"Unlocked" iPhone 5 won't work internationally

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Level 1

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"Unlocked" iPhone 5 won't work internationally

We had our sprint iPhone 5 unlocked for international use to give to a family member that lives overseas. We did this previously with an iphone 5c and didn't have any issue.

It took us over three weeks to get it unlocked by Sprint, but then we were assured it was good to go. We sent the phone over, and they tried activating it today, and got this error message:

"SIM Not Valid- The SIM card that you currently have installed in this iPhone is from a carrier that is not supported under the activation policy that is currently assigned by the activation server. This is not a hardware issue with the iPhone. Please insert another SIM card from a supported carrier or request that this iPhone be unlocked by your carrier. Please contact Apple for more information."

The phone has been restored multiple times. Every time it was turned on after restoring, it was on wifi and linked to an iTunes account. It was tried both with the original sim and with international sim. I called Sprint back today, and was reassured that it was, indeed, unlocked.

Any suggestions on what the problem might be or how to fix it? Thanks.

iPhone 5, iOS 8.1

Posted on May 5, 2015 10:31 AM

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Answer 1

FelipeV

Level 6

10,636 points

May 5, 2015 11:14 AM in response to uncgirl37

uncgirl37 wrote:

Any suggestions on what the problem might be or how to fix it? Thanks.

Did you restore the phone as NEW and not from backup using iTunes? Did you get the message: "Congratulations your phone is now unlocked" message on iTunes? If not then restore as explained above.

If you have then, just in case. turn off find my iphone on the phone before you restore as new. If this does not solve your problem then the phone has NOT been unlocked by Sprint, no matter what they have told you. You will need to contact them again and perhaps elevate the problem to someone higher up.

Apple does not unlock iPhones. Only the carriers do.

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