Today, a mobile phone is an important attribute in the life of almost every modern person. For many of us, he replaces things like a player, an alarm clock, a TV, a calculator, a PC, and sometimes even books. We fall asleep with the phone in our hands, and when we wake up, the first thing we reach for our mobile assistant. With such regular widespread use, no one is immune from the loss or theft of a mobile phone.
The principle of using a stolen or lost mobile phone is quite simple. A SIM card of the GSM standard is pulled out of the phone, and the device enters the secondary market, which is now in great demand and expanding at an unprecedented speed.
In principle, to find a lost or stolen device and return it to its owner is quite realistic. But for this you need to know the identification number of the mobile phone - IMEI. Let's talk more about what it is and how to find out the IMEI of your phone.
IMEI is essentially a unique mobile equipment number. Two phones with the same IMEI number cannot be in principle, since manufacturers do not produce such devices. This number is initially programmed in the so-called "firmware" of the mobile phone. IMEI is necessary for recognizing a cell phone in a GSM network; it is detected automatically in the operator’s network when connected.
So how to find out your IMEI?
There are several ways to do this.
To find out IMEI, just look carefully at the box from the phone, where the necessary information is located under the barcode, also IMEI is indicated on the device’s body under the battery. When buying a phone, you should not immediately throw away the packing box, in the future it can come in handy as proof that the lost mobile phone really belongs to you.
Another option on how to find out the phone’s IMEI is to type a simple combination on the telephone keypad: * # 06 #. This can be done without even installing a SIM card in the device. In this case, the numbers (15 pieces) should be displayed on the display - this will be IMEI. For Sony Ericsson phones, IMEI will be 17 digits, the latter two being the software version.
When buying a phone, you should be especially careful, be sure to check the IMEI number indicated on the box and the number on the device itself. In the event that the numbers are different, you are probably trying to sell a device with a dark past, which you should not buy, because otherwise you can easily get into the field of view of mobile operators or law enforcement agencies, and they will oblige you to return the purchased phone to legal to the owner.
Being aware of how to learn IMEI, to find a lost mobile phone, in principle, is quite realistic. When registering a mobile phone on the network, IMEI is automatically transmitted to the operators, therefore, even with a replaced SIM card, the phone is easy to detect. There are many different technical possibilities to indicate the location of the device, even if no calls are made from this phone.
When contacting mobile operators, the owner of the mobile can request all the available information about the location of the device. Until recently, operators provided subscribers with a service such as IMEI phone blocking, but due to the fact that recently, sales of used handsets have sharply increased, and this service had to be abandoned in the end. For the provision of high-quality blocking services, a special base is needed for all Russian mobile operators without exception, and at the moment, the creation of such a base is impossible. However, some Russian sites began to create a "black" information base of stolen vehicles.
If the trouble nevertheless happened and you were left without your mobile phone, then when applying for a request to find the phone to law enforcement agencies, you should indicate its IMEI in the application, as well as provide a document confirming the ownership. As mentioned earlier, such a document may be a box from the phone on which a unique number is indicated, especially for used devices.
So, we figured out how to learn IMEI, and for what, in fact, it is necessary. Although now IMEI replacement is widely practiced, despite the fact that the provision of such a service is criminalized. And yet, do not neglect these precautions, especially since it is not difficult to find out your IMEI.