I originally purchased my S4 Active from ATT straight out and unlocked from ATT. Used the phone on Tmobile since the day I bought it. All was fine and dandy until....
I had to send it in for warranty repair to Samsung. Samsung deemed my phone was not repairable gave me a free replacement device. What had happen was it decided to leak one day after months of honorable service in all sorts of damp conditions. The water killed the microphone, back button, and charging port. After just pouring the water out, the phone still worked until the battery died the next day.
I had a problem.
The replacement device of course was not SIM unlocked. I called ATT thinking I was screwed but why not right? Turns out, they looked up the original phone's IMEI and saw it's status of being SIM unlocked and not on an ATT account. They wanted proof that the device was replaced by Samsung so I faxed them in a copy of the replacement ticket. What happened next was amazing actually, ATT honored their SIM unlocking on the original device and gave me the SIM unlock code for my replacement phone! AWESOME!!
So what I learned today was.. When I was an ATT customer the customer service was miserable hence why I switched to TMobile. If you're not an ATT customer they treat you like royalty.
Related
This thread traces back to my to subsidy lock that I posted awhile back. While not finding any solutions I tried Motorola and AT&T and they did not help at all.
Long story short well kinda..but bare with me please.6-7 months ago I wanted a AT&T Phone. (I'm with T-Mobile btw) Fell in love with the Atrix HD. Found one via Craigslist. Bought it from a guy and claims he has unlocked codes given to him by AT&T. Turns out the codes were phony and subsidy locked my phone( hard locked) It won't let me input any unlock codes anymore.. Tried AT&T they told me the phone is NOT Black listed,but the guy owed money to it. They advice me to contact Motorola which I did. After procrastinating for months and months. Finally sent in my device to Motorola to re-flash the phone to be unlocked. Good thing I had warranty still. I received it about a week and half later. Posted it on Craigslist. Meet up with a buyer to buy the phone. Puts in his AT&T Sim Card and there! Subsidy Locked is still in and no prompt options for him to input any codes besides a dismiss button. I was furious. I thought Motorola did their job. So back to drawing board one.
Contacted Motorola again via chat. They put it as a priority case nd told me I have to call motorola the following week. I called the repair center earlier this morning. They told me there is nothing they can do to help me since the moment I bought the phone from a private buyer. The warranty was voided??? Even before I told them that I bought it on Craigslist before and they still told me to send in the device for warranty repair.
Now I just have a working phone that wont work for a AT&T Carrier.
WHAT CAN I DO GUYS?
Wait, so it works with TMobile bit not with AT&T? I'd guess that AT&T didn't have it blacklisted back then but it does now since the money owed never got paid.
When you first got the phone and put in your non-ATT sim, did the phone prompt you to enter the subsidy code?
Since the phone was an ATT phone and it is hard locked, I would have expected an ATT sim to work but no other.
Hi folks!
I recently posted here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=46213830 that shows how I unexpectedly bricked my phone. The phone has never been rooted/unlocked and was running a stock ROM when it happened. I was trying to flash an official ROM but flashed the wrong one apparently. So the question is, what's next?
I have two options as I see it:
1) Take the phone to AT&T and claim warranty; as it's an AT&T phone. I see two complications with this approach. I bought the phone used from some guy off of craigslist for $200 (a great price I think). In any case, when I bought the phone I activated the phone on the account of my mom to make sure AT&T knew the phone as mine and to make sure it was an honestly obtained phone (not stolen; or the person defaulted payments or something). The phone was on AT&T for a day and then I switched the plan back to my mom's old phone from the 80s.
First complication: So AT&T has seen this IMEI/Serial # before associated with my mom's account. I am not sure if that's enough to get a warranty swap.
Second complication: I forgot. Haha. Oh no I didn't. Well because the phone wasn't listed as active as of the time that the warranty service is being requested.
Third: I didn't originally buy the phone at AT&T, not sure if the warranty is thru device or the person.
2) Send phone to HTC warranty service.
First complication: I'm not sure since I was trying to flash the ROM whether they will deny warranty coverage. I might have wiped the bootloader I have no idea; In any case never rooted/completely stock.
What would you do?
Many thanks in advance.
I'm confused. Are the N6 phones carrier locked?
I travel to Europe every other year for about two months to see family and I normally just pickup a pre-paid SIM while I'm there for my phone. Last trip I called up AT&T International and told them my plans and they got my IMEI from me and gave me the code to unlock my phone so I could pick up a pre-paid SIM. This was in there best interest as it kept me a happy customer and I renewed my contract when it was up. I've since sold that phone to help cover part of the cost of my AT&T N6.
Yesterday I contacted AT&T International again and asked for the same thing. This time I'm told they do not do that and never have and that I need to go threw some link to request it to be unlocked. Unfortunately that link very specifically says you have to finish your contract of pay the ETF or if Next, pay off the device.
This is NOT what happened last time. I was 100% for sure under contract, I was 6 months into my new contract with AT&T as a NEW customer. This time around I'm a renewed customer and they will not do this for me.
This is going to make me leave AT&T on principal. Unlocking my phone does not release me from the agreement I signed but as mentioned above does keep me a happy customer.
Googling I found this... Seems this is a new thing and others have had issues. Interesting the way they kissed his ass when they found out he writes tech reviews and said they were looking into ways to help out international travelers with this, looks like they have done nothing.
http://arstechnica.com/staff/2014/11/atts-outdated-unlock-policies-cost-it-a-loyal-customer-me/
So I happened to mention to a friend I need to look into moving to Sprint or something else that will buy out my contract so I can have a phone to take with and he said ummm I don't think N6's are carrier locked.
Now I know I could buy a cheap phone but its the point of the matter. EVERYTHING I do is on "this" phone. I don't want to take two phones, I want to take THIS phone and I don't want to pay for AT&T International service.
@kdoggy
Yes, AT&T N6 is carrier locked. You can not get the unlock code from AT&T unless your device is paid off.
But there are a number of 3rd party companies that will sell you the code for $10 to $25. Look for an older thread in this General section with a title something like "undo AT&T customization".
Or do a Google search for carrier unlock codes.
This phone wasn't carrier locked out of the box was it? I remember now when I first set it up I followed some instructions to NOT get the AT&T customizations that involved removing the SIM etc but then the second time I re-flashed the phone I forgot to do that and now I get the carrier crap. Previous to that my Google Play account KNEW it was an Nexus phone but did not know what carrier it was. It just said Unspecified Nexus 6. After that refresh without removing the SIM for the first part of the setup, it now gets the crap and Play says AT&T Nexus 6.
Sigh, OK yeah I'll pay $10~25.00 dollars. I'm not happy about this on principal though. Them unlocking my phone does not release me from my contract. Looks like I may have to evaluate in another few months when my Next is up.
@kdoggy
Yes, the AT&T version was carrier locked out of the box.
Ah OK. Yeah just read the thread you spoke of. Sounds like the SIM card thing was just for the bloat.
OK well this helped, screw AT&T, I'll just pay the money and remember this next go around. We have been on a family plan for the past few years but I'm in the middle of a divorce right now so I may just go Verizon when this contracts up. Nothing keeping me on AT&T anymore. Previously it was just because the wife and kids were on AT&T too.
I can say for a fact that the Tmobile version of the N6 comes unlocked. I got mine and was able to pop in my att sim without having to unlock it. I even got it replaced through warranty (bad battery) and was able to use my At&t sim on this one too. But as far as I know Tmobile and the international version are the only ones to come unlocked.
The Sprint and Verizon models are unlocked as well.
The US Cellular version is totally unlocked as well...for all carriers.
Hey hows everyone? I bought a phone about 2 months ago, it was working fine last night. When i woked up it dndt had service I called t mobile from my mothers phone and they said that the phone has been blocked or blacklisted. I think if im not wrong there is a way to fix this. Anyone please?
Well if the phone had been blacklisted BY T-MOBILE I could only assume you can't get service on that phone assuming it's something they've done on their end... I may be wrong but if a carrier is blacklisting your device and thus you are no longer getting service it is something being done on their end to block your service.
Same thing happened to me. Bought a second hand Nexus 4, used it for 3 months, then it stops. It was on a delinquent T-Mobile plan. I called them up & they said all I could due was contact the original owner. Sorry for your luck. That is what I hate about t-mobile.
I'm pretty sure you can use the phone on AT&T, but this why it's important to check the imei with the carrier before buying a used phone. You bought a stolen phone, either stolen from T-Mobile or a person and all the carriers respond to that by blacklisting the device. There's nothing to be done though beyond appealing to the original owner, even if you offer to pay what the other person owes.
Unfortunately, checking the imei isn't enough. The Nexus I had had a clean imei. The original owner quit paying on the phone 3 months later. It is a problem with T-Mobiles device payment plan. All other carriers require a phone to be fully payed off before removing from your account, except T-Mobile.
If you are technically inclined you could "swap" an imei from another phone but this practice can be illegal in many many ways, there are legal ways to do it but you have to be careful. Otherwise the blacklist is now a collaboration between the major cell carriers in the US aka the big 4, so it is not likely your phone will work on any carrier in the states. Probably the best you can hope hope for is to flip it to someone at a discount who wants it as a wifi only device or to someone who can use it for parts, or you could lie like the other guy did and not tell someone its blacklisted, although this too is immoral and possibly illegal.
just go on ebay, there's a few people you can pay on there to remove the blacklist.
http://www.androidrooter.com/
he has mail in service as well as remote service.
i have used him in the past with great success.
he is located in northern new jersey
That sucks.
@dannygoround
Hi guys,
I just thought I should share my experience with SAMSUNG and AT&T.
I've bought my brand new UNLOCKED S6 Active from EBAY about 13 months ago and used it for 11 months with no problems at all. I've never dropped it nor put it under water or anything etc. However about 2 months ago the phone started freezing and randomly rebooting.
I'm an IT specialist so after carefully examining the phone during freeze I realized it's probably a defective motherboard. The phone was under warranty so I shipped it to SAMSUNG USA for repair. They send it back after two weeks with a replaced battery claiming the phone is fixed. Of course it wasn't and I had the exact same issues as before. I had to send it back to SAMSUNG and after another month they confirmed it's the motherboard and replaced it. The service slip states "Replaced PBA".
Since then the issues are resolved but.... as soon as I've put my international SIM card the phone stated "Invalid SIM card. Enter network unlock code". What a surprise! I called SAMSUNG and they claimed it's locked by AT&T (??) and connected me to AT&T rep about it. I've explained everything again and the AT&T guy said since I don't have an AT&T account he'll send me the unlock code after 3 business days to my phone. "How exactly are you going do to do that when my phone is with an international SIM card which is not working on the locked phone?" I asked. "Oh... in that case I'll give you the code now". So in a minute I had the code and the phone is UNLOCKED again.
Cheers!
Hey I am having the same issue with S6 edge. I bought AT&T S6 edge unlocked from ebay. I used it with Tmobile sim. Something went wrong with the phone, sent the phone to repair and Samsung replaced the PBA and sent back. Now it is locked. When I put Tmobile sim, I get this "Invalid SIM card. Enter network unlock code". I called Samsung and they told me to call Tmobile to get unlock code. I don't think it is going to work. How did you get the Samsung to connect AT&T rep to you?
adasse10 said:
Hey I am having the same issue with S6 edge. I bought AT&T S6 edge unlocked from ebay. I used it with Tmobile sim. Something went wrong with the phone, sent the phone to repair and Samsung replaced the PBA and sent back. Now it is locked. When I put Tmobile sim, I get this "Invalid SIM card. Enter network unlock code". I called Samsung and they told me to call Tmobile to get unlock code. I don't think it is going to work. How did you get the Samsung to connect AT&T rep to you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The SAMSUNG rep told me to call AT&T and request an unlock code. I told him I'm living in Europe and I've never had an AT&T accout which is required in order to speak with AT&T support. So he was kind enough to call them and then to forward my call directly to an AT&T support rep.
It's unexpected to see an AT&T rep provided unlock code so fast. But yours phone came back locked is understandable, since its motherboard had been replaced. I think the IMEI is also changed as well. In the past, usually if motherboard was replaced by Samsung then the IMEI is clean and ready to unlock with AT&T device unlock portal, so even you didn't get it unlock at that time, you can just go to the link above to unlock your phone.