Saturday, March 23, 2019

Mini GF-07 Car GPS Tracker

I've been working on a GPS Track For Car approach using an old mobile an inexpensive mobile plan. Basically the hardware's free because you already have a suitable old mobile phone sitting in a drawer and all that's required is a suitable plan.

The GPS Tracker For Car approach is now documented and available at www.justlocal.com.au/clients/gpstrackerforcar/.

One friend recently purchased a Mini GF-07 Car GPS Tracker. The device is inexpensive and very compact. My friend couldn't get the Mini GF-07 to work so they gave it to me to test. On reading the manual it is apparent the Mini GF007 uses GSM which is the 2G network. All 2G networks in Australia have been switched off, so any device that uses 2G will not work. 

I've also seen Mini GF-07 devices promoted as 3G on eBay. Given the product has the same code and similar price, the product is highly likely to be a fake and not use 3G.

To further trick people eBay sellers often have an Australian flag and colours of the Australian flag which may lead people to feel these products are suitable for Australia. They're not. There's even sites with .com.au domains which again give substance to the feeling the product will work in Australia. It's still the same device using the 2G mobile network and will thus not work in Australia.

To double check the GF-07 doesn't work in Australia I inserted a Telstra SIM card that was known to work and sent the code 777 via SMS to get the current location. No response. Whilst this doesn't show 100% it doesn't work, there's no way to know if something doesn't work for certain if there's something you don't know. But there's a very high probability that the GF-07 does not work in Australia. The GF-07 certainly didn't work for me.

The following link has a good table and shows that no Australian telco supports 2G any longer in Australia.

https://www.whistleout.com.au/MobilePhones/Guides/Will-my-phone-work-in-Australia-carrier-network-frequencies

Hopefully this experience will help other people in Australia who are looking at the Mini GF-07 Car GPS Tracker.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
IT support

Update: 18/04/2019
The following is a graphic from eBay for the item purchased. Lots of Australian related images including stock in Australia Australia Post logo. This is surely deceptive as it would lead people in Australia to think the product would work in Australia.






5 comments:

  1. Thanks for clarifying this so others can avoid this trap.

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  2. Yes i just bought the gf07 tracker advertised as 3g 4g load of rubbish false advertising dont know how they sleep at night liars and con artists

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  3. Hi
    I bought the GF-07 Tracker assuming it would work in Australia. Or why would they sell it to me? The return address was not far from me. So I am trying to get refund thru paypal. The seller support email asking me to provide video of tracker not working? So I have purchased a 3G sim card and 30day prepaid plan for $16.90. I inserted the sim and a SD card. Once activate the simcard I sent a 000 SMS. This should return a response. But nothing. 55 SMS. Same. 777 sms. Same. Nothing. It's a RIP off. I hope paypal can get my money. Useless fake crap.

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  4. i bought this product it never works..i tried every possble best way..until i accepted the fact that its just a trash and still they are selling this product..and still very proud of it?you sellers are a piece of damn lairs, u can take your time for now..just wait

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  5. This is still going in 2022 on artor-36 on e-bay still selling it. Tried to go through the ebay missleading advertising process, that seems designed to put you off (after selecting ... " inappropriate items description" it only gives "not listed on ebay, vulgar launguage or publishes contact info" as the options to select from). Hoping Google will elevate this to top listing if I type .... GPS GF-07 does not work in Australia see the review above. So other buyers don't get stung!

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