is their anyway to get an att iPhone unlocked legally. I want to unlock my
Phone for use in Portugal.
Phone for use in Portugal.
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Is there a legal way to get iPhone unlocked
- Thread starter michael31986
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Actually AT&T has unlocked an iPhone while under contract. They did for me, at least.
you asked for a legal way and thats the way if you have AT&T.
you can still try to do the request anyway, if it doesn't work. oh well.
According to the link it says under service commitment: Your account must be active for at least 60 days with no past due or unpaid balance.
So if you're under a contract as you mentioned (service commitment) then you need to make sure your account meets at least 60 days and no balances.
However, if you're on a device installment plan then it likely wouldn't work until you paid off what is owed on the installment plan.
I used them before many times.
They are legit.
They wont steal your money or info.
You use paypal to pay them.
Can't you pay the ETF and get it unlocked? Or are we looking for a free/cheap legal way?
How are they even able to unlock the phone? Do they have access to Apple's lock-status database?
I remember the $1 ebay/amazon unlocks, those were the days.
There's a couple of ways…
1) They know an employee that works for the carrier who has access to the carrier system that submits IMEIs to Apple's database. That employee is given a list of IMEIs on a routine basis and is paid by the unlock company based on how many they submit.
2) An employee the unlock company knows has installed unauthorized software on the carriers computers that allows people from the unlock company to access those computers remotely and insert IMEIs into Apple's database from the carrier.
3) Other methods we may not know. Apple employees cannot submit IMEIs to the database though. The request has to come from the carrier.
The first one is well known, it's the second that got two employees from AT&T fired. AT&T discovered them because activity from certain computers was detected as happening during off-hours.
A third employee had sought out a job solely for the purpose of doing this. That employee was not hired. All three have been sued by AT&T and so has Swift Unlocks.
That's pretty much how it works.
Huh, that's impressive given how much AT&T locks down their employee's computers. I was a software developer there for a long, miserable 7 years and had to have approval from my boss' boss to have admin rights on my computer (and I had a valid excuse), and it had to be renewed every year. I'm shocked a call center employee had the rights to install something like that.
I had no idea about that lawsuit though. I figured that's how SwiftUnlocks got it done but it's good to know my suspicions are confirmed. AT&T's obviously in the right here, but **** 'em. The ex-employee in me wants Swift to win.
I'm kind of on the fence about the lawsuit.
On the one hand you have a clear violation of company policies and procedures. But there's currently no law on the books that specifically prohibits this kind of thing - so my goody twoshoes sense of "That's ILLEGAL!" isn't tripping over this. Kind of a gray area here.
I imagine AT&T's lawsuit will succeed based on charges unrelated to the actual submission of the IMEIs.
In any case it's led to a much stricter adherence to corporate unlock policy I hear.
For anyone interested…
http://www.geekwire.com/2015/att-su...id-to-unlock-hundreds-of-thousands-of-phones/
Why is AT&T still able to lock the phones, I thought the new law passed did away with this? I understand that if you finance the phone from AT&T you have to pay them back, whether you stay with them or leave for another carrier. But thats the case whether the phone is locked or unlocked. So why is AT&T able to keep the phone locked? Is it justified because they are essentially giving consumers an interest free loan on the phone?
Me too.
Those were the days man
I would get all my family's iPhones unlocked while still under contract.
They even had specials that went down to 80 cents an unlock.
Now they're around $75-100 and they're not getting cheaper.
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Probably still many people tied up with contracts before they stopped doing 2 year agreements.
I think with the new next/jump/edge programs where you make payments on the device they shouldn't lock those. You're not under contract, you just finance the device.
Because people assume.
The law states that the carriers must unlock whenever a device is paid off. But most people don't bother to look any further.
While the law does demand this people are surprised to learn that the law allows the carrier flexbility. They can and do demand other criteria, such as:
• A device has to be active for 'X' amount of days on a network
• You must be a customer with an account in good standing
• An unlock can be denied for technological reasons - i.e., the carrier says it's technologically impossible to unlock a particular device
The law does NOT prohibit the carriers from doing any of that - so long as anyone meeting those requirements gets their device unlocked or there is a valid technological reason for denying an unlock.
Beyond that, anything else you find is NOT a part of the law! It's the result of an AGREEMENT between all four carriers in order to AVOID any further legislation that those carriers may not like.
But again, all people want to see is the part about unlocking when paid off.
This is another reason why I'm glad Apple sells factory unlocked devices. I'll just stick to buying unlocked phones. I wish phones couldn't be locked to a carrier. With the new installment plans they shouldn't be because you have entered a legally binding agreement to still pay them back but you should be free to use whatever service you want if you don't like their service.
Thankfully at least with Verizon it ends up working out like that.
So swift unlocks is best. I wanted unlocked by next Friday for vacation. Don't thing it wil be in time. It says 15 days. Any other options and
