Comments on: T-Mobile gets jacked, around $8.2M in phones vanished like a David Copperfield act

By: Harry Johnson

Harry Johnson — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:37:54 +0000

What state was this warehouse in? If I could get my hands on those phones, I’d know what to do with ‘em. They wouldn’t miss a few more, would they? Let’s do it!

By: kadi

kadi — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:32:31 +0000

thats true i just lost my lx and tmo says they cant do anything to track it because they cant release such info to mie and that i have to report it to the police

By: elgin texas

elgin texas — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:35:38 +0000

then again it could be insurance fraud i mean think about it stock market crashed,recession this could be another enron type of deal

By: elgin texas

elgin texas — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:29:01 +0000

damn 36,000 phones who ever got them muthafuckas eating damn good

By: acehigh

acehigh — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:02:57 +0000

that may be the stupidest thing iver heard someone say in a while

By: Phones2dolla

Phones2dolla — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:58:27 +0000

Tmobile sidekick phones for sale two dolla got change, I sale cheap, no activate that promise!

By: James Whitesmith

James Whitesmith — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 16:05:34 +0000

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn….GOTCHA BITCH…….lol

By: Jess

Jess — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:35:02 +0000

if you really think t-mobile cant track IMEI because they use SIM cards you have no idea what you are talking about, T-MObile tracks every IMEI of every phone you have ever put your SIM card in and registered on the network. how do you think they verify warrenty information? and they reason they cannot release the IMEI useage of a stolen phone to the original user is FCC regulations say you cannt release anyone call information to the person other than the owner of the acct.

By: BBerry

BBerry — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:05:32 +0000

every phone used displays an imei number to that phone number… I.E. You call customer care, they type your number into the imei tracking tool, and bingo, everyphone you have ever used shows up, included the model number, imei, and dates of use.

By: JGo

JGo — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:20:18 +0000

Its sad but they had it coming!
Have they ever heard of Karma?

By: TMO_Jon

TMO_Jon — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:06:53 +0000

T-Mobile mostly certainly can track IMEIs. I am a switch tech and I have done it myself. When you make a call, the IMEI is part of the caller records. Although I do not believe there is a US carrier that utilizes the EIR which could be used to blacklist all these phones, the MSC/VLR can issue a request for the phone to send the IMEI. This happens on every phone call made by a device.

By: yahhhh

yahhhh — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 07:43:07 +0000

haah just buy the phone and activate it if the po po comes then say fuck that i aint gonna return shit they can’t do nuthing and if t-mobile cut the service then i’ll sue them for not following the contract

By: do. Watterson

do. Watterson — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:03:41 +0000

tmo does not have the ability to track the ones directly track imei numbers since service is based on sim cards not imei numbers. This is now out of tmo hands now. The Feds are handeling it now with it. They can see when a dealer activates the phone because they have to tell us the imei where customers existing dont that is how tmo knows and under a stolen they dont activate at stores just put sim in for existing and working that is why they can track these and not stolen ones just how the system works.

By: dealer

dealer — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:13:49 +0000

Guys it doesn’t matter who stole it an where an how they gonna make money on it.
what matters is:
1. it happened and no matter how it’s gonna turn out for the people who pulled it of, it’s still a historic heist.
2. T-mobile plans won’t go up, the only thing that will go up is the insurance premium (i’m sure that everything is insured), security company (which is most likely an idependent contractor) will probably get sued.
3. If you pull off heist like that, then you know what to steal and how to make money on it.
in a worth case scenario for the heisters…-they’ll sell it back to t-mobile in Europe or Asia half-priced. (which as a result might out to be very profitable deal for t-mobile)
4. T-mobile will do something really quick to get it settled, because if they don’t, people will start buying less SKs and SK plans, and as a result T-Mo might loose millions of customers

By: MA

MA — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:41:15 +0000

I think that the 8.2 million is over estimated but that’s for insurance purpose. Also the warehouse most have over 12 different models of cell phone beside the Sidekick why is T-mobile not mentioning the other cell phone. this wasn’t a lost for T-mobile is an embarrassment. We the costumers are going to pay down the pipe-line for all the stolen cell phone.

By: KP

KP — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:36:57 +0000

The ones thast were stolen WERE T-Mobile exclusive (branded and LOCKED) Duh….

BTW I think it was an inside job and they are going to Bury them and Collect insurance money, they must have been the Old ones that crapped out…

By: Brandon Hofmann

Brandon Hofmann — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:31:57 +0000

Might want to check your math on that. 36,000 phones x $1,000 is $36,000,000. The approximate value of the phones was $227.78 each. Assuming they were all sidekicks, which I don’t think they were. But that’s the average unit cost.

By: Luis

Luis — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:09:41 +0000

wow that sucks

By: Why

Why — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:09:05 +0000

Interesting that they care about IMEIs when it’s their own equipment…but when a paying customer has her device stolen, TMO won’t do anything to help and most certainly won’t block the IMEI or cooperate with authorities by reporting the new MIN or GPS location of someone using a stolen handset. Pathetic.

By: SusanB

SusanB — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:02:23 +0000

NOTE: T-Mobile USA customers can use their T-Mobile Sidekick devices on another carrier’s network using the tri-band frequency built into the device. The customer is charged for roaming on the other carrier’s network.

By: twin46235

twin46235 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:56:37 +0000

What I would like to know is how 36,000 phones comes out to 8.2 mill. Even at $1,000 each that is only 3.6 mill. What.ls up with that.

By: Dip T-Mob

Dip T-Mob — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:22:17 +0000

Yeah that had to be an inside job for them to get away with that amount of phones. I think if you activate the phone as prepaid they will still know who did it because someone has to get credit for the sale.

By: Colin

Colin — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:57:42 +0000

Nice. I guess the author of this article doesn’t know about prepositional phrases.

By: Joseph Singer

Joseph Singer — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:56:54 +0000

You can only activate SK devices on networks that have dedicated Danger Hiptop servers.

By: TTech

TTech — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 19:08:38 +0000

i think that this was in inside job with out a doubt. they will get caught tmobile dont play with money ask zeta – jones thus the reason she is no longer the speaker with tmobile. its going to end quite badly. when they are caught they are going to want to know what sunlight feels like. people dont underestimate tmobile. they will do what need to do to get results ie getting their money back.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:49:02 +0000

Wow…
I can not even believe this happened. I wonder how long it will take them to find them. You know cell phones have gold pieces in them and like one person said they could just take the phone apart and sell the pieces.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:04:53 +0000

@US

If you work for T-Mobile why is it that you don’t know that the Sidekick is not exclusive to T-Mobile?

Soon it will become exclusive, but for now Suncom is another US carrier that has the Sidekick available. Outside of the US there are other companies that have the Sidekick(Hiptop).

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:45:00 +0000

Funny how they can track the IMEI numbers when it’s their building that gets broken into but when a dealer has equipment stolen it’s too bad for the dealer.

By: unReliable Source

unReliable Source — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:23:51 +0000

eBay and Craigslist…

Some of you make me wonder.

That won’t throw up a flag now will it

All of a sudden 10,000 SideKicks hit eBay.

These fools were slick enough to pull of a pretty monumental heist and you think they’re going to hock them on eBay for the next couple of years.

If you stole a famous painting, would you try to turn around and sell it to a museum?

Come on people.

By: liz

liz — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:09:18 +0000

Some people are so stupid ya can’t even hide that many phones for one and 2 obviously its gonna be pointless to try n sell the phones once people hear that no ones gonna buy sidekicks and rate plans gonna go higher but thank you morons!