hermit

i'm selling my blackberry pearl, and a potential buyer asked for the ESN number. i had never heard of that before, but the guy started explaining it to me and i got a little paranoid.

is it safe to give it to him by email or should i wait for him to verify it in my presence?

hermit

nobody? i kinda need an answer now.

can't find a straight answer with google.

Peroxide

Don't publicly give it to them, but you could possibly e-mail it.

I'm not sure how it works in Canada since I use a SIM Card, but in the States (worked for Sprint) people who bought phones off eBay would call in and try to activate it, but it'd be stolen and on someone's account so we couldn't activate it for them. This could be possibly what they're doing (getting the ESN to see if it's activated since that is what you use to activate it into the system).

Simply ask them if they are wanting it to check if it's activated, if they are they should simply say yes and you have nothing to worry about.

If they answer something else, I'm not quite sure!

SporkofdooM

Source

I'd say keep that to your yourself homeslice

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CSU_ComputerMajor

it's perfectly fine. all it's for is so he can call the phone carrier and give them the ESN number to make sure the phone is "clean". another words, it's not been reported stolen, lost, damaged or is on an account that was closed due to non payment. All these things would keep a person from activating said phone on a new account. I used to work for NEXTEL and this is how I know this. No security risk or anything of that nature though.

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hermit

there's a couple of companies who still dont use SIM card, they suck, that's why i'm changing.

the phone is deactivated with no phone number attached to it, so i guess he can't do anything to it without a phone number.

he asked for it exactly to see if the phone was not reported stolen.

thanks man.

Peroxide

What that is, is the Blackberry has it's own chat system called Blackberry Messenger which you can chat to other Blackberry users similar to MSN Messenger, but only if you know their PIN which happens to be your ESN (or your ESN with or without BB in front of it, can't quite remember)

I guess the guy may want to chat with you instead of buy it?

Yeah, that's the one other thing, companies obviously keep a list of phones reported lost/stolen and they list them by ESN since they are unique to each phone.

CSU_ComputerMajor

yup...if he's asking for it odd's are he's serious about buying it so good luck!

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