Is it possible to unlock your phone from the service carrier by backing up and resetting your phone

No. You must ask the carrier the phone is locked to about unlocking it. See this, How to unlock your iPhone for use with a different carrier - Apple Support Only the carrier that has the lock on it can unlock it.

Never "assume". As the saying goes you make something-bad out of "u" and "me". The old carrier should have told you about the 60-day wait and you should have asked for a complete timeline of how it transfers, including any required hardware payoff and 60-day wait.

In the future for your next phone, go to Apple Store and pay full price for a phone Apple tells you is fully-unlocked. That phone should work with any carrier and changing carrier can be done by simply getting a new SIM.

I asked many questions of TMobile to be sure my paid-off phone is fully mine and my only tie to them is the phone-signal.

WGray6769 wrote:

Amazon so there were no carrier attachments

Amazon is not a iPhone reseller with access to new, unlocked iPhones. They do work with Cricket to sell new Cricket locked iPhones where Amazon is the seller. There are a ton of Marketplace sellers of used iPhones. And then there's used Amazon's "Renewed" devices, which could be anything from devices that Apple sold unlocked or that were unlocked by a carrier. But they could have non-Apple repair parts. They also seem to have different standards for battery health, where their "Renewed Premium" category is supposed to have at least 90% battery health, although they don't seem to guarantee that it's an OEM battery, front screen assembly, or camera. Those might be a little bit tricky as they're going to result in little nagging messages all the time.

But the quality of used devices varies a lot, and that sounds like what you've got. Most aren't sold completely OEM because the cost of real OEM repair is probably more than they can sell them for.

The carrier locks the phone by IMEI, not by software. If you financed it through them (24 monthly payments) they own it and will not unlock it unless you meet their terms. Only a FULLY unlocked phone (either purchased unlocked from Apple Store or carrier has released the hardware) can be attached to any service you choose.

What's the carrier? Sounds like it could be Verizon. It's my understanding that Verizon automatically unlocks their cellular devices 60 days after activation as long as the account is in good standing. I hear that some people buy their phones (full price) without a contract and I supposed they can be activated and then automatically unlock.

Other carriers don't unlock except upon request through a website for the most part.

However, I'm not aware of anything where resetting unlocks the phone. That's all under the control of the carrier regardless of what's done with the device.

Amazon cannot and does not sell new unlocked iPhones. You can only get new unlocked iPhones directly from Apple.

Just from a brief search for “unlocked iPhone” on Amazon, I definitely would not trust any of them.

Walmart does not sell fully unlocked new iPhones, but they don't bring much attention to the details. The "unlocked" iPhones they sell are under the U.S. Reseller Flex Policy. They are not locked when purchased, but will lock to the first carrier that they are activated on. At that point, only that carrier can unlock it.

Where did you purchase these phones from. If you purchased from a carrier, then the phone is going to be locked with that carrier. The only place to purchase an unlocked phone is from Apple.