Cellphone via eBay?

January 16, 2005 8:30 PM

My cell phone broke the other day, and I've been looking at getting a new one off Ebay, since it seems like you can get really cheap phones compared to buying them from Sprint directly. Is there anything I should know, or any potential hurdles that'd I have to jump over if I did this? Has anyone bought a phone off ebay and transferred it on to their preexisting business account?

My old phone was a Sanyo 8100, and like I said above, Sprint PCS is my provider. I read something (somewhere) to the effect that if the person selling the phone doesn't have a clean account, the phone can't be transferred over...

posted by SweetJesus to shopping (8 comments total)

I just did this a few weeks ago for my girlfriend. Make sure you get a phone that either is setup for use with your provider, or is unlocked. Check to see if there are any fees with Sprint for getting a new phone (sometimes providers charge for SIM cards).

With Cingular, my girlfriend didn't have too much trouble -- I bought a phone with a sim card, but it turned out to be unnecessary. She went in, they put in a card for her phone, no charge, and activated it. There was a hiccup with her phone being recognized on the network, but it was straightened out fairly quickly.
posted by armage at 8:49 PM on January 16, 2005

Sprint is not GSM, so SIM cards and unlocked phones are irrelevant. You need a Sprint phone. Used ones are, in fact, pretty cheap.
posted by kindall at 9:08 PM on January 16, 2005

Hmm, well...

My similar misadventure (personal phone goes for a swim...) really got interesting once I decided to go just this route. Obstacle One was the wailing and teeth gnashing that PayPal inspired.

Obstacle Two was that the outfit I ordered a phone from, selling as CellPoint on eBay, shipped a used phone when the auction description loudly and explicitly promised a new, in box phone. The ID sticker inside the battery compartment had obvious contact wear (smeared from rubbing), and the metal inside the compartment was scratched. And the cherry on top was that the ID number on the box they shipped it in had been surreptitiously but clearly altered to force it to match the used phone in the box (a carefully cut sticker had been overlayed on just that portion of the tracking sticker on the outside of the box, and I had a virgin box to compare it to).

After contacting Cellpoint by phone and email (and making it known that I had clear photos of the proof that the phone was used and another box and phone for comparison), they shipped a new replacement phone at a leisurely pace.

Once the phone was in my possession, getting it activated on my active Verizon account was easy. Charged it, went to Verizon's activation page, copied a number off the box into the site and called a special number from the phone. That stage was trouble free, with the biggest complication being signing up for an online "My Account" thing with Verizon (no charges involved).

On the upside, I saved over $100 from what Verizon would have charged me. On the downside, I learned how closely you have to watch eBay sellers with seemingly-good ratings.
posted by NortonDC at 9:59 PM on January 16, 2005

I don't know about Sprint (I'm on Tmobile and my girlfriend is on Verizon) but I think it's standard practice with all carriers to offer promotional prices on new phones in return for signing another contract.
I had lost my phone, so I called Tmobile and said I was going to cancel at the end of my contract (3 or 4 months after) because I didn't want to spend the ridiculous amount it costs to buy a phone at a non-promotional price, and the guy immediately offered me a good phone for $20 plus a $20 rebate.
When my girlfriend's phone commited suicide (long story) Verizon tech support guys told me the same thing, that if I signed another contract they'd hit me off with a cheap phone, but since I wanted to cancel at the end of my contract I bought one for $20 off of craigslist instead.
posted by Edible Energy at 12:58 AM on January 17, 2005

I did this when my old Nokia 5850 broke and I was on an ultra-cheap grandfathered plan with Verizon (they wouldn't give me a deal for re-signing with a new phone, my old plan was so cheap). I bought a cheap Motorola V60 off of eBay, and took it in for reprogramming. Worked like a charm.

Now, there are several caveats -- including all of the standard eBay scammer caveats and the fact that you Absolutely Positively need to make sure the phone you're getting will work on your carrier's network. But there was one caveat I wasn't expecting:

The phone stank. As in smells bad. Horribly. Of cheap cologne. And still does.
posted by eschatfische at 7:29 AM on January 17, 2005 [1 favorite has favorites]

With Sprint, since they don't have SIM cards, each phone instead has a unique ID. If that particular phone was previously attached to an account that is delinquent, the account needs to be paid off before it can be activated. Likewise if the phone was reported stolen.

As long as it's "clean" in that way, and it has a Sprint logo on it (e.g. it isn't from, say, Canada), you should be fine. I think Sprint charges an activation fee of $30 or so for the new phone.
posted by neckro23 at 7:40 AM on January 17, 2005

You need a Sprint PCS CDMA phone. You can find a lot of them on Ebay, and in local pawnshops, too.

If you have an existing account, you can actually buy the phone and activate it yourself, online, without having to call and pay an activation fee. I've bought several phones off Ebay and done this. No problem.
posted by TeamBilly at 12:37 PM on January 17, 2005

Thanks a lot for all the answers.
posted by SweetJesus at 1:16 PM on January 17, 2005