GlobalguruTech 'Materially Altering' Xfinity Phones, Plaintiff's Reply Says

By buying blocklisted, carrier-locked phones that are “useless” on networks in the U.S., “sending them to unlockers to tamper with locking software and unlock the devices from carrier networks, and shipping them overseas where they have no actual use on the Xfinity network,” GlobalguruTech (GGT) and owner Jakob Zahara are “materially altering XM Phones,” said Xfinity Mobile’s reply Monday (docket 2:22-cv-01950) in U.S. District Court for Arizona in Phoenix in support of its motion to file a second amended complaint (SAC). The proposed SAC alleges the defendants resold more than 20 XM phones that they knew were on a blocklist at the time they bought and resold the devices, said the reply. But GGT didn’t notify its customers that the devices that they branded as Xfinity wouldn’t operate like a genuine XM phone and wouldn’t be operable on the Xfinity Mobile network “or any wireless network in the United States,” the reply said. In dismissing Xfinity’s conspiracy claim in the amended complaint, the court concluded that just because the defendants may have used unlockers to facilitate unlocking XM phones, “it does not mean there is an agreement between the two to commit some tort." But it demonstrates that the defendants “use third-party unlockers to materially alter phones,” the reply said. Xfinity's Nov. 16, 2022, complaint alleges GGT, Zahara and their co-conspirators are handset traffickers who exploit financial incentives to acquire phones by using unlawful methods to circumvent the procedures put in place to protect Xfinity Mobile and its legitimate customers -- and then resell the phones for substantial profit.