Phone not picking up sim card

K

Kyle15

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2017
Messages
255
Reaction score
208
Hey guys,

So my wife has a Samsung S23 FE on MTN and a couple of months ago her phone started acting a bit weird, It says emergency calls only which means that it's not picking up her sim card right? When it first happened I restarted the phone etc. but to no avail so I switched the sim card to the sim 2 slot and that worked until about a week ago, now no matter what I do it just shows the no signal symbol for a couple minutes then switches to emergency calls only.

What I've tried so far:
  • Restarting the phone
  • Pulled the sim card out, cleaned it etc.
  • Swapping the sim between sim1 and sim2 slots
  • Put her sim card in my phone seems to work fine
  • Put my sim in her phone does the same thing
So the natural conclusion would be that something in the physical sim slot is damaged right? Would it be worth taking this to get repaired or is there something else I could try?
 
Not saying it's this, but I recently read some posts about phones getting blacklisted.
Since blacklisting works on imei number it makes sense that slot 2 would work until it also got blacklisted.

Was the phone bought from a 3rd party seller or from a "dealer" i.e voda/mtn shop.
If from takealot could still be a 3rd party seller.
 
Yea, I think she bought it from Takealot, how do you find out if it's been blacklisted?
 
I'm also on MTN, Physical Sim, Iphone 14. The last week I had a few instances where my phone would just say no sim and them come back. Everytime it happens I get this feeling of is my sim being swopped and my accounts will soon be hacked lol. Then it starts working randomly again. Very odd.
 
Kyle15 said:
Hey guys,

So my wife has a Samsung S23 FE on MTN and a couple of months ago her phone started acting a bit weird, It says emergency calls only which means that it's not picking up her sim card right? When it first happened I restarted the phone etc. but to no avail so I switched the sim card to the sim 2 slot and that worked until about a week ago, now no matter what I do it just shows the no signal symbol for a couple minutes then switches to emergency calls only.

What I've tried so far:
  • Restarting the phone
  • Pulled the sim card out, cleaned it etc.
  • Swapping the sim between sim1 and sim2 slots
  • Put her sim card in my phone seems to work fine
  • Put my sim in her phone does the same thing
So the natural conclusion would be that something in the physical sim slot is damaged right? Would it be worth taking this to get repaired or is there something else I could try?
Click to expand...
You can try with a different carrier, either Telkom or Vodacom.

If they work then the phone is blacklisted with MTN.
 
Rickster said:
You can try with a different carrier, either Telkom or Vodacom.

If they work then the phone is blacklisted with MTN.
Click to expand...
I did try my Vodacom sim card and it seemed to do the same thing, didn't do a restart or anything so I'll have to try again. Is it possible to be blacklisted by all carriers or could there be something else at play?

And I would assume there's no recourse from Takealot for blacklisted phones, bloody annoying the phone should have a good 2-3 years in it.
 
Kyle15 said:
I did try my Vodacom sim card and it seemed to do the same thing, didn't do a restart or anything so I'll have to try again. Is it possible to be blacklisted by all carriers or could there be something else at play?

And I would assume there's no recourse from Takealot for blacklisted phones, bloody annoying the phone should have a good 2-3 years in it.
Click to expand...
I do not know much about blacklisting, I would assume for example MTN brought in the phone to ZA, it was given out to someone via contract, they stopped paying, MTN blacklisted it (not sure if they would only blacklist it with themself or with all other carriers)

I assume if it was stolen from MTN, it would be blacklisted with all carriers.

Try do a VoWiFi call, I assume you can do a call if the sim doesn't have service.

Best is to call MTN, give them the IMEI number and ask if its blacklisted and on what grounds, explain your story (where you bought it from, how long ago etc.)
 
Rickster said:
I do not know much about blacklisting, I would assume for example MTN brought in the phone to ZA, it was given out to someone via contract, they stopped paying, MTN blacklisted it (not sure if they would only blacklist it with themself or with all other carriers)

I assume if it was stolen from MTN, it would be blacklisted with all carriers.

Try do a VoWiFi call, I assume you can do a call if the sim doesn't have service.

Best is to call MTN, give them the IMEI number and ask if its blacklisted and on what grounds, explain your story (where you bought it from, how long ago etc.)
Click to expand...
Thanks, called MTN this evening apparently the phone has been blacklisted due to bad debt😐 Told me to contact their legal department tomorrow for more information.

Going to phone Takealot tomorrow as they've clearly sold me a phone that already had an active contract on it, which I'm pretty sure is illegal in a few different ways .
 
Kyle15 said:
Thanks, called MTN this evening apparently the phone has been blacklisted due to bad debt Told me to contact their legal department tomorrow for more information.

Going to phone Takealot tomorrow as they've clearly sold me a phone that already had an active contract on it, which I'm pretty sure is illegal in a few different ways .
Click to expand...
This is common practise. Get some phones on contract(possibility illegally), sell them, stop paying the contract.
 
Zuner said:
This is common practise. Get some phones on contract(possibility illegally), sell them, stop paying the contract.
Click to expand...
Yea I would imagine they just take a bunch of contracts out possibly with stolen identities etc. The payments stop coming in when those people find out and the phone gets blacklisted.

Takealot have been good so far they said they're going to refund it so thats good. would imagine they should have checks and balances for this type of things though.. Just check the IMEI when a phone is sold by a third party it should show if its under contract, what region the warranty is for etc.
 
Kyle15 said:
Yea I would imagine they just take a bunch of contracts out possibly with stolen identities etc. The payments stop coming in when those people find out and the phone gets blacklisted.

Takealot have been good so far they said they're going to refund it so thats good. would imagine they should have checks and balances for this type of things though.. Just check the IMEI when a phone is sold by a third party it should show if its under contract, what region the warranty is for etc.
Click to expand...
This happened to me in 2013 with my samsung S3, from bidorbuy, they replaced the phone though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X