EE/Orange Contract Phone Query

fillyaboots

Hi
At the beginning of January 2015, I renewed my 2 mobile contracts with EE. I also have a 12mth sim only added to 1 of the contracts for use by my daughter.
I was going to give my old phones (Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE i9305) to my mother and mother-in-law. But when I did I found that both were still locked to EE/Orange.
I contacted EE and they informed me, that once I changed my phone (ie renewed my contract) they could not unlock the phones, as they said they do not exist with them anymore and I would have to find an alternative method to unlock them.
Where do I go from here???

Anoneemoose

fillyaboots wrote: »

Hi
At the beginning of January 2015, I renewed my 2 mobile contracts with EE. I also have a 12mth sim only added to 1 of the contracts for use by my daughter.
I was going to give my old phones (Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE i9305) to my mother and mother-in-law. But when I did I found that both were still locked to EE/Orange.
I contacted EE and they informed me, that once I changed my phone (ie renewed my contract) they could not unlock the phones, as they said they do not exist with them anymore and I would have to find an alternative method to unlock them.
Where do I go from here???

That is completely incorrect. Have you tried calling them back and asking someone else? It sounds like you spoke to someone who had no idea what they were talking about.

macman

Buy an unlock code from a third party (i.e. eBay)?

fillyaboots

I will try and speak to EE again.
But to clear something up for me, all EE need is the IMEI and then they could unlock ???

fillyaboots

macman wrote: »

Buy an unlock code from a third party (i.e. eBay)?

I begrudge paying more money for something I've already paid for over a 24mth contract, and it would have been nice of EE to inform when I was renewing my contract. But thanks for the heads up.

Tony5101

fillyaboots wrote: »

I begrudge paying more money for something I've already paid for over a 24mth contract, and it would have been nice of EE to inform when I was renewing my contract. But thanks for the heads up.

I don't think that EE will unlock for free, pretty sure they charge for unlocking. Might be cheaper going via eBay (will almost certainly be quicker..)

robbies_gal

they do charge a standard fee for unlocking

prowla

My contract is up in April; I've paid them the £20 to unlock my phone and it's done it today.

It rankled (a bit) to pay for them to unlock something which is mine, but I've got it done in advance so I can make a choice at the end date.

(I'll probably move off Orange now that they're BT!)

fillyaboots

Well it appears that I have resolved the problem myself.
It involved downgrading the firmware on the phone, which then allowed me to access the service menu. This enabled me to then turn off the sim lock in a roundabout way.:eek:

Both phones are now unlocked and it only cost me my time:D

This will make my mum and mother-in-law very happy;)