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KarD7876

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 18, 2012
2
0
Hello all, looking for some desperate help as this is really bothering me. Alright so I purchased two used iPhone 5's one black one white. Black to be used with Straight Talk, White with T-Mobile. Factory unlocked both anyway. Put both sim cards in. Straight talk worked fine in black, t-mobile brought up no service in white. I switched sims, and the straight talk worked with white phone and the t-mobile phone worked with the black. However the t-mobile won't work in the white. I tried restoring, factory resetting, and also tried doing initial activation with old AT&T sim card with nothing. I don't understand why it works perfecti n the black but won't pick up in the white. I want to say it's the phone but the straight talk worked perfect in the white iphone. I still think it could be a hardware issue. I was also thinking it could be lost/stolen but if that was the case I would think it would work with t-mobile and not straight talk since straight talk runs on same network at AT&T. Help!

P.S: It wouldn't bother me to use the white with straight talk and black with t-mobile however I would like to get to the bottom of this for future purposes and when I sell it in the future.
 
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By "not working", what exactly do you mean? Will it make phone calls but not access the data network? Will it not do anything, even make phone calls? Does the phone say it's SIM locked?

Are you using a nano SIM from T-Mobile, or did you shave down a regular SIM?

If it's just that you can't access data - did you load T-Mobile's APN?

Also - are these Verizon iPhone 5's, or AT&T's?
 
Did you call T-Mobile? Maybe they could be of some help. You also mentioned these were used. Maybe there's a reason the seller was looking to dump that particular phone? Either way that sucks. Good luck getting it fixed. As soon as T-Mobile gets their 4G service up and running for the iPhone in my area I'm switching back to them.
 
By "not working", what exactly do you mean? Will it make phone calls but not access the data network? Will it not do anything, even make phone calls? Does the phone say it's SIM locked?
Won't pick up service at all. Says no service from the get go. Unable to make calls, access data, etc.

Are you using a nano SIM from T-Mobile, or did you shave down a regular SIM?
At first I shaved down a regular sim. I figured it was the sim, so went down the road to grab a new one from T-Mobile officialy. Still had the same problem.

If it's just that you can't access data - did you load T-Mobile's APN?


Also - are these Verizon iPhone 5's, or AT&T's?
These are AT&T iPhone 5's. Both of them.

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Did you call T-Mobile? Maybe they could be of some help. You also mentioned these were used. Maybe there's a reason the seller was looking to dump that particular phone? Either way that sucks. Good luck getting it fixed. As soon as T-Mobile gets their 4G service up and running for the iPhone in my area I'm switching back to them.

Well I won't think T-Mobile can do anything since I think it is something to do with the phone rather than the company seeing as the T-Mobile sim worked fine in the other iPhone 5. And yeah I can't wait till T-Mobile gets their 4G up. Straight Talk is a good concept, but terrible customer service, ridiculously hard to get a hold of, and it seems like the call center is run out of a little storage room.
 
It looks like you didn't receive an unlocked white. Since the t-mobile sim works fine in the black, it's not an issue with the sim. With the ST sim, you established that the white isn't broken, since ST acts like an at&t sim with regards to lock status.

Return/exchange the white.
 
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