Refurbished iPhone 13 carrier unlock issue

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Level 1

6 points

Refurbished iPhone 13 carrier unlock issue

Purchased a refurbished iPhone 13 through Amazon Refurbished and it arrived yesterday. It was supposedly carrier unlocked according to the description but evidently it isn’t and it won’t even show who the prior carrier was for me to contact. I am hoping someone may know how to figure this out so I don’t have to go through the whole return mess and wait an additional week on a replacement as my iPhone 11 has virtually zero viability left on the screen. It seems everything I’ve read from the Apple Support site has basically sent me in circles resolving nothing, but it has been educating me on other topic areas for sure.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 13, iOS 18

Posted on Nov 5, 2024 8:01 AM

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Answer 1

varjak paw

Level 10

182,910 points

Nov 5, 2024 8:15 AM in response to kelleydawn85

I concur with Katana-San; send it back right away. There's nothing you can do to get it unlocked.

This is one of the risks when buying a used iPhone. There's no way to know for sure what a vendor's "refurbishment" process actually does, if they do anything at all other than box it up, and so no way to be sure you'll get a phone that's actually usable. Best by far only to buy a phone that you can inspect in person, or buy only from Apple (who have their own quite reliable refurbished product program).

Regards.

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Answer 2

Bob Timmons

Level 10

189,484 points

Nov 5, 2024 8:20 AM in response to kelleydawn85

Well, even if you knew which carrier the phone was locked to, the carrier would not unlock the phone because you are not the person that was associated with the account. It is also possible that the carrier "blacklisted" the phone, meaning that it will never work.

Amazon messed up. It's unfortunate that you must suffer the consequences.

Sorry, but no shortcuts here. You will have to return the phone and hope that Amazon sends a real unlocked phone to you.

My opinion......there is about a 50% chance that you will receive another locked phone, so you may want to think twice about working with Amazon.

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