Hey! I recently purchased a Blackberry Curve 8320 off ebay, and I am in love with it! I have already started to clean the BB by wiping the handheld, but there is still one problem: the blackberry is still "tied" to the old owner.

How so? Well, when I call any landline, the Blackberry, even with my sim card in it, displays the name of the old owner. How would I go about removing this name and any association to the old owner from the phone? I am receiving calls for him and they are asking me if he is around. Funny thing is, they are calling the phone but saying that he own my number. To make it clearer, Time Warner cable called me this evening looking for John Smith (fake name, just using it as an example). They asked if I was John Smith, I said no. They asked if I knew him, again, I said no. Then they asked if this was my number, and they recited my own number that I have on my plan.

I tried calling the seller and asking him if he could help, all I got was a "phone was sold as-is, sorry".

So, my question is, how can I get John Smith's name off the Caller ID tag and off the Blackberry's IMEI/PIN? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Not sure how you would be getting calls for him on your number since your sim is not connected to him in any way. Did you at some point call Time Warner and they are tracking his name back to your number since you called? Otherwise, perhaps he is stealing your identity and using your number for his own means. I would be very vigilant about anything else wierd happening. As for the caller ID I always thought it was SIM card based so if not perhaps you need to make sure his name is no longer listed under the Owner field of the phone and make sure you go in and change the My Number field in the settings.

Owner Name is located @ Options>Owner
MyNumber is located @ Options>Advanced Options>SIM Card

It is creepy. I don't think he is stealing my identity. Talked to a good friend of mine, heis guess was that i'm getting calls because John Smith's utilities and other services are using BB Pins with their customers, and thus getting in touch with me through some other number that the phone has (IMEI? PIN?).

I always thought the identity was sim-based too, apparently not. Started to call some of my friends, I get "unavailable" for most Verizon landline customers, but John Smith still comes up with most, if not all Optimum Voice customers.

I changed owner name to "Bob" and left myNumber blank, still same outcome.

I don't believe there is a way for someone to "call" your PIN number... if they are messaging you that's different. As for the caller ID, sounds like you need to check with TMobile to see what's up with that. There may be more suggestions tomorrow for you as the site has been real slow today so a lot of the usual posters are probably off doing other things.

I would call your carrier and ask them what the deal is. All provisioning is on the sim (that's the point of a sim card) and there is nothing on the phone. Check with your carrier.

got another call today, looking for the old owner, but calling my number.

Could it be that in public databases (or rather, databases that contain non-private cell phone numbers) my phone number that is supposed to be under my name has been associated with the previous owner through the BB's IMEI?

this is weird.