I believe I have purchased a stolen phone - trying to sort it out

[MrEdweird]

Hey, all.

Sorry if this is the wrong forum section.

A couple of months ago I bought a used phone while I was in a different country, it was UK spec, came with everything and in perfect shape. It's a Sony Xperia 1 II.

I was told I'd be the third owner and the previous owner claims to have no knowledge of the following.

I got the phone and it was working fine with both foreign SIMs and giffgaff in the other country.

Then I took it back to the UK and nothing worked anymore. I spent about 2 weeks trying to figure it out. I paid for a check on the IMEI and it turned out it was blacklisted but it wasn't clear why. Either way, the blacklist was done back in 2020 and it said that it was O2 that did it.

I spoke to giffgaff (on the same network as O2) and they checked for me and their agent said it was indeed O2 that did it or maybe the store it was bought from. The phone does default to a bunch of O2 things, so I guess it really is O2 related, although I have no physical proof of this.

I called the police, thinking I could maybe get them to find the original owner or if it was reported stolen via them but they said they can't help and can't tell me if it was indeed a stolen device, which sucks.

So my only option at this stage is to speak to O2 to see if I can get it unblocked since it's just a media device to me in the UK and not much else.

O2 unlike giffgaff don't appear to have an actual email or ticket support system so I have no idea who to speak to, does anyone know?

Any advice appreciated, since I've spent a lot of money on this and hadn't considered that it might have been stolen property until I started messing with the IMEI.

Regards,

Ed

[jonsie · Accepted solution]

Sounds as though it was stolen and shipped overseas

The original owner would have reported it stolen and it was blacklisted

The IMEI bar wouldn't have worked overseas so the hone would have been ok when you tried it there

The bar O2 placed would only block the phone on UK networks

nthing you can do except write it off to experience as O2 won't remove the block

Technically it belongs to the insurance company