Man who unlocked nearly 2M AT&T phones gets 12 years in prison

Re:Man who unlocked nearly 2M AT&T phones gets 12 years in p... by dcgudeman on Sunday September 19, 2021 @11:24PM (#28590114)

Isn't it pretty common to subsidize the cost of phones by requiring a certain length of service? What business model would you propose?

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Re:Man who unlocked nearly 2M AT&T phones gets 12 years in p... by silisili on Sunday September 19, 2021 @11:30PM (#28590137)

That's called a contract. You still have to pay money to end your contract early.

Carriers, to my knowledge, do not sell phones at a loss without a contract in place.

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Re:Man who unlocked nearly 2M AT&T phones gets 12 years in p... by x0x0 on Monday September 20, 2021 @01:58AM (#28590727)

from the doj press release:

> AT&T has further determined that the loss it suffered because customers, whose cellular phones were illegally unlocked, failed to complete payments for their cellular telephones was $201,497,430.94.

There's really no effective way to collect amounts of money not worth suing over when someone stops paying on a contract like this.

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Re:Man who unlocked nearly 2M AT&T phones gets 12 years in p... by silisili on Monday September 20, 2021 @04:54PM (#28598875)

Thanks. This actually answers my initial questions. So basically, deadbeats gaming the system :(.

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Re:Man who unlocked nearly 2M AT&T phones gets 12 years in p... by x0x0 on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @12:50PM (#28606969)

Deadbeats and companies.

The latter fully control their lending standards, and can pull back on lending to poor credit risks.

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