What does bad ESN mean (verizon iphone 4s)?

What does bad ESN mean (verizon iphone 4s)?

Bad ESN means that the phone for certain circumstances can't be activated on any network or carrier.

Reasons for bad ESN are:

1) The phone was reported as lost or stolen.

2) The phone has an unpaid bill, usually when you switch phone companies and you leave behind a bill even if its $0.01 the phone will get flagged, some phone companies if you spend a few minutes with them, will clear that off and will then activate the phone, if the bill amount is large, it is most likely that they will not help you activate it.

3) It is still on an active account, this does happen from time to time, a person will switch phone companies but will forget to cancel service for what ever reason.

4) Seller knows phone can't be serviced and is scamming you for money.

5) Verizon & Sprint are well known to flag and mark phones as BAD ESN, Even though phone is fully functional. If it has a bad history due to a previous owner, I'm afraid you might not get any help activating and servicing it.

  • What really is a bad ESN? Does my situation mean I have one on my IPhone? Do I have a bad ESN? I fully own my phone. I got it through sprint free when I signed up for my plan and we also got a Note 3 for 100 bucks (we paid it upfront ) on the same plan. But we left our provider for AT&T. We did not pay our final bill yet but there's no charges at all for our phones on the bill. So if we fully own our phones, but did not pay the final bill yet (and is way past due in a collection agency… Unfortunately… ), do we have bad ESNs?
  • What does it mean if an iPhone has a bad ESN and can I buy it? My iPhone 5s was stolen and Verizon as usual is not taking any pity from anyone nor would they offer me a replacement at a discount so if I want the replacement I would have to buy it at full price. I looked online on ebay and saw some iPhone 5s that were really cheap selling but when I look it says bad ESN. I read somewhere that you can't activate this with your provider is that is the case. Is this true and what exactly is bad ESN on an iPhone?
  • Verizon iPhone 5 comes gsm unlocked so if the esn is bad can you still use gsm? I was wondering sense the iPhone 5 for Verizon come GSM unlocked, if the ESN is bad can it still be used with GSM networks? Please let me know thanks
  • Is there any prepaid phone company that will accept my verizon iPhone 4 bad esn? Somebody please help. I just bought a verizon iPhone 4 with a bad esn. I thought I could put it on AT&T go phone and realized verizon doesn't use sim. I was wondering if there was any prepaid company that I could use for it?