Trade-in rejected - PSA

I learned something today that I thought might help others.…

A couple months back, my two daughters traded their phones in for iPhone 13's. We did this order online. They each mailed their phones in as directed. One was good, the other was rejected. It took about 2 hours on the phone, but the rep ended up giving me the trade-in rebate. I mean...at that point the phone is gone. Seems a little helpless, but it worked out.

Fast forward to the iPhone 14… I ordered 2 phones on the first day and they came today. I setup the new phones and decided to take them in to the store instead of mailing them (it has to be a REAL t-mobile store). She told me the devices doesn't match and I couldn't do the trade-in. 

Something didn't add up and I refused to just walk out. So here's the deal.…

The phone I was trading in was an iPhone 12 Pro Max. This phone supports 2 SIM's. The physical SIM card is labeled IMEI and the eSIM is IMEI2. Here's the key - my t-mobile service was using the eSIM on this phone…..so the number that registered with the t-mobile network was IMEI2. However, the rep at the store (and they do the same thing when you mail in the phones) is just checking the IMEI. So it's true...t-mobile had the IMEI2 store on their network and the rep was checking the other value - no match.

Thinking back, it makes sense with what happened on the iPhone 13's. One daughter was using a physical SIM and her phone trade-in didn't have any issues. The phone that was using the eSIM is the one that was rejected.

T-Mobile needs to train their staff to check both IMEI numbers from the phone! They will continue to reject trade-in's for this reason. These folks were clueless...to them, it simply didn't match so they were like 'please leave our store'. I had to figure this out on my own. 

Part of the reason this is hard for them is because when you bring the phone in, it should be reset. When you have a factory reset phone, you can hit the information button on the screen when you first power it on and it will tell you some basic information about the one. One of the details is the IMEI. BUT…..it only list the one IMEI, not both. This is what they are using to validate your trade-in. In order to see the other IMEI you have to go through the setup and get to the iPhone Settings → General → About. This is where you see both IMEI numbers.