Buying/unlocking a Blackberry ? Read this!

Before spending a substantial amount of money on a new Blackberry, it is important to know these few things:1) Blackberry Storm: It is a Vodafone exclusive. Beware of sellers claiming that they got their phones unlocked by Vodafone, since Vodafone clearly stated that VODAFONE DOES NOT UNLOCK THE BLACKBERRY STORM. Also, beware of sellers who do not specify that they have the phones in stock, since the Blackberry Storm s2) Unclocking your Blackberry: When you buy a phone on a different network provider, you will need to unlock it to use it on your network. The cost will vary, however, once again, beware of people trying to sell you something that is completely FREE. Vodafone UK will provide the Network Unclock Code for free, provided you or a friend have a Pay Monthly contract. This is valid not only for Blackberries, but for any phone on Vodafone UK.3) Used Blackberries: Before buying, check with the seller that the phone has not been registered on any Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) because otherwise it can get quite difficult/costly to use any of the Blackberry data services, since the phone will need to be unregistered from the original network and sometimes this can be even impossible if the phone comes from another country of for some specific networks which require the original owner to unregister the phone.4)"Faulty" Blackberries: Some sellers try to sell Blackberries as faulty saying that these are unable to send/receive calls, while other services (emails, messenger, etc.) work perfectly. BEWARE! These are lost/stolen phones. In fact, when the Blackberry IMEI gets banned by a network, the Blackberry will display exactly these symptoms.5) Insurance fraud: Do yourself a favour: pay with Paypal and remember that it is always better to get a proof of purchase from the original owner. Why? Because many people try to fraud phone insurance companies in this way: they sell their phone on Ebay and, after some time, they declare it as lost/stolen to the insurance company which consequently bans the IMEI of the phone they sold and give the fraudsters a new phone. When you receive your phone, check the IMEI and immediately send an email to your seller asking to confirm that he sold you that phone. Also, in case the phone you bought from Ebay stopped working (making/receiving calls, etc.) this is most likely what happened! Try to recover all the information on the transaction from Ebay/ Paypal, tell the seller that you discovered what happened and eventually go to police!I hope you will find these informations useful and that you will help others to read this guide by voting it as useful!Have a nice Ebay experience and enjoy your phone! :)Lidia

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