iPhone was blacklisted by Verizon and got it removed from the blacklist

As a follow-up my most recent call to customer service produced the incredulous claim from the customer service rep that mine was an iPhone problem affecting some 2.5 million iPhones.  Were that true it seems that my call would have taken a few minutes and resolution would have been swift, if it were truly that pervasive an issue. They now allege that they will fix the issue within 48 hours and will notify me by e-mail  I'll post follow-up information to report if they do what they say they'll do. By the way my phone began working again as soon as I landed in Denver upon returning from Pittsburgh.

This is useful information. To date I have never been able to find out which company blacklisted my phone. I read in another post to file a complaint with the FCC which I've done against T-Mobile since they were my carrier when it happened. The offending company has 30 days to reply. Sp far I only filed against T-Mobile hoping it will force them to fix it or at least tell me who did it.

if TMO didnt do it they are unable to fix it..whomever is the one that did it is also the one that must reverse it.

Denver Bob wrote:

This is useful information. To date I have never been able to find out which company blacklisted my phone. I read in another post to file a complaint with the FCC which I've done against T-Mobile since they were my carrier when it happened. The offending company has 30 days to reply. Sp far I only filed against T-Mobile hoping it will force them to fix it or at least tell me who did it.

In my case on the report from imeipro.info it’s shows Xfinity Mobile as the company that reported and my subsequent calls they admitted fault. 

Frustration at all time high. Nothing worse than writing to a thief telling them you caught them red handed and they don't bother replying. Thief they are as they 'stole' my phone from me. 

I still am unable to find out who blacklisted my phone, it’s unconscionable that whoever did it can keep their identity a secret!

Why not file a small claim against them?  That will get their attention.  You may even be able to claim additional damages beyond the phone itself.

fuzzy wrote:

hello all. 

     So my vexing fiasco occurred on june 20th, 2023. I went to work by subway. when I got to my stop, I noticed my phone network status bar had said SOS. I tried restarting the phone. After restarting the phone, the status bar still displayed SOS. I then just thought T-Mobile was having an outage. it was a headache because I had plans that day to meet up with friends later in the afternoon. 

     later on I checked my other line and called other family and friends who are T-Mobile customers, and confirmed that it wasn't T-Mobile's Network. it was indeed the device having an issue. I did call T-mobile customer care to troubleshoot the issue. this involved network resets, e-sim reinstalls, physical sim installs, going in and out of airplane mode, turning off and on cellular data, and ultimately a factory reset. T-Mobile escalated the issue with management, but never heard back. I was with 1 week without my main line not connected due to the device not connecting to the network. 

     On this battle to get my phone working again, I called apple to troubleshoot the issue. explained all the procedures to get the phone out of SOS mode. they originally said it was the network. with them saying this, I had ended up going in circles between t-mobile and apple trying to fix this phone. the last of it was that T-Mobile said that it was the device and not them because it was showing as connected to the network. I then finally got in contact with an Apple customer service rep that scheduled me a Genius Bar appointment.

     At the Genius Bar appointment, diagnostics were run and later on found out that the device was reported lost/stolen and is the reason for the device going into SOS mode. I was perplexed; how could a phone I bought brand new in April 2022 from the Apple store be reported lost stolen and it is in my hand? as per the Apple rep, only the carriers can do it. the circle started again. I called T-Mobile and they have no record of my device being reported lost stolen and is not on any list of their's deeming such. then it was back to apple customer cars since that particular Apple Store wasn't disclosing any information or willing to help after the discovering the device was lost stolen. 

    After a second runaround between Apple and T-Mobile, an Apple Customer service Rep, referred me to a site that showed that my phone was reported lost/stolen after entering the device's IMEI number. after doing so and confirming that the device was indeed reported lost/stolen, I then sent an email to the database company to find out how to get my iPhone off this blacklist since it was wrongfully done. They have replied that it was the doing of Verizon. so now a new fight was starting. 

     I then contacted Verizon about the matter and explained to them that I am not or never was a Verizon customer and have been a T-Mobile customer for 21 years and I am looking to fix this blacklist issue with my device. I was sent to the Verizon store to see if they can removed the blacklist. the store was perplexed by my situation and told me that they cannot do anything. I decided to call Verizon customer service back and was put through to their fraud department. their Fraud department was insisting that my iPhone 13 Pro Max belonged to a verizon customer who has an outstanding balance with them and the only way to remove the phone from a blacklist is to pay the outstanding balance. I argued with them telling them that it is my device, I bought it from apple brand new a year ago and have the proof of such, and that it isn't associated with one of their customer accounts. They said they couldn't remove it until it was paid. 

    Left angry with a brick that I am still paying off, and now 2 weeks with my main phone number not connecting,  I kept researching ways of trying to resolve this before spending $1,000+ on another device, I realized that I can file a complaint with the FCC with my issue. I then filed a complaint on the FCC website against Verizon Wireless for holding my phone capabilities ransom. 2 days later I received correspondence from the FCC and right after, a call from Verizon's Executive Relations department. Verizon finally accepted my proof that it my device and was activated on T-Mobile. The rep sends it to their fraud department. 2 days later my device removed from the blacklist. It was explained as a clerical error and they apologized to me for their massive inconvenience. I feel though that I should've been compensated for their vexing mishap causing me to miss important phone calls and texts. after this, my iPhone has been reconnected back to T-Mobile and working as designed. Away from that, I am still vexed that some big conglomerate were so arrogant and dismissive of their wrongdoing and that it took a federal government agency to rectify what I have been telling them all along. 

    Now that my device is back up and running, I would like to inform and warn anybody who owns an Android or iPhone. These carriers can blacklist your device at any moment. In order to prove it is your device, it is imperative to keep the receipt as proof as it has the device model, serial number, and imei number on it. just be mindful that some carriers will not be willing to fix this wrong and it may take getting the FCC involved. I personally believe that there must be measures in place to stop these harrowing mistakes from occurring; possibly a new regulation that could have these carriers double check their info before proceeding with blacklisting a persons device instead of doing so to innocent owners. 

I am in similar situation, and have tried the contact on many different imei check sites to find out who blacklisted my phone and so far no response,  and I paid cash at a wal mart so its even more infuriating  

I have the exact same issue with my iPhones, not just, but 3 iPhones all in SOS. Spent hours and hours since August 28th with T-Mobile(current carrier), AT&T(previous carrier), and Apple support with no resolution.

Thank you to all the responses on this thread, it really helped as I navigated the same type of situation. Successful resolution (I think, we'll see after the 72 hrs!)

My husband and my apple watches never were able to successfully connect to our digits paired cellular plan on T-Mobile after we switched from Verizon and it's been crazy to try and backtrace the reason. Long and short I bought the devices from Apple and only had one carrier before T-Mobile (Verizon). A tech rep from T-Mobile told us we needed to switch to a stand alone plan to make cellular work which thankfully I knew enough to not go down that rabbit hole. We want our watches to work as if they are our phones when the phone is off or far away and a standalone plan requires a whole different appleID/seperate phone number.

Another rep realized the imei numbers were blocked and that it had to be either Apple or our prior provider Verizon since the lock could not be placed on their system unless the watch was purchased through them, they transferred our call to Apple and they checked and the phone was fine on their end, unlocked and good to go. We called Verizon and got a customer service rep that checked but we had to find an old 4 digit pin for the deactivated account to go any further. Once we found it she said it was unlocked and not definitely not their problem--told us maybe it was a sign we needed to switch back to Verizon. Called T-mobile again and they said it definitely is Verizon's problem and unfortunately we needed to reach out to them again. TMobile agent checked our iMei numbers on Verizon's BYOD imei checker and their page brought up a pop up saying it was on the lost/stolen list and to call Verizon's customer service number.

Then we found this thread, thank you all for the tips! Usados https://imeipro.info/  from above and confirmed Verizon had blacklisted our imei numbers. Called Verizon, this time the rep needed not only the 4 digit pin for the deactivated account but also a verbal verification from the account owner (my dad) who we had to get on the line with her. He said yes (they never confirmed identity just apparently needed a different person's voice saying yes) and then she started trying to look up the data. I'll say this, the agent tried really hard while facing a lot of breakage. Apparently accessing closed accounts is very glitchy in their systems for regular customer service. She had to wait on hold for their fraud department and the person she spoke to said they couldn't find the blacklist lock in several lists and they advised me to bring the devices to Apple and have them replace them. These are out of warrently watches so that's ridiculous as it's not even Apple's fault.  I took advice from this thread again and said I have confirmation the lock is on Verizon's side and I'll have to go to the FCC after this if we can't resolve it. Was very nice and extra patient. She went back, tried adding our imei numbers and hit the lock as well. Got another fraud agent and our call was transferred to her. She was able in two minutes to take our numbers off their lost/stolen list and waited while I confirmed on their BYOD website. Whole call was 1hr 5 min with Verizon.  It took so much legwork and customer service calls to figure this out. Hopefully cellular data will work in 72 hrs once the blacklist updates across all the company lists…