How do I unlock my carrier locked iPhone?

Tahirnaeem wrote:

Please help to unlock. I have purchased iPhone from some one and do not have necessary information

You are likely going to find this to be a very disappointing experience. You bought a current model phone from someone, which is carrier locked. There's a really good chance, the phone still has a lot of time left on its contract with the carrier. You're not a customer of the carrier, so they have no responsibility to you and if there is money owed on the contract, YOU WILL have to pay off the contract before they would even think about removing the lock on your phone. This could be several hundreds of dollars. If I were you, I'd return the phone for refund as this isn't going to be easy at a minimum and likely WILL BE expensive to you.

Even worse, whoever you bought the phone from, could have reported the phone as stolen, so they could get out of their contract directly and the carrier could blacklist the phone, making it impossible for the phone to ever be set up with any carrier. Read this --> The All Too Common SAD Reality of Buying … - Apple Community

Buying used devices from "someone" you don't know is often fraught with issues.

Tahirnaeem wrote:

Please help to unlock. I have purchased iPhone from some one and do not have necessary information

Nobody here can unlock the phone. We can only try to help you understand the situation that you are in, or may be in.

If you "do not have the necessary information" to identify the carrier to whom the phone is locked, the phone will remain carrier-locked forever. If you can identify them, and you contact them, they might or might NOT be willing to remove the lock on terms that would make you happy. Please read the reply by lobsterghost1 – which explains this well.

Note that a used phone might also be subject to permanent device bans from SnapChat or other services who are aggressive about using device bans to keep people from evading their account bans. If this phone is banned from SnapChat or a similar service, neither we or Apple can do anything about that. Only the particular "service" which imposed the ban could lift it – if they chose to do so, which might not be very likely.

No, it’s not strange. The prior owner has legal obligation to fulfill. Apple is not interfering with another business's contract. Even if they wanted to unlock, the carrier has it locked and Apple doesn’t have a key.

You have three choices, return to seller and get information required to unlock, return to seller and get your money back and lastly fulfill the legal requirements for carrier to unlock.

Apple is not a carrier. Only a carrier can lock the phone. Only a carrier can unlock the phone.

I am sorry, but it appears that you got scammed. The phone is useless to you. In fact, the person who sold the phone to you is probably not the owner. The phone was stolen.

Tahirnaeem wrote:

It’s strange that apple manufactured the phone and not have authorization to do something with the phone.

Nothing strange about that at all. Apple doesn't lock phones and they can't unlock phones. Carriers do. So you'll have to work this through with the carrier and there is no one but the carrier who can help you.

As I mentioned above, buying a used iPhone from "someone" is risky at best. I hope Verizon does remove the lock, but they may not and that would make the phone unusable to you unless you want to use Verizon as your carrier.

Tahirnaeem wrote:

I have iPhone box as well.

That and $5 will get you a cup of coffee.

As far as getting Verizon to unlock the phone, though, the box is worthless. They are going to care about things like whether you are their customer, and whether any contract on that phone is fully paid-off.

As others have pointed out, if there is a contract on that phone that is not fully paid-off, they might refuse to tell you about it (for privacy reasons) and they also might refuse to unlock the phone (to discourage welshing on the contracts). You might be in a Catch-22 where there is no way for you to convince them to unlock it.

And they are the only ones who can.

Only the carrier that locked your iPhone has the key to unlock the encryption. Apple does not have the key.

Please contact the support team at the carrier for further assistance.

Only the carrier that locked your iPhone has the key to unlock the encryption. Apple does not have the key.

Apple cannot unlock your iPhone. Contact the person you purchased it from.

I have purchased iPhone from some one and do not have necessary information

Apple cannot unlock the phone. Return the phone for a refund. The phone will be useless to you.

Tahirnaeem wrote:

That guy not available at the time. It’s varizon locked. But they said that it will be unlock automatically after 60 days. But it’s still locked. Please help

No one can help except Verizon.

Tahirnaeem wrote:

It’s strange that apple manufactured the phone and not have authorization to do something with the phone.

Not strange at all. The original owner went to the cell provider and made a deal with them that they can have the phone at a discount or pay on a payment plan in exchange for the phone being locked to that cell provider. You were not part of that deal and Apple was not either. You will not even be able to find out the details of the original owners agreement due to privacy rules.

Imagine if a person got a phone for free from the cell provider in exchange for the requirement that they purchase the most expensive cell plan that was offered and they must pay that plan for 2 years. That person then decides to sell the phone they got for free instead of paying anything. You honestly think that should be OK and Apple should have the power to cancel an agreement with another business.

You just made a costly mistake and is the price you pay for purchasing a used device from some random seller with no way to return it. What could go wrong by doing that? Everything!

Tahirnaeem wrote:

It’s strange that apple manufactured the phone and not have authorization to do something with the phone.

Apple can do a lot with the phone such as OS or security updates etc. Your issue is with the service plan carrier. which is Verizon. Verizon, can do what they want with their service plan as can all other carriers. The plan appears to be locked to the previous owner.

Tahirnaeem wrote:

It’s strange that apple manufactured the phone and not have authorization to do something with the phone.

It's not strange in this case. It's part of the "deal" between all cell phone manufacturers and all carriers (cellular service providers). Carriers want to be able to control certain aspects of your phone, including

• Whether it is allowed to connect to their network
• On what bands it is allowed to do so – assuming there are bands the phone and network have in common
• Whether the phone is locked to their service – so they can recover their money if you sign up for one of their financing plans that buries the cost of the phone in the monthly cellular service bill

To the extent that there is anything that your phone could do, locally, that could interfere with their networks, they want the operating system of your phone to follow their rules for the use of their networks, and make it difficult or impossible for you to mess things up with tampering.

So there are certain aspects of the phone's behavior that they get to control, and that the manufacturer does not. Carrier lock being one.

At least, these days, you can buy unlocked phones. In the early days, before smartphones were common, when Nokia flip phones were all the rage, I believe that it was common for phones to be carrier-locked forever, with no hope for ever unlocking them for use with a different carrier.

Tahirnaeem wrote:

That guy not available at the time. It’s varizon locked. But they said that it will be unlock automatically after 60 days. But it’s still locked. Please help

I suspect they just told you that to get you off the phone. I have seen very little success in a person getting a phone unlocked when they are not a current customer of the cell provider. They do not give you any information about the others person's account that locked the phone, or even if the obligations have been met to unlock it.

Tahirnaeem wrote:

I have iPhone box as well.

That's nice, but the box means nothing. I'm sorry you've made a poor buying choice, but there is NOTHING anyone here can do for you. We've give you your options. Choose the one which works best for you.