TMo Unlocking games

[BarkingGhostar]

Called Thursday last week to get my iPhone 5 unlocked. Bought them outright some 18 months back and called into support to request the unlock process. This Tuesday came around and no email.

I had to spell the email address four times or more, resorting to phonetics and I gave up and used another email address. Ended the called that Thursday and when I received nothing I called back this Tuesday. I was told the email was sent out the next day, but ...

So, on Tuesday's call they retried the and I got the email on Wednesday, and noted the instructs to wait 24-hours before performing the final portion. I waited 29 hours and did a backup in iTunes then I performed a master reset of content and setting, followed by the iTunes backup restore.

I never got the message they indicated and I waited something like ten minutes after connecting with the USB cable before attempting the restore. The message I was expecting, per the email instructions, was the phone was unlocked. No indication.

I tried using several online services to check the IMEI, but each time the unlock status came up Unknown. I guess I should call back a third time as I have no other easy means to check other than putting a foreign SIM in it, but that would mean an AT&T SIM, which ain't going to happen.

Ideas, suggestion or thoughts? I'll have to go through this entire experience again with the wife's phone, too, which is also an iPhone 5 bought (paid in full) at the same time I bought mine.

 

[Red Storm]

Have you tried a T-Mobile store? They'll probably have to still call T-Mobile, but if you express your frustrations and explain how you've tried it several times before you can probably get a store employee to do that part for you.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I had not thought of that. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[isekii]

If you got an email asking you to do a restore. Do a complete restore (Not from a backup).
and set it up as a new device.
After you do that you can restore from the old backup.

 

[Bman123]

I dont call customer service, use the online chat. Its much easier

 

[vshah]

have you tried a non tmo sim yet? last time I unlocked an iphone on tmo, I never got the "unlocked" message but other sims started working fine.

 

[Oyeve]

Came in here to get some free games, leaving disappointed.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I tried the instructions again about an hour ago and finally I got the unlock message in iTunes. Funny thing is that on several IMEI checking websites the status still shows Unknown.

 

[swilli89]

Wait.. I thought only sprint and Verizon used imei? I thought gym carriers could just pop in a different sim card

 

[paperwastage]

Wait.. I thought only sprint and Verizon used imei? I thought gym carriers could just pop in a different sim card

Gsm operators use imei( and Sim cards to provision service)

CDMA operators use ESN(and you need to call/manually setup service when you switch phones)

Right now, sprint and Verizon are hybrids (they still use legacy CDMA for voice/data, and LTE for high speed 4g data. LTE is a gsm implementation that uses imei and Sim cards)

Eventually, all carriers will be using LTE (and volte for voice) going forward, and stop using the legacy CDMA/2G gsm systems