buying phone off craigslist

[boatman]

I am thinking about getting a droid off of craigslist. I did this about 3 yrs ago with a BB curve. I got the imi number and called it in, and it was ok.

then when i got the phone i found out that it was locked out and couldn't activate it. Turns out the the number was a real number, but the phone was stolen from a store, and at that time , there were 2 different databases.

So I am asking if anyone has purchased a vzw phone off craigslist, what is the best way to go about it, and check it out.

I figure get the numbers and call it in. Then once I meet the seller, can I activate it by calling *228 to make sure it works. I know you used to be able to enter the numbers in on the web to change phones, but that does not always work and i probably won't have access to the internet unless I meet at a panera.

I would like to know that the phone works on the vzw network before I leave, so any advice from others on how they did that is appreciated.

 

[MissJennell]

Have them meet you at a store and don't give them the money until the phone is active on your line.

 

[boatman]

thanks for the quick reply. How do I activate before I leave. Just call vzw customer service to activate a new phone? The way I activated my other droids was by doing a factory reset on the phone, doing the setup made a call to vzw, i entered in my phone number and it activated. Sometimes it didn't do that automatically, and I had to speak to a rep. But these were phones purchased from vzw, don't know if different because esn is already assigned to a different account than mine.

 

[MissJennell]

thanks for the quick reply. How do I activate before I leave. Just call vzw customer service to activate a new phone? The way I activated my other droids was by doing a factory reset on the phone, doing the setup made a call to vzw, i entered in my phone number and it activated. Sometimes it didn't do that automatically, and I had to speak to a rep. But these were phones purchased from vzw, don't know if different because esn is already assigned to a different account than mine.

Go to a Verizon store and meet whoever your buying the phone from there. And then inspect the phone and then have Verizon activate it right there in the store before you give the person the money for the phone.