Stupid Cell Phone law going into effect....

The (stupid) cell phone registration law (to catch kidnappers who use their personal, legally obtained, and honestly registered cell phones to extort victims and conduct their criminal business) is going into effect April 10th 2010. According to the advertising if you're not registered by then your phone will be suspended (and probably have a fee to reactivate).

For Telcel the details on how to register are here. If you don't have a "curp" you're SOL apparently and will have to put it in someone else's name. (so when you start your life of crime the police will go arrest that person)

I *think* I successfully registered mine back when this first started, but I, like most people, will not know if all is well until after the deadline has passed... since there doesn't seem to be any way to verify your phone is registered.

Anyway take care of it if you can, and prepare for a lot of missed calls and headaches next month.

 

I thought I read that if your phone is not registered, you would hear some message when you make a call. I know once my phone was registered, I stopped hearing some sort of message.

 

I heard that only about 40% are registered so far. People are hesitant to give the information knowing that it will eventually end up in the hands of kidnappers.

 

When you get a new phone Telcel plays a message until you register it with them.. thats different from the government registration that has to be done by April 10th. If you purchased your phone within the last 6 months or so Telcel *might* have already taken care of the government thing. If they asked for your "curp" then they probably did. Below is the bit from the Telcel website that says they will suspend any phone not good by the 10th of April.

But if only %40 have registered as Jim says I strongly doubt that they would risk upsetting the economy by suspending 60% of cell phone users... then again this is Mexico... so they might very well do that. I think everyone agrees how stupid it is, as the people who will end up with the information may not be the ones you want calling/tracking you, and criminals will just use stolen phones as they always have. That said, just as in the US, politicians in Mexico push countless bad/stupid/counterproductive/expensive laws on a daily basis.

 

Thanks, Life, for alerting us, and telling us how to respond, as well. I'm going to check mine, now.

 

I got a CURP in about 5 minutes. I needed an FM3 to do it, but that was it. Not saying I agree with the law, just that getting CURP isn't hard, if you are straight with INM.

 

I don't have a curp, but I do have an FM3. I went to one of the Telcel offices this week and the phone was registered within minutes. They even made the copy of the FM3 (a first!). They had me test the phone afterwards to make sure it was still working. I guess I will know for sure after April 1 if all is well.

 

I just registered my cell phone via text msg. It took all of three minutes. There are directions in the video here: Registro Nacional de Usuarios de Telefoni­a Movil (click Ver Spot)

What you do is send a text to: 2877 (no charge, how nice of them...)

In the body of your text put:

Alta.[your CURP]

- or -

Alta.[firstname].[lastname/apellido].[birthday][birth-month][birth-year/4 digits]

Then send it. I immediately got a message saying my registration was being processed. Then a moment later got a message saying it had been processed (did they check my CURP against a national db?).

I used my CURP. But it doesn't look like you need a CURP to register via text message. I wonder if you can register without a CURP and give false info? That would defeat the purpose of this whole silly law.

I'm now ready to use my cell phone for illicit purposes...whoohoo.

 

There are LOTS of Mexicans who don't have their "curp", especially the older ones who never needed it before. Their is a big brother database that they check it against called RENAPO, but whats to stop me from registering a phone with the "curp" of someone I don't like then threatening a hundred people before dropping that 100 peso sim card in the trash? It's not as if it's really verifying the owner of the phone in any way... unless they start requiring that you register in person and even then fake ID's are plenty.... its just a stupid stupid big brother-ish law passed so some politician could say "I'm protecting you and your children".. its the same BS that goes on in the US and why our prisons are bursting at the seems and draining the economy... meanwhile what few rights we have left are being stripped away in the name of "security" everyday.... but thats another rant. :aktion060:

 

I just registered my phone, using Rivergirl's instructions. I don't have a CURP, but got confirmation in seconds saying I'm registered. It appears that Telcel has given me a CURP because message says that my number has been registered with CURP (then lists the number) since 14MAR 2010...today's date.