Absolutely possible. I’ve had to use imei unlock service on a few phones that had past due bills attached.

As if it was reported stolen. Not bc of old bills.

I understand what you said. I’m just telling you that imei service will unlock it. I didn’t say you had a past due bill on anything. Reading is fundamental 👍

Yes but I read what you said. I wanted to confirm if this also applied to iPhones marked officially as stolen and considered blacklisted and not just iPhones with past bills.

Imei unlock is what it is. Doesn’t matter of it’s stolen, past due bill or crazy ex girlfriend. It sucks that there are services like that but there are

IMEI is used by carriers to blacklist the device.

You should iCloud lock it. You can't unlock iCloud Activation Lock.

I cloud lock was disabled

Yes IMEI unlock services are run by rogue cellular employees so they have access to the backend and abuse their access to make a few tax free bucks.

So if they unlock it wouldn’t it be read as unlocked tho? Or would the unlock swap the imei number

There is a difference between the GSMA global blacklist and carrier blocks (not to be confused with SIM locks).

Past due bills are carrier blocks. Lost/stolen are global blacklist.

Imei unlock does both. It only takes a couple minutes to find on EBay.

It doesn’t really matter in the short term as it likely won’t affect the person who stole it. The person in here a week from now saying “help! I just bought this on Facebook marketplace…” is the one who’ll ultimately get it in the shorts. Not to say you shouldn’t lock it. You should. But if you’re thinking this will somehow rob the thief of their win, it’s unlikely to, unfortunately.

I read recently that many stolen phones are kinda exported to different country. Imei block is not worldwide.

Uh ducking why

They disabled my password somehow. And turned off find my iPhone

As I said, previously, rogue employees at AT&T and other cellular providers, go into the database and remove the stolen flag, as well as any equipment installment plans. Using the services is funding organized crime. However, this is why you should purchase AppleCare or similar so your stolen device can be replaced without paying another thousand dollars.

Ok but does the imei get swapped or does it just get marked stolen again

The IMEI does not get changed. The carrier removes the stolen flag from from the cross-carrier database.

Ok so I could just request a relook then right

You can request it but there are no guarantees it’ll go through. Often it gets removed from your account and EIPs removed. You could try to mark it as stolen again, but it will just get unlocked again. The device is lost, this is why insurance exists, file a claim and buy a new device.

It expired 2 weeks ago. The insurance was like 20 dollars a month

Sorry to hear that. I wish there was more I could do to help. Complaining on Reddit won’t change the reality of smart device theft. You’re in general shit out of luck. Next step if you haven’t already is purchasing a new phone. You’re not “punishing anyone” by locking the phone as in a worst case the screen and other parts can be sold second hand to small repair shops.