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Find My iPhone says iPhone doesn't have any connection, can't find it. Why?

Cubytus said:
That's what I inferred from the replies I got on this topic and the merchant's saying. Although I do blame him for not "finishing up" the work, he has been honest so far, as the phone started to act up right in front of him, losing then recovering signal incessantly. From what I read, there has been two productions of the 3GS, but ways to tell are not quite clear. On the good side: if I get to understand what problems are commonly encountered while unlocking an iPhone, maybe I will be able to do it myself later.

I read that this "grafted" 06.15 baseband was also reported to drain the battery faster than usual, in addition of instabilities. So I expect a much lower consumption after downgrading.

As I encountered no great success trying to communicate and place an order for an IMEI unlock, I was also liiking for a way to do it myself, but still don't know where to connect, how to request authorizations, if it requires some kind of license, etc.

Independant question still unanswered: do an iPhone 3GS needs the original carrier's SIM to be able to unlock it, or any SIM will do, even if the phone is not activated?
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What carrier is your iphone locked to?
If its AT&T the IMEI are really cheap. Like $2-3 or so. All you need to do is send the seller your payment along with the phones imei number and within 24hours will be unlocked.
And yes the ipad bb had many sideeffects like faster battery drain etc...
If you JB and unlock it using ultrasnow you wont need the original carrier sim. You can hactivate using redsnow or snowbreeze.
 
Cubytus said:
When you can see the actual website I guess it is pretty straightforward. But what happens when 1- customer service doesn't answer emails and 2- website doesn't display? That's right, it is impossible to place an order.

Factory unlocked iPhones are very few and far between here. Blame the iPhone staggering price, blame the excessive rate charged by carriers to get an official unlock, blame the lenghty 3-years contract a customer must abide to if he wants a sub 300$ iPhone, the fact is, there are very few factory unlocked iPhones, and older iPhones such as the 3GS aren't represented.

I am unaware of phone to humans disease transmissions, although a cell phone is a very good vector of many diseases, as the most contaminated object we handle daily. Joke aside, jb on iPod Touch 2nd gen, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS seems like pure crap. Nothing seems to work right out of the box. And you can't deny grafting a different firmware isn't crude.

If it was clean, why are proper instructions so hard to come by?

I switched the phone to field test mode, but it kept on reporting "unknown" for all fields. Does it have anything to do with this purported incompatibility?

Even if only approximate location by cell towers was possible, why wouldn't it report that location to iCloud anyway?

I have had this phone for about two months. So impatience is not the issue here. However, getting 70-hour workweek doesn't leave much time. I wrongly assumed that the original owner would be able to factory unlock it from its carrier, but this was without taking the carrier's unwillingness to help.

By the time he managed to call them, three choices were left: either subscribe with them (I am already in a contract with my own provider and not willing to subscribe to the most expensive one), use the iPhone as an iPod, or go the unofficial way to unlock it, which I did, here, with a kind advice that led on a non-working website and non-answering customer service, or a local unlocker in a big shopping mall.
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$35 on eBay. 100% positive feedback. First one to come on my search.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/APPLE-IPHON...154?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item1e7770fc1a

In other words, you didn't look around much.
 
Applejuiced said:
What carrier is your iphone locked to?
If its AT&T the IMEI are really cheap. Like $2-3 or so. All you need to do is send the seller your payment along with the phones imei number and within 24hours will be unlocked.
And yes the ipad bb had many sideeffects like faster battery drain etc...
If you JB and unlock it using ultrasnow you wont need the original carrier sim. You can hactivate using redsnow or snowbreeze.
Click to expand...
As said in the first post, this was a Telus-locked phones. They charge a minimum of $30 for factory unlock, when they actually agree to do it themselves. Otherwise, they charge around $100 to third parties, which in turn need to make a profit on top of it.

Baggio said:
$35 on eBay. 100% positive feedback. First one to come on my search.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/APPLE-IPHON...154?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item1e7770fc1a

In other words, you didn't look around much.
Click to expand...
In fact, I was very wary about Apple-related services sold on eBay. Many of them are either stolen stuff (as some cheap iTunes card were), cloned serial numbers (case of some Apple Care, but seemingly valid until you actually try to use the warranty), or stolen login to carrier's databases (unlocking), with a very high risk of re-locking once intrusion is discovered and repaired by the carrier.

The problem is, this isn't usually discovered right away, and by the time a customer identifies what went wrong, the seller is already far away, with the money and a positive feedback. To follow on with your example, it states that even if the phone is stolen, it will unlock it, which is in blatant violation of Telus' policies, so unlikely to go through the official channel. I do know that since my own call center I work in has a small Telus contract (not the technical support, sadly).

I didn't want to risk that kind of misfortune. Maybe I was wrong, indeed.

Applejuiced said:
Good work Baggio.
My instinct though says the OP doesnt want to pay anything:D
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If I could, I wouldn't have paid anything. If I could do it myself. The questions in the first post don't hide anything, I was very upfront with what I wanted.
 
Applejuiced said:
Good work Baggio.
My instinct though says the OP doesnt want to pay anything:D
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Me too. He expected Apple to do it for him for free and didn't trust any of the reputable IMEI unlockers, even eBay ones with 100% positive feedback. I tried to help him, but he had excuse for doing it his way every time.
 
Applejuiced said:
$35 is not that bad, I'd go for it instead of having to deal with JB hacks, basebands , firmware and such.
But up to you.
The freedom of a factory unlocked cellphone is worth it.
Click to expand...

Baggio said:
Me too. He expected Apple to do it for him for free and didn't trust any of the reputable IMEI unlockers, even eBay ones with 100% positive feedback. I tried to help him, but he had excuse for doing it his way every time.
Click to expand...
Definitely worth it, however, I don't consider an eBay merchant to be "reputable" by any means (nor would be a Kijiji or Craigslist merchant or individual), and especially not looking at the feedback score itself.

The seller you cite as an exemple has "only" 800 transactions, in 8 years, averaging 1 transaction every 3.65 days. Clearly not a "power seller". Besides, its chosen nickname is anything but professional, rather highlighting dishonesty and cunningness. Combined to the record-low price that no other merchant is able to reach, I had and still have strong doubts about the legitimacy of such an unlock. There sure are legitimate unlockers out there, but price for legitimate factory unlocks from Telus are just too high. With these kind of prices, very high concentration of various call centers in this city and overall low wages, it shouldn't be that hard to corrupt a provider's tech support employee to unlock cell phones unofficially under a promise of a steady stream of revenue.

Remember we are talking about the most desirable cell phone on the planet. Carriers want to lock in subscribers in 3-year long expensive contracts. There is no way they are going to let unlock codes go for such a small fee, and especially not the reputedly most expensive provider in a country already said to be the most expensive one in the developped world.

And yes, I naively expected that Apple would be able to unlock a 4 year-old phone since it would have been out of contract anyway. Maybe I was wrong about the seller, but in what way is a factory unlock than can be relocked aytime anything more of a freedom than JB hacks?

Have you actually read my previous posts in full?
 
You can always do a chargeback with PayPal and eBay if the unlock doesn't work.
But sounds like you're just looking for excuses not to.
Anyway it's your phone, your money and your choice. Good luck with whatever you decide.
 
That is also correct, but there is a limited time to do so. If the phone re-locks after 6 or 7 month because it first was unlocked thanks to a corrupt employee or an exploit somewhere that is later discovered and patched, you're out of luck with submitting a claim to either PayPal or eBay (they are actually one and the same company).

Cynically speaking, of course it would still be possible to regularly have one's phone factory unlocked, as long as the price is low enough, and do business with only the most clever thieves. I believe re-locked phone symptoms are much easier to spot than jb hacks related misbehaviors.

As another user put it on another topic:
malexandria said:
Beware of ebay, i"ve been ripped off a couple of times and eBay provides the bare minimal protection for their customers. It is weighted heavily towards the scammers. That is assuming you get any kind of "customer service" from ebay to begin with. I was scammed 10 years ago and never used them again, tried it again a few weeks ago, scammed again. Never again. And yes, I used the "research tools" before making the bid.
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I personally couldn't sell any high-ticket product without two or three scam attempts a day there. I stopped using eBay's built-in Buy It Now option because there was always a scammer clicking it to take the item offline, gaining time in order to perform its miserable atempts.

Show me a power seller with 10 sales a day, 100% feedback, selling legitimate factory unlocks at the same price of shady ones and a factual proof they are legitimate (i.e. Apple replaces it with an equally factory unlocked phone if it fails - though this isn't a proof in itself, Nokia happily replaces factory unlocked phones with locked equivalents if it deems them as "non-local"), and I will reconsider my position. Until then, I will consider that you haven't read any of my concerns in the first place or worse, haven't understood any of them.

Of course I would be happier with an iPhone 5, factory-unlocked, sealed in box, and a better job, and a car, and a sound-proofed apartment, and a more powerful 15", and... Dreaming hard won't make dreams come any truer.

I repeat, how is it of an excuse to be cautious in face of experience and reports? Can you tell with a straight face not to trust experience, lack of seller's reputation or reports of scammed buyers of intangible Apple-related products on eBay?
“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”
― Oscar Wilde
 
I have unlocked one 3GS, two 4s, one 4S, and one 5 from various eBay unlockers and none of the phones have re-locked. Your carrier nor Apple are not going to re-lock your phone, because the way IMEI unlock happens it is processed just like a legitimate carrier unlock. Keep making excuses and blaming everyone else. That seems par for the course for you. If your phone re-locks after purchasing from an eBay seller with 100% feedback, it would unusually rare, even for a non-power seller. If worse comes to worse you are out $35. It's not you getting screwed out of $500 iPhone.
 
I understand you are skeptical, but I think overly so. The worst that happens is you are scammed out of $35. Telus is supposed to unlock your phones for $50 anyways. And there has never been a reported incident of phones being relocked. This service has been available since last june, they have not closed it, and a ton of people do eBay unlocks for their AT&T phones.

I do think you have too many excuses and anecdotal evidence, so I dont think anyone on this forum will be able to provide enough evidence to convince you, nor is it our job to. Everyone here, including myself, agree IMEI unlocks are easiest and hassle free, and so far safer.

All the excuses you say are valid, but borderline paranoid. I had a friend once that would not put more than $20 of gas in is car at any point in time. He claimed that by not carrying so much gas, reduces the weight of his car and thus he saves money by being fuel efficient. True? probably, worth the hassle? your own opinion.
 
dextr3k said:
I had a friend once that would not put more than $20 of gas in is car at any point in time. He claimed that by not carrying so much gas, reduces the weight of his car and thus he saves money by being fuel efficient. True? probably, worth the hassle? your own opinion.
Click to expand...

Lol :D
Good one.
I know a few people that only put $4-5 of gas at a time but instead of weird scientific excuses they come out honest and say cause they're broke:D
 
Baggio said:
I have unlocked one 3GS, two 4s, one 4S, and one 5 from various eBay unlockers and none of the phones have re-locked. Your carrier nor Apple are not going to re-lock your phone, because the way IMEI unlock happens it is processed just like a legitimate carrier unlock. Keep making excuses and blaming everyone else. That seems par for the course for you. If your phone re-locks after purchasing from an eBay seller with 100% feedback, it would unusually rare, even for a non-power seller. If worse comes to worse you are out $35. It's not you getting screwed out of $500 iPhone.
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I will count your experience as a positive report, for once, to balance for the negative ones I read. I may consider it if I get another iPhone later on.

However when a phone is unlocked through unofficial channels (read: corrupt employee) and if phones were unlocked before the breach was discovered, they are going to trace what phones were unlocked, and may re-lock them. This sounds greedy, but that's the way carriers work here. One can't really count on the carrier being generous and accepting the breach, and just fire the faulty employee.

dextr3k said:
I understand you are skeptical, but I think overly so. The worst that happens is you are scammed out of $35. Telus is supposed to unlock your phones for $50 anyways. And there has never been a reported incident of phones being relocked. This service has been available since last june, they have not closed it, and a ton of people do eBay unlocks for their AT&T phones.

I do think you have too many excuses and anecdotal evidence, so I dont think anyone on this forum will be able to provide enough evidence to convince you, nor is it our job to. Everyone here, including myself, agree IMEI unlocks are easiest and hassle free, and so far safer.

All the excuses you say are valid, but borderline paranoid. I had a friend once that would not put more than $20 of gas in is car at any point in time. He claimed that by not carrying so much gas, reduces the weight of his car and thus he saves money by being fuel efficient. True? probably, worth the hassle? your own opinion.
Click to expand...
I am indeed, wary, maybe more than necessary, but I was scammed or had to go through many scam attempts to ignore warning signs.

Your example about the gas is laughable, as, given current cars, lack of aerodynamics and greater dead weight surely have the most significant influence on fuel consumption. But I digress.

Telus has lowered the price to $30 when they do it themselves, but don't tell much about the restrictions they put on that process. More importantly, price for third-parties hasn't lowered.

I have done IMEI unlocks before, but I keep on remembering that one would be dealing with the most desirable phone in the world locked with a few of the greediest carriers in the world.
 
Cubytus said:
I will count your experience as a positive report, for once, to balance for the negative ones I read. I may consider it if I get another iPhone later on.

However when a phone is unlocked through unofficial channels (read: corrupt employee) and if phones were unlocked before the breach was discovered, they are going to trace what phones were unlocked, and may re-lock them. This sounds greedy, but that's the way carriers work here. One can't really count on the carrier being generous and accepting the breach, and just fire the faulty employee.

I am indeed, wary, maybe more than necessary, but I was scammed or had to go through many scam attempts to ignore warning signs.

Your example about the gas is laughable, as, given current cars, lack of aerodynamics and greater dead weight surely have the most significant influence on fuel consumption. But I digress.

Telus has lowered the price to $30 when they do it themselves, but don't tell much about the restrictions they put on that process. More importantly, price for third-parties hasn't lowered.

I have done IMEI unlocks before, but I keep on remembering that one would be dealing with the most desirable phone in the world locked with a few of the greediest carriers in the world.
Click to expand...

Unless they catch the employee doing your unlock, I doubt that they would go back re-lock a bunch phones that were unlocked months ago. I have yet to hear of anyone having their phone re-locked, but I guess it is possible.
 
The OP is convinced everything is a conspiracy or fraud or fraudulent. From well meaning carrier service employees to honest ebay sellers. A lot of IMEI unlocks are legit as well as the vast majority of ebay sellers.

Meanwhile he forgot that by installing the iPad-BB he circumvented the carrierlock and actually participated in the big "fraud".

Either just downgrade the ipad BB to 05.13.04 or sell this phone (ebay?) and buy a unlocked phone (plenty online available for a reasoanble price) and it will solve the initial Find My Phone problem.
 
Baggio said:
Unless they catch the employee doing your unlock, I doubt that they would go back re-lock a bunch phones that were unlocked months ago. I have yet to hear of anyone having their phone re-locked, but I guess it is possible.
Click to expand...
you forget to take sheer greediness into account, it seems.

TriJetHero said:
The OP is convinced everything is a conspiracy or fraud or fraudulent. From well meaning carrier service employees to honest ebay sellers. A lot of IMEI unlocks are legit as well as the vast majority of ebay sellers.

Meanwhile he forgot that by installing the iPad-BB he circumvented the carrierlock and actually participated in the big "fraud".

Either just downgrade the ipad BB to 05.13.04 or sell this phone (ebay?) and buy a unlocked phone (plenty online available for a reasoanble price) and it will solve the initial Find My Phone problem.
Click to expand...
There is no conspiracy. I don't adhere to such views, and never will be. I am however taking evidence into account, as well as reasonable doubts.

Most eBay sellers are indeed honest, scammers being most often on the buyer side. However, how truthful can be a seller whose nickname boasts about being a thug? Besides, very few carrier-unlocked iPhone 3GS do exist (Apparently, when the 3GS was the most up to date, many carriers refused to issue imei unlocks). Most vendors are sold out on the 3GS since months, and price is far from reasonable.

Jailbreaking and unlocking are not a fraud: selling an unauthorized IMEI unlock is. Baseband was downgraded, and why you, I believe, North American, keep on pushing to always spend more, as I surely would make a loss between selli this one and buying another 3GS?
 
the 3gs with 6.15.00 baseband has given me so many headaches. i realy dont wanna deal with that combo anymore. just a nightmare jailbreaking and unlocking that particular fw and baseband
 
Cubytus said:
you forget to take sheer greediness into account, it seems.

There is no conspiracy. I don't adhere to such views, and never will be. I am however taking evidence into account, as well as reasonable doubts.

Most eBay sellers are indeed honest, scammers being most often on the buyer side. However, how truthful can be a seller whose nickname boasts about being a thug? Besides, very few carrier-unlocked iPhone 3GS do exist (Apparently, when the 3GS was the most up to date, many carriers refused to issue imei unlocks). Most vendors are sold out on the 3GS since months, and price is far from reasonable.

Jailbreaking and unlocking are not a fraud: selling an unauthorized IMEI unlock is. Baseband was downgraded, and why you, I believe, North American, keep on pushing to always spend more, as I surely would make a loss between selli this one and buying another 3GS?
Click to expand...

I guess you still don't grasp the idea of IMEI unlocks, if the carrier accepts the IMEI it is not unauthorized anymore, any request has to go through the carrier and is than put on the whitelist by Apple.

From all your replies it is clear you made up your mind about everything, it'a hard to help people that don't want to be helped.

Most of your reasoing is flawed, best thing is to sell the 3gs and get a cheap android unlocked phone, best to stay away from 'bad' apple products.
 
Cubytus said:
you forget to take sheer greediness into account, it seems.
Click to expand...

Yes, but that would cause them more work than the actual benefit as the IMEI unlock is approved by the carrier, before Apple makes the changes to the database. That includes unlocks by 3rd parties. So, for them to figure out which 16 digit IMEIs need to re-lock would time and resources for very little financial benefit to the carriers. You seem to be paranoid about everything. Enjoy life instead of thinking these guys are out to stick it to you.
 
cymolia said:
the 3gs with 6.15.00 baseband has given me so many headaches. i realy dont wanna deal with that combo anymore. just a nightmare jailbreaking and unlocking that particular fw and baseband
Click to expand...
As you probably have read before, this phone was reverted to its original 5.13 baseband.

TriJetHero said:
I guess you still don't grasp the idea of IMEI unlocks, if the carrier accepts the IMEI it is not unauthorized anymore, any request has to go through the carrier and is than put on the whitelist by Apple.

From all your replies it is clear you made up your mind about everything, it'a hard to help people that don't want to be helped.

Most of your reasoing is flawed, best thing is to sell the 3gs and get a cheap android unlocked phone, best to stay away from 'bad' apple products.
Click to expand...
I do understand that Apple will only whitelist a phone as unlocked on an official carrier's request. If such a process isn't automated, then even if the unlock comes from a corrupt employee on the carrier's side, it seems reasonable to think that the the carrier may not go through the hassle of asking Apple to re-lock the phone. Finally, an argument that makes sense (Thanks Baggio).

I haven't made up my mind about anything. I am merely starting with a working hypothesis, as anybody would, and am asking here for anyone willing to challenge it, and provide arguments. I can't make it any more open than this.

Baggio said:
Yes, but that would cause them more work than the actual benefit as the IMEI unlock is approved by the carrier, before Apple makes the changes to the database. That includes unlocks by 3rd parties. So, for them to figure out which 16 digit IMEIs need to re-lock would time and resources for very little financial benefit to the carriers. You seem to be paranoid about everything. Enjoy life instead of thinking these guys are out to stick it to you.
Click to expand...

Applejuiced said:
The simple answer is he doesn't want to spend any money IMO.
All the rest is just excuses. Carry on:D
Click to expand...
Glad to see you can actually read. If this was not in this topic, I posted a previous one before where I explicitly stated that I looked for a cheap or free way to do it by myself.
 
Find my Iphone can't see my phone on line

Cubytus said:
It is running iOS 6.1.2, baseband 06.15.00.
Click to expand...

Hi! My Phone is also 3Gs, running on base band 05.13.04. And find my Iphone doesn't find my phone.:(

Where you able to figure out how to my Find My Iphone work on your Jail broken Iphone?

Best, Venus:apple:
 
VENUSPHILLIPS said:
Hi! My Phone is also 3Gs, running on base band 05.13.04. And find my Iphone doesn't find my phone.:(

Where you able to figure out how to my Find My Iphone work on your Jail broken Iphone?

Best, Venus:apple:
Click to expand...
Actually, the issue was solved when, on iOS 6.1.2 the baseband was downgraded from the iPad version to the normal, iPhone version.
 
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