Re: iPhone Unlocking & Poor Customer Service - Community home

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Hi,

To start with, I'm an O2 customer who bought an "unlocked" iphone that turned out to be locked to Vodafone.

I've had some utterly useless vodafone customer service over the past two days.

Day 1 - Customer services advise me to unlcok my phone by filling in the online form and putting my O2 number as the contact, so I do this.

Day 2 - wondering how long this will take I speak with another advisor who says I actually need to get a vodafone sim for the number and re-fill in the form. So I do and get a response saying the phone is unable to be unlocked as the IMEI number has had a duplicate entry on the Online Form.

SO I ring vodafone (off the landline as they charge from your mobile which I think is stupid) and the Advisor then says I just need to fill in the form again.

Surprise Surprise, yet another email saying a duplicate entry has been made and the phone cannot be unlocked.

To top it all off, your online chat says "If the phone is 12 or more months old the unlock will be free" my phone IS 12 or more months old, however, your over the phone advisor thinks I should pay.

The service as a whole is horrific, nothing compare to O2 who I've never had an issue with.

I need a quick resolution to this problem as it has left me without a phone for almost three days now.

Those "Live Chat" people only seem to be around 50% of the time and offer really crap advice.

Thanks

8 REPLIES 8

Hi,

To start with, I'm an O2 customer who bought an "unlocked" iphone that turned out to be locked to Vodafone.

I've had some utterly useless vodafone customer service over the past two days.

Day 1 - Customer services advise me to unlcok my phone by filling in the online form and putting my O2 number as the contact, so I do this.

Day 2 - wondering how long this will take I speak with another advisor who says I actually need to get a vodafone sim for the number and re-fill in the form. So I do and get a response saying the phone is unable to be unlocked as the IMEI number has had a duplicate entry on the Online Form.

SO I ring vodafone (off the landline as they charge from your mobile which I think is stupid) and the Advisor then says I just need to fill in the form again.

Surprise Surprise, yet another email saying a duplicate entry has been made and the phone cannot be unlocked.

To top it all off, your online chat says "If the phone is 12 or more months old the unlock will be free" my phone IS 12 or more months old, however, your over the phone advisor thinks I should pay.

The service as a whole is horrific, nothing compare to O2 who I've never had an issue with.

I need a quick resolution to this problem as it has left me without a phone for almost three days now.

Those "Live Chat" people only seem to be around 50% of the time and offer really crap advice.

Thanks

If the phone was originally on a contract Vodafone will never ever unlock it for you as they only unlock contract phones for the original owner.

If it was a PAYG phone you'll need a Vodafone PAYG sim with at least £20 credit on it as there is an unlocking fee for PAYG phones.

It sounds like you've been given poor advice from the network.

So should I contact the previous owner and see if he could get it unlocked?

Failing that, I could bring the IOS down from the current 7.1.2 and jailbreak it?

Yes, speak to the current owner and ascertain whether or not it was supplied on contract. If it was, only they can unlock it.

If you jailbreak the device, remember that it will lock up if it is updated. I'd recommend getting an official unlock if you can or returning the device if you can't get it unlocked.

PWIAC

Hi there

Ignore whatever you ahve been told up to this point. The bottom line is if your phone was supplied on contract, only the original owner can request the unlocking. They have to complete the NUC Request Form with the details of the account against which the phone was supplied. If the details don't match, there request gets rejected. The unlocking is only free if the phone was supplied on contract 12 months ago or more.

If the phone wasn't advertised as locked, your first point of call should be to contact the person who sold it to you. If they won't unlock it for you, and you bought it through somewhere like eBay, you can set up a dispute for an item that wasn't as described.

PWIAC

Hello adamhinchliffe2

From what you are saying, you purchased a second hand iphone locked to Vodafone.

If this is the case, only the original owner can get the iphone unlocked. Unlocking an iphone when you are not the original owner is a question which seems to get asked on a daily basis and, providing the person who sold you the phone is the original and first owner, the seller will need to send the request into Vodafone.

I replied to the thread below, there are some previous links with all the information.

http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Unlocking-NUC/Good-day-I-have-a-question-There-Iphone-4-locked-to-you...

You cannot jailbreak iOS 7.1 2

Helping the street kids of Thailand

IOS 7.1.2 can be Jailbroken, mine is currently, I'm going to speak with the previous owner this evening and If all else fails I'll try the Jailbreak unlock.