AT&T Sued For Enabling, Profiting Off of Cell Phone Theft → Seriously speaking...

There is no ethics in business. That's just the way it is.

AT&T has a company culture where a willingness to look the other way for profits is sewn onto their skin. If Verizon and Sprint weren't helping to prevent crime by blocking stolen phones, then AT&T wouldn't look so bad.

Heck, AT&T wouldn't look as bad if they weren't charging customers for the replacement phones to be honest. Heck, in reality that's actually a brilliant business plan.

You don't have to buy the replacement from them. I didn't when mine was stolen. Overstock was my friend.

That said...there goes unlocked phones on ebay. If you can't prove that you are the original purchaser...

But doesn't really matter to me, I avoid ebay like the plague. It's going to matter to a lot of other people though, I have a hunch.

You don't have to prove anything. Give the would-be buyer the IMEI number and let him call AT&T to verify for himself that the phone isn't stolen. Verizon is willing to do this for second-hand CDMA phones with the ESN; don't see why AT&T would be unwilling to do so for GSM/UTMS/LTE phones with IMEIs.