From: LDC 
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Question
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 23:28:43 GMT

On 10 Jul 2006 06:24:16 -0700, trader4@optonline.net wrote:

>> "liz"  writes:
>>
>> > My Cellphone/PDA is about to give up the ghost.  Keeps losing its
>> > memory...Alzheimers settling in, like with me, I suspect.  My Sprint
>> > plan requires one arm, one leg, and a lifetime contract to get a new
>> > phone.  I found a perfect replacement on eBay, except that it has a
>> > "bad ESN"  I don't know what that means.  The seller says it's ESN is
>> > unclear, probably because the former owner didn't pay his bill.  In
>> > order to make the cell phone work, I'd have to know somebody who knows
>> > how to "clear the ESN" or get somebody at Sprint to clear it for me.
>> > No guarantees that I could do that, naturally.  I am guessing that the
>> > ESN might be the phone's internal identity or serial number?  If
>> > somebody buys a used phone, does that mean they have to know the
>> > seller's pedigree, including their mother's maiden name, their credit
>> > rating, and what their father does for a living?
>>
ESN = Electronic Serial Number

A "bad ESN" would mean a stolen and/or nonfunctional phone.