Unlocking iPhone 5 from Three

tictac88

I am hoping someone can help me.

I bought an iPhone5 from Three in June 2013 - €659. Apparently this phone came with a pay-as-you-go SIM but at the same time as buying the phone I decided to enter into a 30 day rolling contract with Three for €20.33 a month, and get similar offers such as unlimited data and a limited number of calls and texts per month, as I would have gotten by topping up by €20 a month. I believe the saleswoman never even gave me the pay-as-you-go SIM to take home.

Signing up for a conventional contract for 18-24 months where I paid say, €50 a month, and was heavily discounted off the phone, was not an option as I knew when I was purchasing the phone that I would be going traveling within a year.

Here I am now, traveling to South America in 2 weeks, and want to have the option of using my iPhone so I thought after 10 months with Three and giving them the appropriate 30 days notice to cancel my contract, it would be very straightforward to receive an unlock code from them.

Not so. Because it was a pay-as-you go phone, they are telling me that I need to top up by €130 to receive an unlock code from them. I have always operated as a bill-pay customer since joining Three and in fact I never ended up paying the bare €20.33 bill a month as they charge extra for accessing voicemails, dialing 1800 numbers, international calls, etc and my bills over the 10 month period have come to over €320, meaning I have paid nearly €1,000 to Three since June.

I have now spoken to four customer service advisors, one supervisor and am waiting on a call from their complaints department. They are all insisting that it is policy that I top up by a minimum of €130 before they provide me with the unlock code. I am so annoyed that they cannot see how they need to make an exception in this case.

Can anyone advise me on what to do/say? If I could get a phone shop to unlock it cheaply I would, but I'm told because it's Three, it's €180.

whiterebel

tictac88 wrote: »

I am hoping someone can help me.

I bought an iPhone5 from Three in June 2013 - €659. Apparently this phone came with a pay-as-you-go SIM but at the same time as buying the phone I decided to enter into a 30 day rolling contract with Three for €20.33 a month, and get similar offers such as unlimited data and a limited number of calls and texts per month, as I would have gotten by topping up by €20 a month. I believe the saleswoman never even gave me the pay-as-you-go SIM to take home.

Signing up for a conventional contract for 18-24 months where I paid say, €50 a month, and was heavily discounted off the phone, was not an option as I knew when I was purchasing the phone that I would be going traveling within a year.

Here I am now, traveling to South America in 2 weeks, and want to have the option of using my iPhone so I thought after 10 months with Three and giving them the appropriate 30 days notice to cancel my contract, it would be very straightforward to receive an unlock code from them.

Not so. Because it was a pay-as-you go phone, they are telling me that I need to top up by €130 to receive an unlock code from them. I have always operated as a bill-pay customer since joining Three and in fact I never ended up paying the bare €20.33 bill a month as they charge extra for accessing voicemails, dialing 1800 numbers, international calls, etc and my bills over the 10 month period have come to over €320, meaning I have paid nearly €1,000 to Three since June.

I have now spoken to four customer service advisors, one supervisor and am waiting on a call from their complaints department. They are all insisting that it is policy that I top up by a minimum of €130 before they provide me with the unlock code. I am so annoyed that they cannot see how they need to make an exception in this case.

Can anyone advise me on what to do/say? If I could get a phone shop to unlock it cheaply I would, but I'm told because it's Three, it's €180.

That has always been their policy, I suppose companies that size can't make exceptions for one person. You could try the Three reps on the 3 forum here,http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1367

But I wouldn't hold me breath. In their defence, they tie the phone IMEI to the SIM card to track expenditure, if they didn't everyone would buy one and unlock next day.

tictac88

Thank you, I've sent one of them a message just now. Fair enough, but I've spent over €320 on bills. I have fair exceeded the €130 minimum expenditure if I had remained pay-as-you-go. If I had known this would be the case, I would have bought the phone directly from Apple or simply remained pay-as-you-go.

savvyxone

tictac88 wrote: »

Thank you, I've sent one of them a message just now. Fair enough, but I've spent over €320 on bills. I have fair exceeded the €130 minimum expenditure if I had remained pay-as-you-go. If I had known this would be the case, I would have bought the phone directly from Apple or simply remained pay-as-you-go.

Buy a sim adapter called r sim on eBay some shops also sell them... What it does is bypass the phone activation so you can use the phone on any network you like only costs 10-15 euro ... Or you could just give into 3 and give them the 130

JoePdw

i have always unlocked my iphones. there is such a application called evasion, both for mac and windows. i haven’t paid for unlock for iphone ever since it’s free

Bob24

Was the phone sold as the same time as the contract was set-up and by the same salesperson? Do you have some paperwork from Three which shows both of them as part of the same transaction?

If yes I think you have a pretty strong case ...

And yes as said previously mention it on the Three forum here and have one of the Three reps pick it up. If the sales rep at the time didn't mention a prepaid account and make you believe that the phone was tight to the 30 days contract, make this clear as well.

And your lesson learned: next time you get an iPhone without contract attached, buy directly from Apple.

whiterebel

JoePdw wrote: »

i have always unlocked my iphones. there is such a application called evasion, both for mac and windows. i haven’t paid for unlock for iphone ever since it’s free

Didn't unlocking via Jailbreaking ended with iPhone 4?

JoePdw

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whiterebel

JoePdw wrote: »

i unlocked phone. i had uk o2 phone which was cheaper, but three ireland is still fine price. since iphone 5 you can only unlock offcially with apple, or use a unlock sim. unlock sim is more specific to the phone and operating system, if you upgrade operating system it might require another r sim specific to that os and iphone. but unlocking with carrier and apple will remove unlock.
search ebay three ireland iphone 5 unlock
if you unlock with chinese shops in city center it will be at least 80 euro, they make it four-three times more expensive. so i made unlock on ebay. my unlock was only a few euro in comparison to 80 euro chinese shops.

So you didn't unlock it for free using evasion as you said in the previous post......:rolleyes:

JoePdw

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