iPhone IMEI question

[space-time]

I bought one of those iPhone SE (ATT Prepaid) from Best Buy. I finally took SIM card from my wife's iPhone (ATT prepaid) and put in this new phone, then restored from her backup, and everything looks and works great.


That was about 2 days ago. now I want to see how l need to wait to unlock the phone, and I get this message from ATT (yes, IMEI is correct)

Looks like the IMEI number you entered doesn’t match an AT&T device. Try entering it again. Dial *#06# on your mobile phone to make sure you have the right IMEI.

Any ideas why ATT does not know this IMEI?

[OWC Jamie]

maybe just too soon for a database update

you could probably take your receipt to an AT&T store and see if someone there is willing to try to update the system but I'd just wait a couple days myself, especially considering my local AT&T store's capacity for FUBARing even the simplest of requests.

[space-time]

yeah, I can wait for a week or two and try again.

[GGD]

space-time wrote:
I bought one of those iPhone SE (ATT Prepaid) from Best Buy. I finally took SIM card from my wife's iPhone (ATT prepaid) and put in this new phone, then restored from her backup, and everything looks and works great.


That was about 2 days ago. now I want to see how l need to wait to unlock the phone, and I get this message from ATT (yes, IMEI is correct)

Looks like the IMEI number you entered doesn’t match an AT&T device. Try entering it again. Dial *#06# on your mobile phone to make sure you have the right IMEI.

Any ideas why ATT does not know this IMEI?

I bought two of those iPhone SEs at the same time, tried the AT&T unlock portal for both. One told me to wait 6 months, and the other phone got the same message as yours.

My only guess was that as far as AT&T was concerned, the phone was unlocked (not an AT&T phone), but I don't have another carrier's SIM to test out that theory.

If you lookup the Apple model number on the box of those phones, it's actually the model number for an unlocked phone, so I don't really know how they get locked. I never used the prepaid SIM that came with either phone.

[space-time]

Interesting. I do have a T-Mobile SIM . I tried that first, but I got a no signal, which I guess the phone was locked to ATT, but maybe really T-Mobile signal was weak (it sometimes is), or maybe it didn't wait long enough.

I will test a T-Mobile SIM again.

[bobinmurphy]

Last time I did this what I discovered is that with a pre-paid phone you have to be a customer in good standing for six months before they have to unlock the phone on your request. For a post-paid customer in good standing there's a 40 day waiting period before they have to unlock the phone upon request. I think this is a legal requirement that all phone companies are bound to honor.

I actually bought an Android phone on a post-paid T-Mobile plan and used it for two months then had it unlocked. Then I moved to a T-Mobile pre-paid plan with the phone where I used it for about a year. After than I plugged in an AT&T SIM and it worked just fine.

[sekker]

You need to send an email to AT&T to remove this restriction. Check PM courtesy from Bo.

[space-time]

sekker wrote:
You need to send an email to AT&T to remove this restriction. Check PM courtesy from Bo.

Thanks for the PM. But there is NO restriction, the phone works just fine

[sekker]

space-time wrote:
[quote=sekker]
You need to send an email to AT&T to remove this restriction. Check PM courtesy from Bo.

Thanks for the PM. But there is NO restriction, the phone works just fine
Sorry - when I purchased ours, we were told we had to wait 6 months before AT&T would unlock.

[GGD]

sekker wrote:
You need to send an email to AT&T to remove this restriction. Check PM courtesy from Bo.

What restriction would they remove? They're saying that they don't know anything about the phone. It's not like they're saying that it's locked and you need to wait, they're saying that the IMEI isn't in their database of locked AT&T phones.

In any case I'm curious to see what the resolution is, since I have a phone that gets the same message.