Question about flashing CDMA phone

[henryvuong]

I buy a sell cellphones online and I have sold a lot of CDMA phones. One of the problems I have with CDMA phones is that sometime they have bad ESN, meaning the carrier has backlisted the phone's ESN and it cannot be activated with the designated carrier. My question is, if I flash the phone to another carrier, can it be activated with the new carrier? For example, when a Verizon phone cannot be activated with Verizon because it has bad ESN, if I flash it to Sprint, can it be activated with Sprint? Another question is, after a phone is flashed, will the ESN still the same?

[Heavy Fluid]

Sprint and Verizon will not activate the others phones for their network. Flashing it in this sense means nothing. If the ESN is not in their database, and it won't be, they won't activate it. You could try it on providers like MetroPCS, Cricket, or another smaller local provider.

[henryvuong]

So if I flash a Verizon to MetroPCS, it can be activated with MetroPCS, even though the ESN is not in their database?

[Heavy Fluid]

I believe that MetroPCS will accept Verizon ESN's, even the bad ones. Your best bet is to check which phones MetroPCS will accept. I know that not all providers will accept all phones, such as BlackBerry and iPhone devices.