How did YOU get into the world of cell phones?

[flashmasterz]

Hey guys well I figured this would be some good reading.

So what made you guys/gals wanna start "flashing" phones?

As for me Well to be honest no one in my area actually knew what they were doing, and I was tired of all the piss poor attitude I was getting from shops.

So About two years ago or so I took it upon myself to research and google was my best friend! HAHA Now I was scammed a few times so noobs if your reading this beware of sellers! If you want something done you must do it yourself! Thats what I learned.

Also I found working on phones was a good stress reliever! haha so share your short story on how you got started?

[meanngreen04]

Bought a Palm Tungsten at a thrift store for $25 and sold it for $175 on eBay. Looked for everything to eBay on. Stumbled across Craigslist and started buying things. Everyone wanted a certain phone for our carrier but no one had em. I stumbled across m-f and started reading about 5-7 hours a night. Next thing you know, I quit my real job and picked this one up. Nothing more fun than tackling a new phone and trying to figure it out. The community here is full of people more intelligent and more connected than I'd ever be. I feed off them and in turn have learned many new solutions. Try to give back however I can with compensation, testing, or the like.

[Mr._Pseudonym]

;^) I looked over the marketplace and decided that the best value for wireless provision was Cricket, while the best smartphone to suit me was the Treo 755p. A little research showed that they both used CDMA, and thus it should be possible to use the Treo on Cricket.

A shop in town copied a Cricket PRL for me, and activated it, but could not get Cricket Internet working. I was on my own for that.

Soooo, I hopped online and began searching. This lead me to several cell phone forums, but no tutorial existed for the 755p. Instead I found threads from other folks asking how to do it.

Eventually I learned how to do it for a different model, and adapted the technique to the 755p. Then, I wrote the tutorial I had been looking for, on Howard Forums, and was invited to join the Cricket Mafia for my trouble.

:^/ That was about two years ago, and I've been tinkering ever since....

[GEMASPIRE]

Samsung Juke --- Started like June 2009 ( 8 months)
My mother tried to buy a Samsung Juke from a third party of the third party of a cricket authorized dealer. The phone prize was too high $200 brand new Samsung Juke. My brother then found $80 dollars juke from ebay and bought 4 phones. I then found that Verizonwireless.com was selling the samsung juke for $20 dollars plus $15 activation fees plus tax = almost $45 dollars each. Then she bought 50 Jukes, 30 she re sold to a dealer at $70 each. We have too many jukes that needed to be flash to cricket.

I found a cricket flashing software on ebay for $15 dollars. However, almost 90% of the content of that CD was pure useless and outdated software, files, and monster files. The only good thing that CD have were the links to Mobile-files.com and Howardforums.com.

Motorola Razor was my first Full Flash I have done. All because I saw it on youtube not because of the useless software I bought on ebay. We started paying a dealer to flash our phones. $5 talk and text and $10 Full flash. The thing that motivated me to learn how to flash phones to cricket was because I wanted to earn that money that my mother was spending on flashing.

Right now, I know how to google search, and know how to use the search bottom on the forum. Also, I know how to navigate the forum. I ended up trowing the ebay DVD to the trash.

Now I am a PagePlus Authorized Dealer, and a third party of the third party of cricket dealer (I pay someone for ESN Changes)

[thesmitty68521]

I got started when a cell phone place ripped me off. Now, I beat them at everything. I have better service, flash more phones, and more sales.

I got addicted to this as soon as I flashed a motorola Razr to Cricket. I love this and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

[whitey10tc]

I got started when my wife wanted her old Sprint treo 650 instead of her Lingo. I called around and all the dealers wanted to much to flash it ($80 for talk/text only) so not having money to spare I dove in and started my research and did it my self "a full flash." Then I did my old Samsung A640, and progressed on to posting an add on craigs list and helping a couple dealers in my area. I don't do it for a living but I do it on the side.
PPC are my specialty but I've done them all and I've learned alot from forums just like this.

[flashmasterz]

I got started when a cell phone place ripped me off. Now, I beat them at everything. I have better service, flash more phones, and more sales.

I got addicted to this as soon as I flashed a motorola Razr to Cricket. I love this and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.


HAHA man this is my same situation! HAHA the razr was my first!

I was the first one to start selling flashed phones on craigslist in my area! Well First Dealer. Razrs were my best sellers! Well I should Say still are!

[thesmitty68521]

I got started when a cell phone place ripped me off. Now, I beat them at everything. I have better service, flash more phones, and more sales.

I got addicted to this as soon as I flashed a motorola Razr to Cricket. I love this and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.


HAHA man this is my same situation! HAHA the razr was my first!

I was the first one to start selling flashed phones on craigslist in my area! Well First Dealer. Razrs were my best sellers! Well I should Say still are!


Yeah, Razors are still my best seller. Very sturdy phone and very easy to take apart and put back together. I love this business and for the most part I love dealing with the people in it and the customers.

The longer I do this the more I realize how vicious this business can be. I have tried to talk to other people who do this in my hometown and they want nothing to do with me. They see me as a threat. Makes no sense to me. There is plenty of money to be made in this by everyone. I take care of my customers and do all I can to learn new phones and keep up with it.

I can see how even forums have become vicious in competition. My only goal in starting this forum was to give people an m-f alternative because while I love HOFO, you are limited in what you can post there.

I hope to make this forum as popular as M-F was. And with the help of Pseudo, Dex, and Whitey this will certainly become that in a relatively short period of time.

[flashmasterz]

I got started when a cell phone place ripped me off. Now, I beat them at everything. I have better service, flash more phones, and more sales.

I got addicted to this as soon as I flashed a motorola Razr to Cricket. I love this and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.


HAHA man this is my same situation! HAHA the razr was my first!

I was the first one to start selling flashed phones on craigslist in my area! Well First Dealer. Razrs were my best sellers! Well I should Say still are!


Yeah, Razors are still my best seller. Very sturdy phone and very easy to take apart and put back together. I love this business and for the most part I love dealing with the people in it and the customers.

The longer I do this the more I realize how vicious this business can be. I have tried to talk to other people who do this in my hometown and they want nothing to do with me. They see me as a threat. Makes no sense to me. There is plenty of money to be made in this by everyone. I take care of my customers and do all I can to learn new phones and keep up with it.

I can see how even forums have become vicious in competition. My only goal in starting this forum was to give people an m-f alternative because while I love HOFO, you are limited in what you can post there.

I hope to make this forum as popular as M-F was. And with the help of Pseudo, Dex, and Whitey this will certainly become that in a relatively short period of time.


Yes! Very well said...And I understand well about the vicious aspect of the biz. No shop owner will talk to me, but they have no problem sending there people in to check us out. I dont know how many retarted calls we get from these guys, or how many time customers will come in and tell us how they would say stuff....

One thing about My Biz is we are Honest. I make sure my guys tell the truth to the customers and dont force products on them that wont fit there needs.

I dont know if you guys have the same issues in your area but man its funny to see some shops fight on craigslist! We try to stay off craigslist since the past few months its been full of scammers, and these shady shops....there giving everyone else a bad rep.
Well post once in awhile just to get us out there some.

but in the end its fun! As long as we keep our noses clean!

[Dex]

Well i got started back in Jan 2008 i joined HF in Feb i started out learning the htc 6700 how to program that and doing user locks on fones for 20 a pop i started collecting software got better and better now im an lg expert i have most all flashes memorized including memory addys lol like the palm centro addy is 0947f12 read 6 bytes and ur good lol

[love2sin]

I got tired of paying someone else for S***ty service :P Now they pay me for even S***tier service!!! Lol

So to all you stores out there "Don't give your customers S***ty service or they just might wind up being your competition or you might even wind up being one of thier customers"

[Dex]

so glad those censor word filters work LMFAO

[RIP MOBILE-FILES]

I paid my way in cause i got my phone flashed by a ego maniac. I did not enjoy the time it took. I learned to use the search button cause I paid for little info. I could have learned by searching the site. So from there I almost lost my marriage from staying up and researching countless hours, playing with phones and brick phones. I have then learned if i cant find it in search that I need to pay for files. I have no problem if I make a profit. Now i can flash phones so fast i be talking to customers and in 3 mins I can full flash a black berry storm. Fastest talk and text 11 seconds not including reset. They be like no way and sometimes give me tips for getting it done so fast lol. I love flashing phone would like to learn more about writing scripts and roms.

[cricketmodder]

I started because I had a career change after the military and my boss was modding the V3 and putting ringlights on there. I thought that was cool as hell. So when I asked him to show me he said NO! and so I bought a k1m off of him and many many many ....did i mention many more late nights later I finally figured out modding and flashing.

[Tannus]

I'll share mine.

I was a very loyal cricket customer 4 many, many yrs(though I'm a Sprint costumer now, because of another story al2gether).

I sold T-Mobile 4 a long time but wouldn't switch from cricKte. I had a Samsung R500(which was a great phone) that died of old age after 5 yrs. My sis gave me a VX9100 (Env 2)she didn't need NEmore after an upgrade. I had heard of flashing. When my R500 died I decided 2 C if I could make the NV2 I had a cricKet phone. I came accross Berry_lThirds 9900 tuton HoFo. I fallowed the tut & the phone worked 2 my amazement. I just kinda grew from there.

[bigglou23]

Here is my story....

I started back in September of '08, i got tired of driving 50 miles to get my phones flashed (The person that flashed my phones is one of the best around "beezlewaxin"). great guy btw!
So i started reading nightly, 4-5 hours a night for weeks using MF and HF as my reading sources.
Then when i thought i was ready i tried my first phone, a vx9700 (dare). And it didn't go so well, i edited the wap settings incorrectly
and well, we all know what that does :(
So from there i got scared and almost quit flashing, but my wife told me to stick to it and the rest is history :)
NOW I LOVE FLASHING AND HELPING OUT OTHERS!

[Pac3comm1]

[Only registered and activated users can see links]

[leadnerd]

The owner of the cellphone store had me fix his computers and asked if I knew anything about flashing phones. I said ehh I can figure it out. I helped him move his store to a new location and worked a deal out with him and we merged his cellphone business and my PC repair business. I handle the computer aspect and flashing/unlocking phones while he still runs his cellphone business. I am getting better at flashing/unlocking by reading here and HOFO and he has the best optimized network and computers he has ever had. ;) Next week I will set up his house to connect to the wifi at the shop. I know not impressive except his house is about 10 miles away from the shop ;) But then again computers are my thing ;)

[Pac3comm1]

ten miles?????????? sooooooooooooo what do I need to do to get better wifi signal at my cribbo??? Thanks leadnerd for replying cuz for a minute there I was feeling like that kid who blerted out something embarrassing at the exact moment the whole lunch room went silent!!! ahahaha Nice to meet you. If you need ANYTHING feel free to PM me.

[whitey10tc]

ten miles?????????? sooooooooooooo what do I need to do to get better wifi signal at my cribbo??? Thanks leadnerd for replying cuz for a minute there I was feeling like that kid who blerted out something embarrassing at the exact moment the whole lunch room went silent!!! ahahaha Nice to meet you. If you need ANYTHING feel free to PM me.A thread was started long ago on this very subject. I have combined them to cut down on clutter. Keep up the good posts. Maybe this will bring it back to life.

[gabmab]

couldnt stand being an existing customer and paying $100+ just to get a new phone. Cricket rulez!

[Genuwine1976]

I am a phone junky, when it comes to the high end ones, and when I got my first pda it was like getting a new toy.. I am a game freak also, always trying to make it do something it is not supposed to. And so my love for hacking moved on to phones, oh such thrills you get when you get it to do something no one else has it is nice.. HACK CRACK HACK CRACK OH I LOVE IT... LOL

[decadude]

I am addicted to technology and was pretty good with gsm phones since the area i once lived two years ago was dominated by gsm carriers how i got into flashing phones my girlfriend had cricket and i was like i remember reading once that you can flash phones and get better phones these phones are not that good then i seen flashed phones on craigslist after i flashed her first blackberry

she wanted to sell the phone and i was like wow these things sell that well and that easy so i was like i want a cool hobby that will allow me to make side money nothing special....and as of 5 days ago i after have atnt for 6 years of consecutive service i am now a proud cricket user (my last atnt bill was 250) there is a lot to explain there but in other words atnt will rape you in the bung hole if your not careful they had to me several times 47 a month for unlimited is just ridiuclous and im rocking a cooler phone that any of the selection that atnt offfers

motorola droid fully flash thanks to cain and to0 buy their wap mms solution its work every penny

[Pac3comm1]

I was a tester for a ebay based company back in 2007. At one point we were a few phones shy from completing a 400 phone shipping day! A co worker and I figured that there has to be a way to repair and make a good phone out of bins and bins of bad ones. One antenna repair and a flash later, we shipped the most phones we had ever done in one day. This was a crew of six people. From then on The owner decided to create a tech table and we begun repairing full time and saved him an ass load of cash! Then of course my OCD kicked in and soon I was a splashing fool in the flashing pool! Now I run my own business and hang with you all here!

[captainkirks]

Started out installing them(before the portable phone)at a stereo shop back in the late eighties.

[wthigon]

I first started when Pocket first came into existence in my city. I was fascinated that you could change the way the phone worked and all that stuff.

[ecneics]

I've always been into tech. I took all the classes I could that related to computers. Cellphones are just really little computers anymore. I guess you could trace back my ties to cellphone modding back to when I got the consumer reports best buy E815. I got it and was like, "wtf?". It didn't do anything special. It was so gimped by the carrier that I may as well have bought an old nokia candy bar. I researched on the web and found out about seem edits and enabled bluetooth internet tethering. I also enabled OBEX. My phone was free from their restrictions and I knew that was going to be what I'd do to every phone I could from then on. My current position where I play with phones for a living came about because my roommate opened a cellphone store and knew I was good at things.

[Trampydog]

I got started when my wife took her (at the time) $500 razr for a swim. I have worked in the electronics industry for some time and I figured out how to fix her water Damaged phone. It's been my bread and butter ever since. Flashing is a bonus.

[kcpunk27]

can you help?i flashed a motorola v3a to cricket and now motorola phone tools cant detect it,is there a way to fix this problem or do i just have to deal with it?

[Wrecked Johnson]

can you help?i flashed a motorola v3a to cricket and now motorola phone tools cant detect it,is there a way to fix this problem or do i just have to deal with it?

Are you retarded man, you are way off in posting this. Read the rules and post your questions in the proper forum.

I got into this when I needed a job and I new a guy who could flash phones. Well I begged for a job, then begged to be taught how to flash this that and the other. Then got my moto q and it was over with from there I needed to know everything I can bout CDMA phones. Also I have been modding game consoles for forever and a PC nerd since I was 6 so it was just inevitable.

[thesmitty68521]

Are you retarded man, you are way off in posting this. Read the rules and post your questions in the proper forum.

I got into this when I needed a job and I new a guy who could flash phones. Well I begged for a job, then begged to be taught how to flash this that and the other. Then got my moto q and it was over with from there I needed to know everything I can bout CDMA phones. Also I have been modding game consoles for forever and a PC nerd since I was 6 so it was just inevitable.

Let this be served as a warning. Personal insults to other members on this forum is against forum rules and is not tolerated. We are known for being a friendly forum for all. I notice you didn't even bother helping this member with his/her problem.

Next time it is a 7 day ban.

[thesmitty68521]

can you help?i flashed a motorola v3a to cricket and now motorola phone tools cant detect it,is there a way to fix this problem or do i just have to deal with it?

Please post this in the appropriate part of the forum. This is thread hijacking because your problem has nothing to do with what this thread is about.

The answer to your question is this: 1) Check to make sure you have the right drivers installed. 2) Make sure you are using a data cable and not a charging cable. 3) Make sure the Motorola Phone Tools is updated 4) Make sure you follow the instructions on the screen. If you have any other problems with this, please go to the right part of the forum and then post your question.

Welcome to Gurus

[Wrecked Johnson]

Apologies to you and the other members for being rude to a member of our community wont happen again.

[ArkieKDealer]

I was a business/corporate sales rep for Alltel in the late 90s. After several years of selling during the heydey, I had so many accounts that I was the "one point of contact" for that my day consisted more of answering billing questions, delivering replacement phones, etc. that when we got a new go getter, corporate brown-nosing SOB manager who only cared about new activations instead of the $150K/month of accounts I was taking care of, I told them to take this job and shove it.

Friend of my father wanted to open a couple of cell phone stores and found out I had just quit and offered me job to open up two Cricket stores. Did that and after 6 months, he asked me to buy out one of the locations. That was 6+ years ago and I'm still here.

[testu]

Cell phones are becoming litte computers. I am very interested in technology. Moreover, it is often possible to get another program on your sell phone which is firstly better and secondly, it's free. Users on the internet create programs and tools for cell phones which just are sometimes better than the ones you have to buy.

So why don't use a little bit of technology to get better things?! :D