Removing Cricket as a carrier on an unlocked iPhone for Verizon service

They said to go in settings and delete the carrier and do a factory reset

Who is "they"? Whoever "they" are, "they" gave you incorrect information, probably to get you off the call as quickly as possible.

The phone is locked to Cricket because Cricket locked it to their service. "They" are not going to be thrilled to help you unlock the phone and move to another carrier, so you may need to be firm and ask for a senior support person.

Only Cricket can remove the lock on the phone. Apple cannot do this.

When you tap Settings > General > About and scroll down to Carrier Lock......you want to see No SIM Restrictions.

Cricket has unlocked the phone when you see this.

Unlocking from a carrier is performed by the carrier. You can't remove a carrier lock. Cricket has to remove the lock and they should know that. Elevate this higher with Cricket. ONLY they can help you. We can't and Apple can't.

Muh5 wrote:

I bought a new unlocked phone, took it and got service with Cricket. Now I am trying to go with Verizon and my phone is locked through cricket. They said to go in settings and delete the carrier and do a factory reset which I did but can’t figure out how to delete cricket as a carrier. Can please someone send help my way😭

If the phone is carrier-locked to Cricket, only Cricket can remove the lock.

Let's be charitable and assume that they did. There might be a step that you need to carry out on your end to get your phone to pick up on the change that they made.

They might have wanted you to do Reset Network Settings, then to turn off your iPhone, then to turn your iPhone back on. (See: Reset iPhone settings to their defaults - Apple Support). This might clear out unwanted remnants of the carrier lock and cause the phone to pick up on its new, unlocked status.

NOTE: I do not know how Reset Network Settings affects eSIMs. I would suggest that you contact Cricket and ask whether they want you to do this, instead of just following this suggestion blindly. If they want you to carry out a reset, hopefully you can do this while you are still on the phone, and verify that it works or does not work while you still have them on the line.

NOTE: If your phone is still carrier-locked, this procedure will not remove the carrier lock. If you do this, and there is still a carrier lock, it means that the phone is still carrier-locked, and that whoever at Cricket told you otherwise, was blowing hot air.

NOTE: Doing this will affect all your network settings, not just cellular ones. Have your home Wi-Fi password handy, so that you can reconnect your phone to your home Wi-Fi network.

mdkashemAhammed wrote:

I bought a new unlocked phone, took it and got service with Cricket. Now I am trying to go with Verizon and my phone is locked through cricket. They said to go in settings and delete the carrier and do a factory reset which I did but can’t figure out how to delete cricket as a carrier. Can please someone send help my way😭

Same question = Same answer.

Only Cricket can unlock the phone. No one other than Cricket will be able to help you. Apple cannot remove the lock you have. For more information about phone locking, review this FCC page.

https://www.fcc.gov/general/cell-phone-unlocking

I bought a new unlocked phone, took it and got service with Cricket. Now I am trying to go with Verizon and my phone is locked through cricket. They said to go in settings and delete the carrier and do a factory reset which I did but can’t figure out how to delete cricket as a carrier. Can please someone send help my way😭

Deleted