[ImagineParadise]

finch- GSM Phone source was doing it for 99 dollars. It lowered its prices yes, but its still overpriced just for unlocking the phone. Also, why was the thread closed? Maybe one of the moderators is collecting the money and doesn’t want to lose any profit? The thread was completely legitimate. I get home from a long day at school and work and find its closed along with 2 other people who gave me their IMEI #'s (including me would be 3 total). So what’s the deal? I’m not trying to start anything. I just think it’s a little unjust to close a perfectly normal thread without warning or explanation to put it in the nicest way possible.

slevin- First off, I'm not trying to get anything illegal from anyone. I’m not doing this for profit and this is not phishing scam so cram that random comment where the sun doesn't shine. Another thing is why would you give another person your IMEI number plus a fee of over $50 to unlock your phone and not another person who knows how to write key generators and is trying to help out the community? Call me crazy, but I think you’re a little paranoid, a little pessimistic, a little hypocritical and a little naive.

[Pizzle]

Actually, it was me who closed the thread. Let me explain something.

You have an offer to try and create something, whether legit or not. If people on here want to provide you with their IMEI's, that's their choice. I didn't edit your e-mail out, or keep them from PMing you. Like I said, their choice. Their risk.

My original intent was to close it to prevent a flame war (which is evident would happen thanks to your lack of interest in maintaining maturity by posting your comments above). I was protecting YOU, a new and potentially valuable user, from getting "thrown under the bus" by those that are initially VERY skeptical of new users offering things for free.

What I DIDN'T do is delete the thread. If I felt like it was a scam, that's the first step I would've taken. As a moderator of this forum, it's in my best interest to protect ALL our members. That goes for old and new users alike.

BBF maintains no responsibility if you ARE a scam, and the couple of skeptical posts to the issue should be enough for those enticed to think twice before sending personal information about their products to you. That's me protecting THEM.

Finally, folks like GSM Phone Source are not only valuable contributing members to the forums, but they're also sponsors who have helped an large number of users. I have no financial stake in any of them, but appreciate what they do. It's important that they're acknowledged in a "paid unlocker bashing" thread, as well.

It's a delicate balance. Feel free to appreciate that at your convenience.

[ImagineParadise]

Originally Posted by Pizzle

Actually, it was me who closed the thread. Let me explain something.

You have an offer to try and create something, whether legit or not. If people on here want to provide you with their IMEI's, that's their choice. I didn't edit your e-mail out, or keep them from PMing you. Like I said, their choice. Their risk.

My original intent was to close it to prevent a flame war (which is evident would happen thanks to your lack of interest in maintaining maturity by posting your comments above). I was protecting YOU, a new and potentially valuable user, from getting "thrown under the bus" by those that are initially VERY skeptical of new users offering things for free.

What I DIDN'T do is delete the thread. If I felt like it was a scam, that's the first step I would've taken. As a moderator of this forum, it's in my best interest to protect ALL our members. That goes for old and new users alike.

BBF maintains no responsibility if you ARE a scam, and the couple of skeptical posts to the issue should be enough for those enticed to think twice before sending personal information about their products to you. That's me protecting THEM.

It's a delicate balance. Feel free to appreciate that at your convenience.

I understand where you're coming from and I do appreciate it. What I do NOT appreciate is that you locked a perfectly normal thread with good intent at heart without writing any explination or reason why. So I have to run off guessing who did it, why they did do it, so on and so forth.

What you could have done is PM me.

If your original intent was to prevent a flame war, what you should have done is not take sides and initialy calm people down if they did have and chose to voice their opinion on the matter. I forgot who it was but he said, "You can help him or not like he said, its your choice."

My "lack of maturity" came from the unnessisary locking of my thread. I would have delt with each comment individually and without getting into "a flame war" or getting "thrown under the bus". In fact, I see nothing wrong with what I said. I could have used other choice words that I felt would represent what I felt by the obvious sarcasim and insults that I was trying to scam people but I didn't.

Next time I suggest you do the considerate thing and warn/PM/explain/give justification to why you lock threads instead of from left field.

[cristian1la]

Great explanation moderator. I am new here. thank you for trying to keep us, the newbies, safe.

[gfisher99]

Another thing is why would you give another person your IMEI number plus a fee of over $50 to unlock your phone and not another person who knows how to write key generators and is trying to help out the community?

Just a quick reply to this part... GSMPhonesource is a reputable service that has helped a ton of us. We know he is legit because many people have used them with great results and service. I have had many devices unlocked by him and trust him completely. The information he has is well worth the price. I dont know how he gets it, but its definitely worth the money to me.

[ImagineParadise]

Originally Posted by gfisher99

Just a quick reply to this part... GSMPhonesource is a reputable service that has helped a ton of us. We know he is legit because many people have used them with great results and service. I have had many devices unlocked by him and trust him completely. The information he has is well worth the price. I dont know how he gets it, but its definitely worth the money to me.

I'm pretty sure you don't know the guy who does the unlocking personally and many of us rely and trust others and their experiences and stories so that we can make the decision ourselves. Just like I did when I paid for my unlocking service...which is overpriced IMO.


edit-
also, Ixxx8217;m pretty sure I read a bunch of times that pizzle kept on saying no one could get their phones unlocked until Cingular came out with theirs or it couldnxxx8217;t be done or something like that.

edit for stealthx32- I fixed it for j00!

[stealthx32]

Proper grammar/spelling would be a start...

[ImagineParadise]

Originally Posted by stealthx32

Proper grammar/spelling would be a start...

speling..oooo burn!

[gfisher99]

You're absolutely right. I dont know him personally, but I have read nothing but great reviews (READ: MANY) and have talked to him personally on many occasions.

Overpriced? Thats in the eye of the beholder. To me, he has a service that I feel is second to none at this point. He also has a service I and others are in need of. Still feel like its overpriced? Go pump a gallon of gas and tell me how you feel. I remember paying $0.89/gallon for the same stuff Im paying $2.69/gallon for. I feel that that's "overpriced"..

Will someone "crack the code" in the future? Maybe. But until they do, Im sticking with Adam @ GSMPhoneSource. He has found a niche market and probably makes good money. More power to him.

[ImagineParadise]

Originally Posted by gfisher99

You're absolutely right. I dont know him personally, but I have read nothing but great reviews (READ: MANY) and have talked to him personally on many occasions.

Overpriced? Thats in the eye of the beholder. To me, he has a service that I feel is second to none at this point. He also has a service I and others are in need of. Still feel like its overpriced? Go pump a gallon of gas and tell me how you feel. I remember paying $0.89/gallon for the same stuff Im paying $2.69/gallon for. I feel that that's "overpriced"..

Will someone "crack the code" in the future? Maybe. But until they do, Im sticking with Adam @ GSMPhoneSource. He has found a niche market and probably makes good money. More power to him.

LOL I totally agree on the pump ordeal. I too remember when it was .89/gallon.

I have 2 friends who have T-mobile, I was going to get one of them to get it unlocked for me for free. Did I have the patience to wait for them to come to a T-mob store with me? Like many others, I just paid for it. But think of it...
Unlocked for Free
or
Unlocked for $50+


p.s. Texas is going down come turkey time. ;)

[mas90guru]

my .02, I would have posted a general overview of the dangers of supplying an IMEI and editted out the email address and then locked the thread.

If one person is allowed to request IMEI information then there's no end to the others who may expect it as well.

Letting the email address hang out there serves no useful purpose other than establishing a poor precedent.

[slevin]

I would rather pay the money if I knew what was going on with my IMEI number. Its like calling a credit card company that will give you a no APR no strings attached credit card if you just give them your social.. sounds fishy.

Not saying its a scame but i doubt people will just be pouring in to give you their IMEI number when gsm source has:

A been around longer

B very well known

C unlocked so many phones that almost every BB user who ever wanted to unlock knows them!

Not saying your a scam but i wouldn't give you my IMEI number with a 10 foot poll.

Also just as an engeneering thought.. those who figure out how to provide the unlock code, don't do it by getting others IMEI number, its not a simple sequence but rather a math problem that works the numbers backwards, kinda like the VISA/MC check that has to mod down to 0. What I am trying to say is if you want to do this and make it free go download the dev package on your computer and play with their software that way and come up with an app we can download and use at home!

[ImagineParadise]

Originally Posted by mas90guru

my .02, I would have posted a general overview of the dangers of supplying an IMEI and editted out the email address and then locked the thread.

If one person is allowed to request IMEI information then there's no end to the others who may expect it as well.

Letting the email address hang out there serves no useful purpose other than establishing a poor precedent.

1) Of course it is their choice to provide or not to provide their IMEI number for what I had in mind; which was to help out the community. I had and still do not have any intent of doing anything with the IMEI numbers except try to crack the unlocking code and create a key gen.

In fact, let me just say this...I had no idea that IMEI numbers were so sensitive.

2) hanging an email address out there doens't do anything except give a place for people wanting to help a place to do it. Poor precedence is extablished by assuming bad things will happen if they do this or that and trying to scare them away in the process.

[ImagineParadise]

Originally Posted by slevin

...

Also just as an engeneering thought.. those who figure out how to provide the unlock code, don't do it by getting others IMEI number, its not a simple sequence but rather a math problem that works the numbers backwards...!

engineering had nothing to do with it. and I believe the word you're looking for is algorithm problem... and guess what, theres only 10 possible numbers in each of the 15 digits. It's not that hard if I had 7 more IMEI's. But sence how everyone is going nuts parinoid like our "terror color coded level system" over this issue I'll just erase the emails already given to me with the 2 IMEI numbers I already have and not even attempt it. Just trying to help out.

Oh, and when I crack the BB firmware to allow a 2 gig microSD card (which I plan on getting started tonight), I just wont bother even reporting it in here. Hows that? Then you cant go crazy over that and everything will stay green on your "terror color coded level system".

[Pizzle]

Originally Posted by ImagineParadise

edit-
also, Ixxx8217;m pretty sure I read a bunch of times that pizzle kept on saying no one could get their phones unlocked until Cingular came out with theirs or it couldnxxx8217;t be done or something like that.

Correct, because prior to VERY recently, there wasn't even an option to do this. Then, when Adam posted that he all-of-a-sudden had that ability, I defaulted to him. My statements were based on the countless threads that existed as a result of the 8700-series and how to unlock them.

In spite of your suggestion that moderators had some financial interest in the unlocking of phones, you can see that we only know what is contributed here, by the reputable folks therein.

To be perfectly honest, I thought I DID post a quick post as to why I closed the thread. I usually do. I didn't and I apologize for that. However, there's little reason to go flaming like a 10 year old because your feelings were hurt.

As I said before, you have a perfectly legitimate opportunity to collect whatever you want from members. That's why I left your info and post up there.

However, at 16 posts in, you can't possibly see how quickly these things get out of hand...example? In the twenty minutes since I left my computer, there have been, what? 15 posts to this thread? Sheesh...glad I didn't subscribe to it...my BB would be going bananas.

Relax, friend. Spend some time on here and you'll see that initial skepticism by members is usually VERY warranted. No one knows you yet. If Jibi or similar were to post something like what you posted about free unlocking, that's a WHOLE different issue. If you can't understand that, it's going to be tough to explain it. There is no POSSIBLE way to determine what your intentions are based on what was an 11-post member at the time of the posting. You say "good intentioned"...as a moderator, there's zero way for me to tell how true that is. And as a newbie, taking your word for it isn't really an option yet, sorry.

I wouldn't take it personally, though. It's the internet afterall.

[ImagineParadise]

Originally Posted by Pizzle

Correct, because prior to VERY recently, there wasn't even an option to do this. Then, when Adam posted that he all-of-a-sudden had that ability, I defaulted to him. My statements were based on the countless threads that existed as a result of the 8700-series and how to unlock them.

In spite of your suggestion that moderators had some financial interest in the unlocking of phones, you can see that we only know what is contributed here, by the reputable folks therein.

To be perfectly honest, I thought I DID post a quick post as to why I closed the thread. I usually do. I didn't and I apologize for that. However, there's little reason to go flaming like a 10 year old because your feelings were hurt.

As I said before, you have a perfectly legitimate opportunity to collect whatever you want from members. That's why I left your info and post up there.

However, at 16 posts in, you can't possibly see how quickly these things get out of hand...example? In the twenty minutes since I left my computer, there have been, what? 15 posts to this thread? Sheesh...glad I didn't subscribe to it...my BB would be going bananas.

Relax, friend. Spend some time on here and you'll see that initial skepticism by members is usually VERY warranted. No one knows you yet. If Jibi or similar were to post something like what you posted about free unlocking, that's a WHOLE different issue. If you can't understand that, it's going to be tough to explain it.

I wouldn't take it personally, though. It's the internet afterall.

true.

I didnt want to come off as a 10 year old and if I did, wow, Im pretty well off buying a blackberry outright and having it unlocked. probably the only 10 year old that would have a BB ;D

I understand why alot of people had sceptisisums(sp) about my initial thread and I excpeted that. I also expected some people to see where I was coming from and try to help out the cause. I know I'm new, its not a suprize.

Also, thank you for your appoligy. I'm sure you didn't mean to leave the thread locked without some sort of justification or reason.

I wouldn't feel bad if you locked this one. lol its in its last leg anyway.

[kasperapd]

Originally Posted by Pizzle

I wouldn't take it personally, though. It's the internet afterall.

That sums it up exactly. Not personal, just too many scams going on out there, and everybody has to be careful about what kind of information they are giving out.

[ImagineParadise]

Originally Posted by kasperapd

That sums it up exactly. Not personal, just too many scams going on out there, and everybody has to be careful about what kind of information they are giving out.

agreed. again, I had no idea how sensitive the IMEI number was. I admit it was careless of me to start a thread that asked for sensitive data.

[Pizzle]

All right. Group hug.

[ifonline]

Originally Posted by ImagineParadise

What you could have done is PM me.

And what you should have done was PM a Moderator, Super Moderator, or Admin versus posting this in the public area. Order and civility, which is so difficult to maintain in public forums, is important. And, even though it has been said a thousand times in a thousand different forums, this is someone else's forum to manage, not yours. Moderators, et al, make decisions based on experience (hence their roles within these forums), and while you might not agree with the decisions made, what's done is done. Posting your complaints publicly doesn't help, and certainly doesn't support your argument.