Originally Posted by
holvey This is just a guess, (an goes along with others), but as soon as they issued you a new phone, whether they gave you a deal or not, the IMEI is no longer tagged to your account unless you added a phone to your existing account.
Look at it from T-mobiles perspective... You reported it as lost, they gave you a new phone. What would you have done if T-mobile called you up and said "we have found your old phone, so you have options, you can keep your current phone, or you can give us back your new phone, and take back your old phone...without it being refurbished.
One can argue that they need to give you this option, but if I lost my phone, and my carrier gave me a deal on a new one, then they found my old phone, I wouldn't want it back.