No-contract AT&T iPhone 5 won't unlock after restore?

I just came back from the Apple store after returning 2 iPhone 5's that were scratched. The first one I brought home, unlocked successfully after a restore, I tried it with my t-mobile nano sim. But this third one I am restoring won't unlock, the "your iphone has been unlocked congradulations!" message doesnt appear, and when I put in my t-mo nano sim in, it says activation required, also after restoring, the message on itunes says that "the sim card is not supported" rather than the expected "congradualations! your phone has been unlocked" message.

Anyone have experience with this? How would I go about unlocking it now?

Thanks.

any help would be appreciated thank.

kre62 said:

Just buy an unlock on ebay from unlock fusion. Last i checked they were like 4 dollars.

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yeah, i just bought one, freaking annoying waiting for apple to release an factory unlocked iphone5...

punter33 said:

I really need to get it activated tonight to because tmobile deactivated my regular sim so unless I get this phone working tonight I will be without cell service tomorrow

I was looking at those ebay unlock codes, but they all say its important that your iphone 5 is already activated on ATT. So I think even getting the unlock service off ebay won't even work for us. I am completely lost and have no idea what to do now. What a mess this has become for me

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yeah me too, my regular sim is deactivated, been trying to unlock it for hours, without succuess. when they say it has to be activated it means, you just need to stick in the regular att sim card in the iphone to activate the phone during the restore process.

did you buy an off contract phone or is it a contracted phone?

punter33 said:

Mine is an off contract phone just like yours. I am a T-Mobile user. With your att sim that came with the iPhone 5 in the phone, does it say no service for you in the top left?

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when i stick the tmo sim inside, the phone automatically boots me out of the home screen and takes me a to a screen saying invalid sim.
it is freaking weird, cause when i bought the first one, it worked, i didnt try the second one cause i returned it right away, cause the phone had so many scratches, bad production quality this time for the iphone 5...
i remembered when the 4 and 4s had good production quality.

punter33 said:

Mine does the same thing. But I am curious what your iPhone shows on the top left with the att sim card issue the phone. Does it say no service like mine does?

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with the att sim? yes, no service.
but that is pretty obvious because, we dont have att plans and the phone is att, so of course it will be no service.
im still waiting for unlock_fusion to get back to me with the code