Locked to orange on iphone - I'm so stupid!

FloFlo

My contract is due up with orange, they never came up with anything very appealing so got pac code and went to Tesco. Tesco took the pac code and arranged for numbers to be ported today. It is 2 iphones and both stopped working today when numbers were ported. Found out that the iphones are both locked to orange, I thought this was what the pac code was for. So now I have 2 phones and neither work, tried phoning orange to arrange unlocking but had problems with their cs who kept asking if I had bought the phone from them - he asked this at least 4 times we couldn't seem to move on from it.

Hubby is taking both phones into the orange store we bought them from tomorrow to request unlocking but it seems from people's past experience on here that it could take some time. Which means I'll have no mobile for possibly a month.

Tempted to cancel the new tesco contracts and if I can port the numbers back to orange rather than be without my phone / phone number for a month.

Richard_T_

Im no expert n phone unlocking, but ubntil you can sort your codes out, have you thought about using a cheap off the shelf £10 phone?
if the sim cards dont match (nano/micor to standard )then you can get an adaptor

Yinster

PAC code only means the number is transferred to the phone. If you bought your phone from a network more than not they will be locked and can only be used by that network. So when you move to a different network you need to unlock it.

Tesco's network piggybacks on O2. Pity you weren't with O2 before. You won't have this issue.

Have a look online to see if you can do it yourself or go to an independent phone shop or one of those wee units you find in shopping malls who will do it for at a wee cost.

Nereis

Please don't waste your time going in store, they can't unlock them or do anything other than advice you to ring customer services, they don't have a direct number or anything like that. I know because I work in one.

Unfortunately if you want orange to unlock them you will need to go through customer services, it may be worth getting a pay as you go orange sim card just so you have a number to give them when you call. It might help things along.

edit - Orange will do it, I've heard of them doing this, they just take their time about it. May be quicker/easier to cancel the tesco ones to be honest.

Im_just_careful

Tesco (and lots of other places) sell cheap unlocked phones.

Use those until your Orange phones are sorted out.

Getting 2 PAYG SIMs on Orange sounds like a good idea as well.

Orange will unlock your phones but will charge about £20 each to do so.

The Apple website explains what to do once Orange have processed the unlock request:-

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5014

FloFlo

Will look into getting 2 payg sims on orange. Just annoyed with myself as paying for the last bit of orange contract now, the new Tesco contract and now payg credit all at the same time.

Does anyone know how it would work if I just went back to orange? could they just cancel the port of our numbers to Tesco and have our old numbers back on orange?

Quiet_Spark

FloFlo wrote: »

Does anyone know how it would work if I just went back to orange? could they just cancel the port of our numbers to Tesco and have our old numbers back on orange?

You would have to get a PAC code from Tesco as the number transfer has already occurred.

FloFlo

Quiet_Spark wrote: »

You would have to get a PAC code from Tesco as the number transfer has already occurred.

But I assume as I am in my cooling off period they would give me one.

DUTR

FloFlo wrote: »

Will look into getting 2 payg sims on orange. Just annoyed with myself as paying for the last bit of orange contract now, the new Tesco contract and now payg credit all at the same time.

Does anyone know how it would work if I just went back to orange? could they just cancel the port of our numbers to Tesco and have our old numbers back on orange?

Well done Floflo, with the title of the thread, we get so many dropping off and wanting to blame the companies they deal with.
Anyways all is not lost, you simply need to get the iphones unlocked to use any network sim (the cost of that maybe the same as buying two cheap payg handsets) , once unlocked you can enjoy your new provider's tarrif.

macman

Is there a 14 day cooling-off period on the SIM-only contracts?

FloFlo

DUTR wrote: »

Well done Floflo, with the title of the thread, we get so many dropping off and wanting to blame the companies they deal with.
Anyways all is not lost, you simply need to get the iphones unlocked to use any network sim (the cost of that maybe the same as buying two cheap payg handsets) , once unlocked you can enjoy your new provider's tarrif.

Hubby has phoned orange they have processed out request to unlock the phones and said it should be done by 20th April. I can't wait until then without a mobile, have a relative in hospital.

Orange said that an orange payg sim will work in the iphones, if I pick up an orange sim from a shop such as Tesco are they usually combi sims?