4 replies to this topic

[dianelt]

I'm not sure you deal with this kind of thing, but I have inherited an iPhone4 from my son and when I came to use it, it's blocked. They've told me to unblock it I need to put in the original sim card and phone the company (Vodaphone). As he's in the Canaries and I'm in Northern Spain this isn't possible and won't be until Christmas. Is there another legal way of doing it?

[paws]

Hi the security on iphones in this situation is tight.

Apple have no real way of knowing that you are the rightful owner, unless you follow the directions about the SIM card and phoning them and or Vodaphone

 

Maybe its best to ask your son to post the necessary SIM card to you, or for you to post the iPhone to him so he can attend to it.

 

The postal services twixt Spain and the Canaries are quite good so it should not take long.

 

Because we have no way of knowing who owns what (on an online forum) we cannot help you further other than making the suggestions above

Regards

paws

[dianelt]

Ok I imagined that would be the case. Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'll wait until we can get together because sending either by post is a risk.

[paws]

[8210GUY]

Not to contradict the very correct advice above, although we can't instruct about this, depending on where the phone came from (basically which country was it in to be locked to), you can request the unlock code direct from the SP in that country, there is no need to send phones\sim cards to each other, not unless the network needs this to be done, so as correctly stated above, your son will need to approach the SP, as he can provide any details required to qualify the networks security checks, once they are satisfied they will only need the imei number etc. (which you can easily give him from under the battery), all details about this are given by the SP.

 

Then all you need to do this is a sim card from another network, which you probably have by what you said, and a code, which will be sent with instructions how to use it once the SP is satisfied that all is well, This is a UK version of what you need to do\find on the correct country's site (expand the 1st link if this works), but depending on the SP, and the history of how the phone was got (they often vary in what and how they charge for this depending on if it was contract or PAYG etc.), also how long was using the service for, and there may well be a fee to do this as well, but it does vary depending on the SP, more so if it's within a contract period.

 

But there is a point to be made about the title of the thread, there is a massive difference between unBLOCKING, and unLOCKING a phone, although from what I have just seen I can understand the confusion, as quite a few places seem to use this term, maybe different country's have different ways (it's been a long time since I helped with mobiles) ?

 

Anyway, in the UK at least, if a phone is BLOCKED, that means it has been blacklisted due to being stolen etc., this means it is illegal to unblock it.

Unlocking on the other hand is very legal, and is done for the very kinds of reasons as you have here, although it probably will invalidate any warranty if it still has any, but I have no idea why so many places are using the term you used here when it comes to unlocking a phone