iPhone 13 Pro locked to LYCA (Us Reseller Flex Policy | US Sprint /T-Mobile Locked Policy)

While Lyca is owned by T-Mobile, their lock is not a T-Mobile lock, it is a Lyca lock. Your phone has a T-Mobile lock. Someone who used the phone on Lyca would have a Lyca lock.

You clearly bought a used phone, so contact the seller and ask them to request that T-Mobile unlock it. If they won’t return it for a refund.

Here is T-Mobile’s unlock policy→https://www.t-mobile.com/responsibility/consumer-info/policies/sim-unlock-policy

But you can call them and ask if they will unlock the used iPhone that you purchased.

Contact the carrier it is locked to.

only they can unlock it.

Yes, contact the carrier it is locked to and ask about their unlocking policy. T-Mobile will unlock any phone that has been used on their network and is paid off, and it has clearly been used on their network.

It’s not exactly the same, as Lyca is an MVNO, and your phone is not locked to Lyca (who would be less willing to unlock it than T-Mobile)

Well, it wasn’t brand new if it came initially with a US Reseller Flex Policy and is now locked to a carrier. I assume it was purchased from Target in the US; if it was purchased in the UK it would have had a UK Reseller Flex Policy, but, as Target does not have stores in the UK that is not a possibility.

The way a US reseller flex policy works is the phone will work with any US carrier, but will lock to the first carrier it is used with, and that carrier appears to be T-Mobile, not Lyca (who gets a failing grade from the US Better Business Bureau, BTW, because they don’t respond to customer problems). The fact that Lyca in the US uses the T-Mobile network is irrelevant they would still be the carrier of record, not the network they resell.

If you go to Settings/General/About what does it say for Carrier Lock?

I don’t know where you saw US Flex Policy, but Apple doesn’t ever list that; it must have been a 3rd party site, and they are notoriously wrong most of the time, and crooked in the bargain.