can imei numbers be manipulated

[jraju1954]

Hi,

I recently purchased a mobile on online. I had a defect in battery which I could not diagnose within the return period.
When I took this device to the service centre, I was shocked to see that the purchase date of the phone mentioned in an earlier date than the real date shown in invoice.
I asked for replacement as the warranty gets end early and it is in process. The manufacturing company , when I approached to change the warranty date, I was told that the device got prior activated by the earlier date and so, they would not be able to do anything and asked me to approach the supplier the online supplier.
My query is , can a device be activated without a sim is used

1. If so, can number of sims be activated by this way and be used ever after activation for ever in other devices\
2. If not, how could it have been happened

 

[Landr5]

The IMEI is assigned to the hardware, not the microSD. If you have a receipt from the date of purchase that should be sufficient to get warranty repairs done since it should contain the IMEI of the device that you purchased. If the vendor is shady, then maybe not. Batteries aren't too hard to replace so if you can't get them to warranty it, buy a replacement battery and consider it a learning experience.

 

[jraju1954]

I understand your point. Assuming the vendor is shady, how it could have happened . you mean just a bought up phone or returned phone is repacked as original and sold to me.
I do not want the phone , as the warranty expires very early, about 8 months, and also it was sold at new phone price.
I just added those remarks for the main query.
Please answer to my main queries
why cannot manufactureres make a provision in the device , so that if you first use the phone, and if it has already been activated, i mean, imei no, then an alert to the effect that would give the users who would return it immediately and raise the concern
then there is issue of service provider, if the sim is activated not by users service provider, then there is no chance of knowing anything.
But it is ascertained that the imei has been used by some one using sim card from manufacturer. there is a way of knowing for manufacturer to get this information.this is not known to users and so I ask

 

[hang-the-9]

I understand your point. Assuming the vendor is shady, how it could have happened . you mean just a bought up phone or returned phone is repacked as original and sold to me.
I do not want the phone , as the warranty expires very early, about 8 months, and also it was sold at new phone price.
I just added those remarks for the main query.
Please answer to my main queries
why cannot manufactureres make a provision in the device , so that if you first use the phone, and if it has already been activated, i mean, imei no, then an alert to the effect that would give the users who would return it immediately and raise the concern
then there is issue of service provider, if the sim is activated not by users service provider, then there is no chance of knowing anything.
But it is ascertained that the imei has been used by some one using sim card from manufacturer. there is a way of knowing for manufacturer to get this information.this is not known to users and so I ask

The phone may have been "new" but an older model that sat in the warehouse before being sold, so the warranty may have started when the retailer bought it from the vendor not from when you bought it.
If you were told the phone was activated already before, contact the seller for a refund, they may give it to you, especially since it came with a bad battery, which is another clue the phone has been around for a while before it got to you.
Manufactures of phones do not really track them after sale, that is not their business, they sell the phone new, what happens after that is not their responsibility if someone tries to sell a used device as new, that is on the seller only. Imagine needing to not only make hundreds or thousands of phones, keep warranty info about their status, but also track it where it may have gone or who used it on what service? Once it's out of the factory, for the most part what happens to a phone is out of their hands. To track where the phone in they would basically need to built in spying hardware so when the phone is used or activated it reports that to the manufacturer. They don't really need to know that, and I'm sure you don't want your phone location and use being tracked by even more companies.