[nemzor]

I'm trying to replace a 6 month old Javelin that unfortunately came in contact with some Bailey's liquor and basically fried out the screen/keypad .. Because its still fairly new, Rogers won't let me upgrade a to a new phone, extend a contract and get a new (reduced price) phone, refurbished phone etcetc.. Basically I have to pay the $650 fee to get a new phone (or just cancel for $400 and go somewhere else)..

THEN LO AND BEHOLD: I come across an ad with a guy selling a 'broken' Blackberry Bold. From what's mentioned about the phone, it had an Error 507 on the screen last week, and now it just has a flashing red light. Looking up on it, a 507 error just means the Blackberry can't find the operating system, so if I were to restore the operating system it would work, right?

I'm going to his house tomorrow to look at the phone first, but I want to know what I should look out for before I decide buy it..

Any suggestions that I can do/check/watch out for to see if it would be a worthy (albeit risky) investment?

Thanks!

[danifunker]

it might not be that easy.... there could actually be a problem with the bold (possibly some kind of internal flash memory problem) which could explain as to why the OS was lost, or can't be read. I've seen that once before, but it was on an 8700 and I think the error message was a little different, but who knows.

[cdaiscool]

Unfortunately, you have no way of knowing if the PIN is clean or whatever.

Hope for the best, expect the worst! I'd tell him you're a techie, and you want to be sure if it can't be activated for a bad PIN/stolen phone, he'll return the money - perhaps pay him via Paypal and have that in writing.

Also be sure to specifically state that you WON'T return it if you cannot make it work. If there's a technical reason, no return - administration/stolen reason, RETURN.

Make sure you're protected, man.

[nemzor]

Unfortunately, you have no way of knowing if the PIN is clean or whatever.

Is it possible (if he has the IMEI number on hand) to call up Rogers and verify if the phone is ok? Or would that open another can of worms/flagged for stolen phone?

The guy says it was originally a company phone, but when the error showed up and he couldn't use that phone anymore, the company replaced it with a new phone.. but I'll keep the 'stolen' phone suggestion in mind just in case!

I appreciate the input guys!

[Radius]

Company phone, and he gets to keep it? Strange, but not necessarily a red flag.

Check it out as best you can, at a minimum it will have an IT policy associated with it and if the PIN is attached to an account you are going to have a heck of a time reclaiming it. The company themselves never sanctioned the sale of the device and might not really care if you ask them to release the PIN or not.

Meaning they just may ignore your request.

[xliderider]

How much is he asking for the Bold? Basically, he should be pricing it low as a "parts only" phone, unless he allows you to return it if you can't recover the OS and return it to working status.

As mentioned, there is no guarantee a 507 error can be recovered.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Jancy10]

How much are you buying it for?

[nemzor]

I thought it was a little odd as well that he's selling out a company phone, I'll have to get more information about that tomorrow..

I threw in a price for $200 (comes with a crapload of accessories that I'm not too concerned about since I'm mainly concerned about just replacing a phone) and figured that if I can't get it to work, I'll put it out on the market for a REAL techie that wants to take the challenge of getting it to work/use it for parts.

[Radius]

Seems steep without a pedigree. If he's serious and allowed to sell it for "parts" then get confirmation from the IT department of his company, call and ask to speak with them and also verify the number you are calling.

Unless $200 is peanuts to ya.

[SevereDeceit]

I'm just going to assume it's Craigslist you saw the ad in. I see more issues with this as time goes on, the majority of the devices or either stolen or have locked ESN's. There is many threads on this here. You must verify through the carrier if the ESN is clear in order to use the device. Many do not do this...

[anon(19759)]

Can you take your notebook with DM and Rogers' latest Bold OS handheld OS already loaded, and when you get there, hook it up and run loader.exe and see if it will load. Should take 3 minutes to find out if it's workable.

[nemzor]

I'm just going to assume it's Craigslist you saw the ad in. I see more issues with this as time goes on, the majority of the devices or either stolen or have locked ESN's. There is many threads on this here. You must verify through the carrier if the ESN is clear in order to use the device. Many do not do this...

Actually it was Kijiji But yes, I'll definately make sure that its all good with the carrier.. I would've been one of those 'many' had you guys not mentioned it!


Hoping for the best!!

[nemzor]

Can you take your notebook with DM and Rogers' latest Bold OS handheld OS already loaded, and when you get there, hook it up and run loader.exe and see if it will load. Should take 3 minutes to find out if it's workable.

Yeah, I was thinking about doing that already just to be sure.. if its not workable (after 3 minutes), is the loader prog going to show me that?