Over 13,000 Vivo Phones Discovered with Fake IMEI Numbers

Vivo phones Fake IMEI
"Ah sh!t, here we go again"

Vivo and their negligent smartphone sales division have yet again allowed hundreds of thousands of phones be sold in the black markets of India with shared IMEI numbers.

It isn't uncommon for black market peddlers to sell multiple phones with either no or the same IMEI numbers on them.

IMEI frauds, though illegal, continue to thrive in India due to the sheer lack of vigilance when it comes to distribution of phones and their spare parts from the Company's warehouses to local shops.

This time, the issue came to light when Akhilesh N. Singh, Additional Superintendent of Police in Meerut, got his Vivo smartphone repaired from an authorized service station.

Later on, when he couldn't connect to a cellular network, it was discovered that the phone's IMEI no longer matches the one mentioned on the box after it returned from the service station.

This led to some further investigation down this rabbit hole, and over 13,000 smartphones with shared IMEI were brought to light.

Vivo phone IMEI Fraud
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

The sheer number of these smartphone frauds in countries like India makes it nearly impossible for the government alone to blacklist them all. Smartphone companies should pitch in and put a stop to this as it ultimately is their product that's being misused by criminals and black market sellers. 

Vivo had seemingly remained silent so far with this incident. We're yet to see how they'll respond to this which potentially damaged their already brittle brand image. 

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