could virgin have locked my vodafone mobile?

Tolstoy

This is a bit complicated but here goes. I had a vodafone contract in 2009 with a nokia 5800 xpress music. Contract ended - phone was mine to keep, so I went to virgin pay as you go. New virgin sim worked no problem. Have just been given a new phone so want to give this nokia to my son and have tried putting giffgaff sim in. HOwever, no network coverage. I phoned virgin and they claim the phone must be locked to vodafone. HOwever, how can this be, when their sim worked in it. Also, my husband has an identical (though bit faulty) Nokia which I tried the giffgaff sim in, and it works, and he always remained with vodafone, so clearly these mobiles were never locked to vodafone. So why would Virgin lock a phone which was never theirs in the first place? They claim they haven't, but could they do something else, like block the phone?

Does anyone understand or have an idea about this, so that I can focus on either Vodafone or Virgin to unlock/unblock this mobile for my son.

Thank you.

DUTR

If you are not going to accept some user error then it will be difficult for folk to help, personally I don't buy into the conspiracy theory

Tolstoy

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean about accepting error and conspiracy theories and all that. Just struggling to understand the anomalies.

Thanks for your reply anyway.

DUTR

Tolstoy wrote: »

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean about accepting error and conspiracy theories and all that. Just struggling to understand the anomalies.

Thanks for your reply anyway.

The conspirarcy is suggesting that the network MUST have locked the phone, there is simply no need for them to do that, as it is very highly unlikely then readers could view it as a conspiracy, I'm sure it is just some kind of user error which is preventing you from using the handset at the moment.

banger9365

which virgin did you get on the phone ,Virgin = T-mobile or virgin = orange ,
both not vodafone ,
my moneys on the new sim card and your virgin one was an old one ,
i get the same with an unlock samsung tocco,my old sim works but not my new sim but its only a spare phone

Buzby

Phones cannot be locked remotely - all a network can do is block a handset through the IMEI number (if it was lost or stolen).

If the chosen SIM doesn;t work, try another one - remembering that PAYG SIMS usually need to have credit and be active before the thing works.

grumbler

Buzby wrote: »

... PAYG SIMS usually need to have credit and be active before the thing works.

Tolstoy wrote: »

... my husband has an identical (though bit faulty) Nokia which I tried the giffgaff sim in, and it works...

..........................

Tolstoy

Thank you everyone for your replies. Yes, the new sim is activated and loaded up and works in an identical phone, but not in this one. So I know it's not network coverage issues, or sim card issues, but is something to do with the phone being locked by either vodafone or nokia. Just don't understand it, as Nokia say they wouldn't have, and yet phone wasn't locked when I left vodafone several years ago, so why would it suddenly become locked now? I guess I'll have to go into a shop and see if I can pay someone to sort it out for him. Anyway thanks again for thoughts.

Rusty!

The phone isn't locked.

When a phone it locked, you get a prompt for an unlock code, not a lack of coverage. Call O2 and give them the IMEI, it might be blocked on their network.

Tolstoy

Worked it out! Thanks again. I went on another forum and found the answer: I had to restore factory settings, which is done as follows in case anyone else reading this has the same problem.

next step may be to try a factory reset - to do this you:
[SIZE=+0][SIZE=+0][SIZE=+0][SIZE=+0]Menu > Settings and Phone > Phone mgmt. > Factory setting[/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE]

The lockcode should be 12345 unless its been changed

So all fine, son happy, and grateful to you all for replying and trying to point me in the right direction.

Rusty!

There is no logical reason for that to have worked, but good news that it did