Previously R+ Activated Phone Now FED Locked

I had some friends on RingPlus and when that ended they got new phones and switched to Cricket.

I purchased a Tribute HD from them to give to a friend.

Tonight I discovered that the Ting BYOD checker says that there's an unpaid Sprint balance on it.

Any idea what's going on? This phone has only been on RingPlus then went to Ting, where it expired.

Thanks.

One other note: it did an Android update (421 MB) when it started up, but that shouldn't have affected it.

I had to take my tribute HD off a line for a few days this past week but it reactivated fine. So there isn't a new crack down on these devices.

Did they actually have service at Ting or just left it to expire with the migration? Maybe there is something that needs to be done with Ting to release it?

I'll ask them if that's the case. I'd be surprised, though. The guy is a colonel in the Air Force and is very straight laced. He'd never leave an unpaid bill behind.

Could certainly be a ting error. I wasn't implying it was your friend.

What carrier brand is on the Tribute? And what was its history before being used on RingPlus?

I didn't interpret it as an accusation against him. I was just making it known that he's very detail oriented and rarely leaves loose ends.

Ting will send you to collections for 25c and the way there billing system is set up the previous owner may have a negative balance they are unaware of?
Problem there is that am I not so sure Ting can flag a device for an amount owed, so that may be irrelevant?
What does it tell you when you run it through another Sprint MVNO MEID check tool, Tello, Twigby, TPO? I do not like recommending running Sprint MEIDs through swappa, but in this case it may give you an accurate response?

Maybe contact Ting and tell them you think they may have incorrectly pushed it back to Sprint?

I'll try that. Thanks.