Unlock a phone with no carrier sim?!?

[PrinceDraven]

People, please help.
So I bought my wife a 3gs some time ago from Apple that was factory unlocked.
It has been on O2 ever since.
Saw some good deals so requested a PAC code and transferred her to Three, however when I put the sim in I got No Service, then remembered that her phone died and was replaced under O2's insurance. Clearly they have replaced her phone with one locked to O2.
So I quickly got on to O2 and requested an unlock, however my wife's number has now ported to the Three sim (works on another phone) and now she cannot use her phone, also I have no idea now if the O2 unlock will work, do they have to send something to the phone, if so clearly they will not be able to now as the phone has no valid sim in it!?!

Really do not want to pay someone online £40 to unlock a phone that is probably not even worth £40.

Anyone got any advice or help??

Appreciate your help on this.

 

[Applejuiced]

They don't send anything to the phone. They just enter the imei to Apples unlocked database.
What you then need to do is restore the iphone and stick a sim inside to activate.
If the unlock went through it should activate and work with any carriers gsm sim.

 

[PrinceDraven]

Great, thanks for the quick reply, that is very helpful.
Just one thing, when you say 'restore' do you mean that I have to wipe my wife's phone? Or restore from backup or what?

 

[Applejuiced]

Great, thanks for the quick reply, that is very helpful.
Just one thing, when you say 'restore' do you mean that I have to wipe my wife's phone? Or restore from backup or what?

You can just restore it using iTunes and then you can select restore from backup if you want the data that was on it loaded up again.

 

[PrinceDraven]

You can just restore it using iTunes and then you can select restore from backup if you want the data that was on it loaded up again.

Thanks once again, I think her backup is probably a week or so old, but better than nothing...