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Hello everyone! I purchased an HTC Merge for my wife a ways back. She was reading an e-book on it while taking a bath and our cat knocked it in the tub. Totally shot. A buddy of mine has another HTC Merge he gave me that I can use...however...I work for a carrier (not saying which one) and am unable to use pre-owned devices on my account. So I need to find a way to do an ESN swap from one phone to the other but need a little more info first.

A. As I own both of these phones, and they are the same model, will this be considered illegal ESN Cloning?

B. What software would anyone recommend to do this if this is in fact legal?

I appreciate any info anyone can give :)
 
Hey there KenzinTakenata.

Unfortunately I cannot help you with this as it is illegal per United States Government regulations as stated here: Cell Phone Fraud | FCC.gov

Every cell phone is supposed to have a unique factory-set electronic serial number (ESN) and telephone number (MIN). A cloned cell phone is one that has been reprogrammed to transmit the ESN and MIN belonging to another (legitimate) cell phone. Unscrupulous people can obtain valid ESN/MIN combinations by illegally monitoring the radio wave transmissions from the cell phones of legitimate subscribers. After cloning, both the legitimate and the fraudulent cell phones have the same ESN/MIN combination and cellular systems cannot distinguish the cloned cell phone from the legitimate one.
 
Working for a carrier you should realize that modifying or tampering with a devices IMEI/ESN is illegal in many jurisdictions. That is why the discussion of this is not permitted on Android Forums.

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