SIM-unlocking an iPhone 5S not through AT&T?

[fuzzybabybunny]

My buddy flew into Hong Kong with a locked 5s. AT&T denied his request to unlock the 5s. Anyone know of any legit services that can unlock his phone?

 

[Joe1987]

He's in flipping Hong Kong, shouldn't be hard at all.

For instance:

Find the building called "Sincere" in Mong Kok... it is depicted on the map in that MTR station, so it should be easy to find. It' contains probably 100 little cell phone stores inside.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

So even thought the carrier, AT&T, was the one that locked the phone, a 3rd party can still unlock it?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I would be wary. SIM unlock for iPhone isn't that straight forward. Just because there's 100 shops, doesn't mean they will unlock an AT&T locked phone. If it was that easy, we'd all be doing it in the US also.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

So there's no online service that can SIM unlock a phone if just given the IMEI?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

So there's no online service that can SIM unlock a phone if just given the IMEI?

There used to be a 2 hour option and a 24 hour option on Swiftunlocks ($2 and $5 respectively), but I think AT&T shut those down.

http://www.swiftunlocks.com/

Looks like there's some $50 unlock but I wouldn't even touch that.

 

[zerogear]

if AT&T does not allow people to access their unlock code database, no one can really unlock it. I'm not sure if they've changed their policy since iPhone "exclusive" or not.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Yeah, it seems like the only way for an AT&T phone is to have some guy do it under the table who's affiliated with AT&T somehow. That's how Swiftunlocks worked in the past. I would recommend the OP to try an iPhone friendly forum because most of us (myself included) are likely talking out of our asses. My reference point is unlocking my iPhone 5S when I bought it, and clearly things changed it with the AT&T crackdown of Swiftunlocks.