To Our Valuable Customers and Business Partners
First and foremost, we wish you and your families remain safe and healthy throughout this crisis.   As the state and federal response to this virus continues to evolve the MobileLizard repair store has decided to temporarily close our doors (hopefully only for a short time).

Once the situation is more stable in Maryland and the current business ban is lifted, we will reopen with newly implemented safety precautions designed to preserve health of our customers and staff.

We recognize that functional Cell Phones and Smart Devices are essential to our daily lives at the moment, whether we are working from home, attending classes or communicating with our loved ones.

Some of you have been reaching out for help, so to try and assist, we’d like to open up the MobileLizard blog site for questions you may have about issues or challenges you’re facing  (e.g.  how to do a software reset to solve a glitching phone issue, or a temporary fix for a non responsive screen) with your phones and devices.  We’ll try to answer as many questions as possible a few hours each day.

Unfortunately we won’t be available to fix hardware issues, but there are sometimes ‘work arounds’ that may get you through the next few weeks. Feel free to ask your questions, We’ll do our best to provide solutions.

Again, please ask all repair questions at the MobileLizard blog site.  Post your questions here in the comments section below.

Many thanks to those of you who have expressed your  concern and sent messages of support. We’re very grateful to have such amazing customers.

Thanks again, and stay safe.

The post CORONAVIRUS/COVID-19 UPDATE appeared first on Mobile Lizard Phone Repair Baltimore.

Its  Back!  A Stable  factory unlock  for Sprint iPhones is now available. The unlock can be purchased at www.mobilelizard.com .  This unlock works for all sprint iphones, 4s/5/5c/5s/6/6+  Clean ESN or Blacklisted/Blocked under contract or No contract, This unlock will work for your iphone.  Prices will display once you’re logged into your Mobilelizard account.

HAPPY UNLOCKING!

The post SPRINT IPHONE UNLOCK NOW AVAILABLE FOR IPHONE 5S, 6, SPRINT IPHONE 6+ AT MOBILELIZARD UNLOCKS. appeared first on Mobile Lizard Phone Repair Baltimore.

At MobileLizard, we  get hundreds of emails a week, mostly  questions about how to fix a bad imei problem.  Every now and then someone will check in with us BEFORE buying the phone (AHA!) so they don’t run into that bad imei or blacklisted phone issue.  We thought it might useful for people to see what goes into – or what’s the safest way to get a used phone for less than retail pricing.

10 years ago when we first got into the business of cell phones – Craigslist didn’t even have a separate section for cell phone sales.  Now  there are thousands of phones for sale in every city,  between  major carriers,  independent phone store dealers, walmart, gas stations, ebay, and pawn shops you can buy a phone almost any place these days.  The one place most people turn to for  a premium smart phone at a good price is, of course CRAIGSLIST.   There you can find an iphone 6 plus, or the latest in Android technology – a samsung Note Edge or Galaxy s6 for a reasonable price.  It seems simple – you meet with the buyer, examine the phone and purchase.  You walk away with a new phone, and they walk away with your cash.

The problem is not everyone on Craigslist is honest, and not every buyer is educated in the risks associated with buying second hand smartphone.  Most folks just want to save money.  So here are some precautions you can take.

1. Check the ESN or IMEI of the phone you are buying. There are some free online sources such as  Swappa.com  However, the best information comes from the carriers themselves.  Tmobile, and Verizon provide their own bad esn/ imei and activation information – If the phone cannot be activated on the carrier – you’re buying a bad phone.

2. Check the phone compatibility – Sprint Phones are often sold very cheaply in the second hand market – This is because they are difficult to unlock, and are rarely compatible with other popular carriers like Tmobile /Simple mobile or metro pcs.

Sprint phones do use sim cards, but this does not mean you can put a Tmobile or ATT sim card in it. Even clean sprint phones will usually not work with other carriers.  There are some exceptions, but be prepared to pay $80-$200  extra to get this additional function.

3.Check the contract status of the phone.  Sellers will often put their phones up for sale knowing the phone is still under contract, or there is a large unpaid bill.  The phone will still be ‘clean’  but as the carrier company realizes the bills continue to go unpaid, it will be flagged and blocked in the system.  You’ll have a phone that works fine for a few weeks or days, and then suddenly shows no bars.

4. What about people who sell you a perfectly clean phone but then reported lost or stolen?  There’s no way to predict or prevent a seller calling in their phone lost or stolen.  As long as they are the owner of record with the Phone carrier, that possibility always exists.   You can insist on being at  a carrier store and having the carrier remove that phone  and transfer the imei or esn to you. However that can only be done if the phone is off contract and no longer has an unpaid bill balance.

Anyone buying from Craigslist, on the street, from ebay, facebook groups or pawn stores can use these measures to prevent wasting money on a useless phone.

The best place to buy a used phone is going to be a neighborhood store or a reputable  online reseller like Amazon.

There are fixes available if you find yourself in the position of having bought a stolen phone or a blacklisted phone. You may still be able to unlock a blacklisted phone, or get a cell phone plan if you have one. This does not hold true for all phone models – but email us if you have questions.

The post Avoid buying stolen phones! how to check if the phone you’re buying is stolen or blacklisted appeared first on Mobile Lizard Phone Repair Baltimore.

Finally! Sprint will allow customers to unlock  their phones.  Prior to the agreement unlocking a phone had been a great source of frustration for many Sprint customers.

Before everyone goes running into their Sprint store (or any other carrier store)  there are a few conditions that must be in place to qualify for the unlock.

1.  You must own the phone free and clear – eg. No payments owning on a finance to own plan, service contract must be complete.

2.  No payments owing to the carrier – eg. No unpaid bill or late fees

Once these conditions are met call into customer service, or  request your unlock online.  Each carrier will have additional requirements  along with the 2 main ones – after all they don’t want to make it too easy for you to jump ship.

In the case of Sprint customers,  there is  another catch – most of their phones are CDMA  technology, and cannot be unlocked for  GSM use ( on networks like AT&T & Tmobile).  Sprint’s unlocking policy states:

 “Specifically, devices manufactured with a SIM slot within the past three years (including, but not limited to, all Apple iPhone devices), cannot be unlocked to accept a different domestic carrier’s SIM for use on another domestic carrier’s network. Sprint has no technological process available to do this.”

Fortunately, third party unlocking services like Mobilelizard.com  are now able to unlock Sprint iphones.  Please note blacklisted and blocked Sprint iphones can technically be unlocked, but will not work inside the USA. They will work fine outside the USA once unlocked.

Email us unlock@mobilelizard.com  for more details.

The post Sprint customers can now unlock their cell phones appeared first on Mobile Lizard Phone Repair Baltimore.