AT&T won't unlock phone

Pay the $80.

You will waste much more than $80 worth of your time.

If you don't owe them any money, the should unlock it for free. I'd raise hell until someone acts on it

She didn't finish paying for the phone, it's that simple. Those contracts stipulate (typically) that if you terminate the contract, you have to pay out the phone or pay to get the subsidy lock removed. If the payout is $80 that's a lot cheaper than a new phone. Pay it. If she had stayed on AT&T it would have been an extra $45 over the next 9 months, probably would have been good of them to let you know what the payout on the phone was.

I'm curious how old her unlimited plan was. I left AT&T almost 2 years ago and I don't recall an unlimited plan then (my memory sucks, so there could have been), though I had one some time back that I could have kept but it was throttled so I opted for a set data limit plan several years ago Did she just upgrade the phone but keep the original plan? Just curious how the could up her plan unless her existing plan was modified in some way (like changing or eliminating throttling limit).

They won't unlock them in store. You have to go to an AT&T website.

quote:

---

There is absolutely no reason for AT&T to unlock the phone if you haven't finished paying for it.

---

Except those old contract plans intentionally hid the price of the phone, and there wasn't really a payment schedule other than "after 2 years you don't owe any more". Your monthly payments also didn't drop once the phone was "paid off".

Seriously, frick AT&T and frick that $80. Tweet them and post on their public forum. They break contract, they give you an out, but the out comes at a cost? They should wait until your contract is up to bump you up $5. Don't let them strongarm you out of more money than you signed up for.

quote:

---

This. There is absolutely no reason for AT&T to unlock the phone if you haven't finished paying for it.

---

Agree with you. OP owes the balance. $80 is generous of AT&T in this case.

Can you not unlock it by yourself?

She signed up on her plan maybe about 10 years ago. She reupped with them last year just about a week before every new contract was mandated to go on the NEXT plan.

The $80 isn't to AT&T, it's to a website called iphoneimei.com that says that they can unlock a phone under contract. Already paid them $28.

To those saying that she still owes on her phone, yeah, I would agree in the sense that she got a subsidized rate, and I know that the phone is then paid off over the course of the contract. It's just shitty of them to say that we can cancel the contract without an early termination fee and then keep her phone locked. To be clear, they show a $0 balance on her account now. Collections says we owe nothing. Retention says we owe nothing.

AT&T store was useless.

What's most frustrating is that customer care keeps on saying that the unlock will work, they submit a request through the "back office" and then two days later it is denied via email from an email address that we cannot reply to. There are no supervisors that we can talk to. If she had known that this would happen, she would have stayed until the contract expired. However, the moment her number was ported, her contract was terminated.

OP, I just went through a similar song and dance with AT&T. It was a fricking ROAD THROUGH HELL, but I did finally get them to unlock the phone though!

In November, my contracted ended, but 2 weeks before it ended I bought a new iPhone 7 completely unlocked and contract free from Best Buy and switched my SIM card to it from my iPhone 6 that was still under contract. After my contract ended, I got the iPhone 6 I had on the contract unlocked and sold it, switched to AT&T prepaid and dropped the unlimited data because of the price increases. However, when I originally put the contract SIM card in my phone it locked it to AT&T without telling me, for no reason, even though it was an unlocked and contract-free model! So last month, when I went to switch to Verizon unlimited, my number got ported over and my prepaid plan automatically ended, but my phone wouldn't take the new Verizon SIM card and I was stuck without phone service.

I submitted a unlock request online, and it takes 24 hours to process. Ended up coming back denied because "You haven't been with GoPhone for 6 months." WTF?

So I had no phone, and I went to the AT&T store. Person at the store said it shouldn't be locked, and they don't know why it is, but they can't do anything for me in store. I told them they have to at least let me use their phone because I now have no working phone. So they let me use the store phone to call the corporate line, and the customer service Indian chick agreed there's no reason it should be locked, and she put in an unlock request for me.

After 24 hours, it comes back denied -- "You haven't been with GoPhone for 6 months." At this point I'm pretty pissed.

So I drive back to the AT&T store to use their phone again. I call the corporate line and somehow end up with the exact same Indian chick, and she tells me "Well, I guess you'll have to be with GoPhone for 6 months then." I am fricking livid at this point, and I demand to speak with her supervisor. Her supervisor comes on and tells me she will put in an escalated unlock request case for me. I ask her "what happens if this case comes back denied? They keep coming back denied but for a reason that makes no sense, everyone I speak to says it should be fine to unlock, and no one will let me talk directly to anyone with authority so they can explain to me why they won't unlock it." She says "Well, the only other option would be to stay with GoPhone for 6 months to make it unlock. But don't worry, it absolutely will come back OK, I promise you." I don't believe her, but I let her put in the escalated unlock request.

After 24 hours, it comes back denied again for the same exact fricking bullshite reason. I go back to the AT&T store and the manager there, who is really nice and sympathetic to my situation, but powerless, ends up giving me a free month of GoPhone with a temporary number just so I can make these calls from home instead of driving there.

At this point, I was entertaining thoughts of going to the AT&T store and taking hostages.

In the end, I had to get in contact with the AT&T Office of the President through their Investor Relations page here: LINK. Click the part that says "If you've contacted Customer Service and require additional support, click here to contact Carmen Nava, Senior Vice President of Customer Experience." After submitting that form, 4 days later (even though it says 24 hours...) someone from waaaay high up in the company called me and asked for my original receipt for verification and unlocked it right then and there on the phone with me without a problem.

Your situation is a little different because you're still under contract technically, but I would still fill out this form and see what happens.

Call the Public Service Commission. Cell phones are regulated but they will put in a request for you anyway and someone from the Office of the President of At&t will call you to discuss. They will resolve the issue.