Tesco Mobile Locking 'Sim Free' Phones on sim insert

d123

phoneguy wrote: »

I thought I had bought it from John Lewis, but I went back through my bank statements and found it. I bought it, and an ipad at the same time. I remember it now being out of stock with JL.

Agree with you about Carphone Warehouse. My son had that very problem.

What's confusing me is it's had a number of sims in it from various networks - and it was only when a Tesco mobile sim went in, it became locked - apparently.

I've put in a request to Tesco to get some feedback.

Thanks to everyone for their comments and help. Really appreciated.

99p would confirm the lock status (and if locked, to who), which would be a quicker way to confirm the issue. I doubt Tesco will be able to give you any definitive answer on your specific handset.

phoneguy

We resolved it. It's an Appleism with certain networks being able to 'latch' the phone to their sim. In this case Tesco Mobile. The act of putting their sim in for a few minutes caused all the hassle. It has now been unlatched. Interestingly, putting a GIFFGAFF sim in it afterwards also latched it to GIFFGAFF. They, too, released it when asked, but it took a day.

Don't know if this is something recent, because I've never had it happen before. Perhaps part of an update?

It reminds me now why I dumped the iPhone in favour of Android. Horrible experience. Always trying to dip your pocket and crush productivity. With their new update disabling the phone if a third party replaces a screen I feel I made the right choice.

Thanks to all for the help - really appreciated.

d123

phoneguy wrote: »

We resolved it. It's an Appleism with certain networks being able to 'latch' the phone to their sim. In this case Tesco Mobile. The act of putting their sim in for a few minutes caused all the hassle. It has now been unlatched. Interestingly, putting a GIFFGAFF sim in it afterwards also latched it to GIFFGAFF. They, too, released it when asked, but it took a day.

Don't know if this is something recent, because I've never had it happen before. Perhaps part of an update?

It reminds me now why I dumped the iPhone in favour of Android. Horrible experience. Always trying to dip your pocket and crush productivity. With their new update disabling the phone if a third party replaces a screen I feel I made the right choice.

Thanks to all for the help - really appreciated.

It doesn't sound like you had a factory unlocked phone, possibly your first guess at having bought from JL was right all along as when JL first started selling iPhones they had the same "locks to first sim" stock that CPW sold iirc.

Fortunately both retailers now sell properly unlocked iPhones (if bought full price in the case of CPW).