[DanBC]

In the UK there was a problem of people reporting their phones stolen so they could break the contract.

One police station I walked into had a sign saying that they investigate all reported phone theft, and would vigorously prosecute anyone making a false report.

In general you report the phone to your service provider (so they can block the IMEI (and there's a potential 5 year prison sentence for people who change that) and then the police to get a crime reference number and then whoever has insured the phone (sometimes the provider) to give them the reference number.

Perhaps this is a niche for a specialist to enter. Create some tool that gives law enforcement and phone providers easy to use data-mining to allow them to track stolen phones and catch thieves. (I haven't described it well, but this would be something with tight integration between law enforcement and providers; it'd have some kind of auditing to ensure correct legal documentation; it would allow data on many phones to be displayed so you could heat map where phones are stolen from or where stolen phones are ending up, etc.)

[illuminate]

"In the UK there was a problem of people reporting their phones stolen so they could break the contract."

People do this in the states too, for insurance purposes.

[thisone]

how were people "legally" breaking contract doing this? It would seem more like an insurance scam.

Unless mobile contracts have since changed, of course.

[DanBC]

It isn't legal. They weren't interested in the insurance, they just wanted to use that phone on a different provider or to get a new phone.

[thisone]

I just don't understand how reporting the phone as stolen would allow them to break the contract without having to pay the fee, or allow them to get a new phone without paying full price ( without going through the insurance).

I know little about IMEI resetting (which is a good thing I guess), but I thought it was a separate thing from phone unlocking?