How are people on ebay and the web factory unlocking iPhones?

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Level 1

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How are people on ebay and the web factory unlocking iPhones?

Hi,

Can someone please shed some light on how people are offering factory unlock services for any iphone on eBay and on the internet? It seems to cost roughly the same through most of them (£40-50 for Orange UK).

The reason for this question is that my brother does mobile phone repairs and unlocks, he has a device that will unlock Blackberry's and other phones, although he has never been able to find out how it works with the iphone. From my understanding the iphones IMEI has to be submitted to the Apple whitelist. If this is correct, how are these 3rd party companies doing this? Do they pay for access to the list or do they know somebody on the inside? I was of the opinion that only the official carrier could perform a factory unlock, obviously im wrong!

iPhone 4S, iOS 6

Posted on Sep 27, 2012 5:02 AM

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Answer 1

imobl

Level 7

21,114 points

Sep 27, 2012 6:35 AM in response to grinty6287

Only the Carrier to which the iPhone is locked can initiate the unlock.

The people you reference are doing one of two things:

1] scam in which you never get anything for your money.

2] hacking your iPhone by installing software that makes unauthorized

changes to your iPhone which open it to malware, may prevent

future updates and legitimate unlocking, and may even render

your iPhone inoperable. There were previous reports that someone

had a found a backdoor into an unlock database and was able

to make entries unlocking iPhones; later reports said that was no

longer possible and many of the iPhones that had been unlocked

this way were now relocked to the original Carrier.

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Answer 2

grinty6287 Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 27, 2012 6:58 AM in response to imobl

That was my thoughts exactly, but how would you explain this site then? www.megara1n.com It is not installing any software on the phone and upon reading the reviews for it, it is not a scam and seems to be using the Whitelist as it does not lose the unlock when updating. This is just one example, there is a guy using the same method on ebay with over 500 sales and 100% feedback. There must be another way they are doing it. There are scammers on ebay asking for people to send their phones in to them which im sure will either be jailbroken or never returned!

I am aware of the un-authorised methods of which you speak, jailbreak, gevey sim etc and I know that these methods used above are none of these.

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Answer 3

Sep 27, 2012 6:57 AM in response to grinty6287

Nothing that really needs to be discussed here, as to we would only speculate about something that I'm sure the carriers and apple really don't support.

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Answer 4

grinty6287 Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 27, 2012 8:02 AM in response to grinty6287

Im sure that your right in saying this may not be the best place to discuss this as its a support forum, however its also the only place online where an honest and educated answer will come from (based on past experience when having mac problems) Its out of curiosity as I've just paid my carrier to unlock my 4S as its being sold (got the iPhone 5) and im wondering if its geniune what these guys are doing and if they are doing the same thing as the carriers.

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