How to unlock a Sprint iPhone purchased at Best Buy

You contact Sprint. Only the carrier the phone is locked to can authorize removing the lock. Sprint tends to be the least cooperative of the major US carriers when it comes to unlocking. If you are not a current Sprint customer and the phone is not currently active on their network, they will not unlock it.

Best Buy does not and never has sold carrier unlocked iPhones, other then their refurbished iPhones. Any new iPhone bought from BestBuy will lock to the carrier when service is activated.

If you look on their web site, the only unlocked iPhones are "certified, pre-owned" ones. All new iPhones are sold for a carrier under reseller flex plans, which means the phone will lock to the carrier when service is activated, and none of their devices will work at all with a non-USA SIM until unlocked by their USA carrier. The are "universal" only in the sense that they will initially work with any USA carrier, but will lock to that carrier once service is activated.

KaeBFly wrote:

Buying from Best Buy isn't the problem as you can purchase the Verizon one from them (which is the unlocked one when purchased from them) and use it on any carrier.

That is not entirely true. It will only be 'unlocked' after it is activated on Verizon.

The source for unlocked iPhones? Apple.

In the U.S. Only Apple sells truly factory unlocked iPhones that will not lock to a carrier.

If you wanted an iPhone that could be used with any carrier and was able to be switched between carriers at will Apple is the only source for this.

An iPad is NOT an iPhone. They are treated differently as far as cellular service and carrier locks are concerned.

How would you know? Do some basic research. If the sales-droid at BestBuy told you it was unlocked, they lied.

A basic google search involving "Can I use a Sprint iPhone on a different carrier" should yield some results in less than 2 minutes time. Which would tell you all about locked and unlocked iPhones.

iPads on the other hand are not locked to a carrier, so a cellular iPad will work with a GSM sim card from any carrier.

Then I and my mother must be the exception to that Best Buy rule because our iPhones are unlocked and did not to any carrier when our sim cards were inserted. I let a friend that has AT&T borrow mine for 2 weeks while I was testing out the Google Pixel. No issues at all. Unless there is something I am missing or unless my local Best Buy happens to indeed sell unlocked iPhones. To the best of my knowledge anyway Verizon iPhones and other 4G devices are unlocked anyway but maybe I'm wrong about that. I know each iPhone i have stopped using and given away to non-Verizon customers have ever had any issues using them on their carriers.

KaeBFly wrote:

Then I and my mother must be the exception to that Best Buy rule because our iPhones are unlocked and did not to any carrier when our sim cards were inserted. I let a friend that has AT&T borrow mine for 2 weeks while I was testing out the Google Pixel. No issues at all. Unless there is something I am missing or unless my local Best Buy happens to indeed sell unlocked iPhones. To the best of my knowledge anyway Verizon iPhones and other 4G devices are unlocked anyway but maybe I'm wrong about that. I know each iPhone i have stopped using and given away to non-Verizon customers have ever had any issues using them on their carriers.

Verizon is not locking devices, so if you first activate a BestBuy new iPhone with a Verizon SIM, yes, it will be unlocked. If you use any other carriers SIM it will lock to that carrier. There are lengthy discussions about the confusion to consumers about BestBuy and the so-named US carrier reseller flex marketing policies. BestBuy seems to be deliberately obfuscating the nature of their SIM-free iphones, IMO, as the only explanations you'll find are in places like Howardforums or the BestBuy's own forums, but nothing officially on their web site.

But yes, a new iPhone purchased from BestBuy and activated with a Verizon SIM will ultimately behave differently that the same phone first used with another carrier's SIM.

Ultimately, it's a mess and one that BestBuy doesn't even acknowledge. So the best advice for people looking for a truly, globally, carrier unlocked iPhone is to buy from Apple. The price is the same, so no loss by not buying from BestBuy.

I guess I wasn't clear when I said I loaned mine to a friend. It was first activated using her SIM card because I was testing the Pixel out for review. So mine wasn't initially activated on Verizon. I paid cash up front for it so I wasn't obligated to activate it on Verizon by a certain timeframe. I don't know if my situation was a fluke but it was purchased from Best Buy for Verizon but not initially activated. When my friend found out I wasn't immediately activating it she asked if she could try it out so I let her. When I got it back I just popped my SIM card in and all worked fine.

I'm not sure how exactly Best Buy advertises theirs. I don't actually pay attention to that. I opt to purchase from them for the points...not because I think theirs are unlocked over elsewhere. But it was just something I have noticed over the last few purchases.

Either 1] iPhone is locked to a wireless provider other than the one

you are attempting to use. Solution is to contact the wireless provider

to which the iPhone is locked to see if they offer unlocking and if you

qualify

or 2] if iPhone is not locked to a particular wireless provider, either use

a supported provider or work it out with the unsupported provider you

chose. What cellular provider in what country are you attempting to use

the iPhone to connect to?

If it's locked to Sprint then Sprint would have to unlock it.

Yes. Otherwise you should have purchased either a Verizon one or the unlocked version.

Yes. Why would you buy a Sprint iPhone if you were not intending to use it with Sprint?

If you wanted an unlocked iPhone to use with any carrier, Best Buy is not the source for that.