Virgin locked an unlocked phone!

woolythoughts

iphone do not lock if you buy them from Apple. I always buy mine direct from apple and can put any SIM in them. By direct I mean apple, john lewis or some other store.

If you buy an iphone from car phone warehouse or any other mobile phone company then they lock to the first SIM that is put in them. But once unlocked, they don't lock again.

Jon_01

As others have said, once officially unlocked an iPhone wouldn't lock again.

The questions is, was it unlocked through the network it was bought on, or through an iffy third party?

jnm21

Far from correct - they can lock a phone to a network (e.g. EE & should work on Virgin), a sub network (e.g. Virgin - would not work on EE), a range of SIMs or even a specific SIM.

This link even suggests a 5th type:

https://www.simplyunlocked.co.uk/unlocking-guides/general-lg-unlocking-instructions/

Anthorn

gk172 wrote: »

Hi there I’ve been round in circles for days now so asking here for advise please? I bought an iPhone se from 02 and used it for a couple of years on 02, got it unlocked to use on holiday and also used a 3 sim in then decided to go to virgin, stayed with them a year as they wouldnt cap the contract so cancelled and now going back to o2 but the o2 sim doesn’t work as the phone is now according to o2 locked to virgin! I called o2 who say they can’t unlock a virgin lock and virgin can’t unlock an o2 phone even though it’s a virgin lock that’s on!

So any idea what I can do or am I left with a phone that will only work on Virgin?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Been a while since I've seen this old dinosaur posted. The problem was fixed by Apple some time ago for newer iPhones but it might be prevalent on older iPhones. Basically, contact the provider for an unlock code. The problem you might encounter is that the provider might refuse to provide an unlock code if you have a contract even though they didn't provide the iPhone.
https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iphone/unlock-iphone-3501427/