IMEIs to see if any are activated on their network and is said to be working with law enforcement officials to trace the handsets to dealers that potentially activate them. Totally insane! Here’s the internal email to T-Mobile dealers, after the jump!
"Wanted to let you all know that one of our warehouses was broken into over the weekend and some 36,000 phones were stolen (worth about 8.2 Million). The most significant phones stolen were the Sidekick phones. Please make sure you inform the dealers who like to purchase gray market handsets that we are aggressively working with law enforcement to prosecute anyone who has these handsets. We do know the IMEI’s of the stolen phones and once they end up on our network we will go to the dealer code that activated the phone. So if your dealers get a call about Sidekicks and the deal is too good to be true you will know why."
crazyyy…
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Check ebay, craigslist. I think this was an inside job. Can’t you activate these on prepaid and not worry about dealer code?
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t mo doesn’t even unlock sdk devices, if used on to go service /pre paid imei would show up on network, police would probably get a lead on where they were acquired. dumbasses will get caught
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At first I thought it was Zeta-Jones who may have pulled this off, but then, as I think about it more…it’s gotta be Joe Pesci and Bobby D. Hopefully they kicked a sidekick or two up to Paulie.
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My arms are so tired of carrying all these sidekicks, does anyone want one, I can sell them to you cheap….
Oh, you just can’t activate them…but they make great paperweights…
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Expect these phones to surface in countries where there’s no t-mobile, i.e. south america. I think it’s rather unlikely that anybody capable of stealing 36000 phones will be stupid enough to market them in the country where they were stolen. Then again….
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isn’t it possible to activate another phone, a surrogate if you will, then just move the SIM to the SK?
BTW: one of T-Mobile’s warehouses WAS broken into, not “were”. Sixth grade grammar, ppl!
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I got sidekicks for cheap,holler at your boy.
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That is ok… The phones were probably new to T-Mobile, but so 2000 for the other carriers…. I guess they will be raising rates now to cover that break in…
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Wonder if it was qdi? They are on of the nations biggest wholsaler phones for cariers like tmo they have a warehous in pheonix but I’m betting this was on the eastse board thogh.
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I work for the company and it was most likely an inside job, tracking the IMEI numbers or the Sim serial number might help
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damn 36,000 phones theymust of had to have a big ass truck, imsure it would be easier to possibly find the people that did it since im sure you cant fit 36.000 sidekicks into a car.
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@bluehorseshoe. U got me in stitches over that comment. This heist was worth more that Lufthansa.
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Bahh!! I can only imagine how many of these things will show up on ebay, despite what everyone thinks, the real criminals will probably never be caught and the public who purchases these devices will be told by T-mob they can’t activate them due to that fact..
PS: Anyone wanna buy some cheap sidekicks lmao!!
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I think this calls for some drastic measures on the operator’s side. All operators should get together and launch the IMEI blacklist database like it’s done in the UK… if your phone is stolen, IMEI is blocked by the operator and it goes into the database where no other operator will activate that device. That would stop the crooks (at least by a bit)
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There is an IMEI blacklist in the US I believe.
And sending sidekicks to south america as one poster suggested would do no good as they are locked to T-mobile and most of the functionality, even contact list, won’t work because they need to run over a central Danger server.
As for the poster that suggested getting a surrogate phone and popping the sim into the sidekick, again, most of the features won’t work because the require the central server to be functional.
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You know sweet revenge would be if they were all defective slides. Which I can tell you were not all fixed. We still get returns for power cycling every few devices.
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Damn the hustling doesn’t stop…&& that had to be an inside job how would it be so freakin easy to get inside the warehouse andtake all those phones witout gettin caught…this is serious mang but like they say GO HARD OR GO HOME. It wouldn’t had made sense to steal a lil if ur gonna get caught && do hard time anyway…u might as well steal as many as possible… but for sumre this was scammed with sum inside help… && they had to think hard how to get away wit it…gosh ppl …damn now its gonna make the rate plans go up assholes >:o
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Somone who steals this many phones are not idiots.. (obviously) These phones will probably not see the light of day in the US. They will be unlocked and sold out of the country. Worth 8.2 million to TMO.. will sell for around 3 million on grey market in bulks i’m sure. Craigs list and ebay??? LOL who the hell put that. Too funny… No one makes that big of a boost to sell it on ebay and CL.
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Talk about an inside job… they more than got jacked they robbed by their own employees lmbao
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The SK is the stupidest phone to steal. The HipTop opersating system is virtual and only works on the TMO network thru the Danger servers. It’ll be simple to flag the imei’s of the stolen devices and if they show up on the servers, shut ‘em down. Even unlocked the SK is pointless as only sms and the phone will work w/o Danger and who wants a Side Kick with no data or I’m? Not I.
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The entire company contracts with Guardsmark for physical security.. I’m curious if that relationship will continue.
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I bet most of them are counterfeit Samsungs
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i can see why they go the sidekicks.
hot phone!
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Maybe these “Heisters” dont want to turn around and sell these devices, maybe they just really have it out for T-Mobile. Why cant they just steal as much as they can, then burn it all, bury it, what have you. This could easily have been a “personal justice” situation.
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