IMEI number blacklisted by another company as "revenge"?

Unfortunately I fell foul to these guys too, having fallen for their great reviews and glossy website claims. As I am a member of the consumeractiongroup.co.uk I posted the details to fellow members there - the more who know the better to avoid these leeches. I am approaching bank for chargeback - having read gurjeetpandher post above (and his link to his experience) I have also reported them to the Trading Standards team and have wrote to the BBC watchdog team too.

Hie I'm Italian and i have one similar experience: THIS "BAD" OFFICIALIPHONEUNLOCK.CO.UK:

THEY SHOW YOU ONE LITTLE PRICE FOR UNLOCK BUT AT THE END IS VERY EXPANSIVE AND ALSO IF YOU CANCELLING CONTRACT IN LEY TERMS......THEY DON'T REFOUND !!!!

Please keep MANY MANY MANY ATTENTION at the offers that they show you.
DONT DO ANY ORDER BEFORE KNOW THE FINAL PRICE !!!!

My experience for unlock one iphone 4 with 3 years old and ok active:
They show that the cost is more cheaper of the web so i have do one order and the price was " from" £ 19,99 - REMEMBER THIS IS ONLY FOR GIVE YOU ONE SWEET PILL.....................

THEN 2 DAYS THEY WRITE MY THAT IF I WILL UNLOCK THIS 3 YEARS OLD IPHONE 4 LOCKED BY ORANGE I MUST PAY £ 99
---------------------------------------------------------
I HAVE DONE THE ORDER DAY 2 OF JUNE AND I WRITE THEM ONE LETTER
TODAY 06 OF JUNE FOR cancelling a contract for services made by distance sale(UK Regulations 2000, see Buying by internet, mail or phone.)

Write from: C. DE Sxxxxx via xxxxxxx 12/c 3xxxx0 xxxxxxxx
subject: cancelling a contract for services made by distance sale(x.OfficialiPhoneUnlock - Order: 2133510

To company Address: NOT REACH BY INTERNET
6 June 2014 Ref: OfficialiPhoneUnlock - Order: 2133510

Dear .OfficialiPhoneUnlock - Order: 2133510, Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 I recently entered into a contract to buy the following service: unlock one iphone4. Under the above regulations, I would like to cancel the contract. Please return the amount of £ 19,99 which I have paid in advance within 30 days. Yours sincerely, Cxxxxxxx DSxxxxx
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
THIS IS THAT THEY ANSWER MY:
"All our unlocks are guaranteed to work, or your money back. No quibbles, no questions, no hassle." The money back guarantee only applies to unlocks, and only then if it doesn't work. A pre-order is not an unlock. You are paying to be placed on a mailing list to be informed when the unlock is available - there are costs associated with this which we cannot recoup, as well as administration costs in acquiring you as a customer. You have received the service you have paid for. As part of the service, and as a goodwill gesture - you also receive a FULL discount from the cost of the unlock equal to the £19.99 you have paid - this does not mean that you can ask for the £19.99 back if you decide not to go ahead and purchase unfortunately. As a goodwill gesture and as a one-off, if you wish to transfer your purchase to a different handset at a later date then we can do that for you. Or you can of course wait until the network charges are lowered in the coming weeks
----------------------------------------------------------------------

DON'T PLACE ORDERS IF YOU DON'T ACCEPT THEM CONDITIONS
THEY DON'T REFOUND !!!!

Unfortunately, that and similar sites are all scams. There is no legitimate way that any site can unlock your phone. Only the carrier it is locked to can unlock it safely and priced reasonably, if they will.

Congrats jotei66. Glad that the matter was resolved. For anyone else coming across this thread, it is a fact that these companies CANNOT block your phone. In case you have fallen prey to one of these websites then ask for a refund and let them know that you won't mind going to various consumer forums as well to highlight their scam and incase they still don't refund then oone can always go for the chargebck option. The kind of funny emails that these websites are enough to prove how legitimate these websites are.

@cladesmion

If you have paid using your credit card then contact your credit card provider and ask them to chargeback this particular transaction. Another thing you can do is mail the website that either they issue a refund or you'll take up the case in various consumer forums and also with the credit card company. This should do the trick i suppose.

------------------------------------------

I was duped too. I contacted the Advertising Standards Authority and they are investigating. You should contact them too, the more that will contact them and lodge a complaint, the quicker they can be shut down. Trading Standards refused to investigate & told me to After months of them ignoring my case requests for an update, i told them i had contacted my bank to reverse the charges and they then imediately refunded me with a warning:

Sorry you have made a fraudulent claim with your card provider , we shall now proceed with issuing an activation lock for the IMEI xxxxxxxxxx

My only good news is that after 3 complaints to EE they are finally going to unlock the iPhone. its just taken 6 months to get through to someone at EE that hasn't lied to me and seems to know what they are talking about.

I've learned to always buy an unlocked iPhone and never to use EE/Orange/T-Mobile.

The same thing happend to me. officialiphoneunlock UK said they could unlock my phone for £50. I paid the money and waited and they came back with 'sorry your phone has come back marked blocked' but GOOD NEWS for an additional £25 we can do it. It won't be unlocked to your carrier but it will be able to used outside if the USA. As I was going to the UK for three weeks I went ahead and paid the additional money. They still couldn't do it, so I initiated a chargeback through paypal. I then got the same Email you got stating that they would take me to court and blacklist my phone. I was a bit worried but after reading some of these replies looks like the only people who can blacklist my phone is my carrier.

I have used this company before but my iphone was not in contract and they were able to do it for me. I am only 7 months into my new contract with my iphone 5. Don't think I will use them again though. So much for their money back gaurantee.

Just an update, my credit card is apparently siding with the merchant due to there terms and conditions, so I am still trying to get my money back. I threatened them with legal action, reported to them to Interpol, BBC Watchdog, and the Advertising Standards Authority. Maybe with a little bit of luck, I'll have some results.

have you told Official iPhoneunlock.co.uk you will have your credit card reverse the payment? That worked for me instantly even though Amex mentioned months ago they wouldn't bother reclaiming the payment.

It looks like all my vigilance paid off. I just noticed that I had a complete refund credited back to my credit card. The only thing I lost was $8.00 CAD or so due to the exchange rate. What's even more odd, there still has no response from OfficaliPhoneUnlock at all and it's been 3 days or so. Not sure what initiated it as I contacted a lot of difference places including Interpol, BBC Watchdog, and the Advertising Standards Authority, and Dalpay. I just hope this is the end of it. Just letting everybody know there is hope. I can't guarantee everyone success, but there is hope.

FYI, the following was posted by the business on Complaints.com by the actual business.

http://www.complaints.com/2013-04-19...013150767.html

Official iPhone Unlock Ltd - Official iPhone Unlock Ltd did not refund upon iPhone unlock failer

--- QUOTE ---

James S., 2014-09-09, 10:46AM CDT

Just read this alarming thread. If any of you have difficulty obtaining a refund, simply email me directly (James, Managing Director) at bulk@officialiphoneunlock.co.uk stating your case and I'll see to it that a refund is immediately actioned. With a very large number of clients and largely relying on staff to refund where applicable, it's inevitable one or two slip through the net.

Also if you have any other issues, you can write to me there also.

bulk AT officialiphoneunlock.co.uk

--- END QUOTE ---

This is a similar case like yours and the user mentions that his phone is working fine and is still locked to his carrier.

Hope this solves your query 🙂

Want my advice?? You've been having a LOT of trouble with your phone's battery. Go get it swapped out while you're under warranty.

Problem solved.

No, I haven't. Think I should?

I did that and it's been more than 24 hours no response, I've already reported to them to anyplace I could think of. Hopefully, I'll get some results, but I think I'm out of luck.