Forum Discussion
40 days to get phone unlocked? Well, always wanted to experience small claims court
A few years ago, T-Mobile had a "5G for free" promotion. All our DDs were 5G already, but promotion just asked for any working phone to be sent in and T-Mobile would ship a 5G phone. I traded in a 4G phone we had as a backup should a DD become damaged, lost, or otherwise unusable while we shopped/waited for a deal on a replacement.
The free 5G was a Galaxy A32. Free meaning each normal 24-month regular purchase payment was offset by a matching credit from T-Mobile. Never used the A32, just powered it up now and then to get software updates.
After the final payment I attempted to unlock the A32. The procedure just gave a cryptic error code and a broken link to get more info. I called CS and after a bunch of head scratching got bumped up to a higher level of support. They just head scratched for a while until finding some fine print in internal documents saying a phone has to be in service to be unlocked AND in service status can take 40 days to register.
Needless to say, a customer is not going to throw their high-end DD in a drawer for 40 days to get their likely never to be “used” backup phone unlocked.
I'm retired and bored, so may be time to file a small claims case. Pretty sure a judge won't find 40 days to unlock a phone is reasonable and order T-Mobile to unlock OR provide a comparable unlocked phone.
Been in criminal court as an expert witness. Being a civil case plaintiff sounds interesting, even if small potatoes. LoL
so was it in service for 40 days or no? you mentioned a year ago was a promo but did you take said promo then or are you just bringing it up for content?
fireguy_6364 wrote:
so was it in service for 40 days or no? you mentioned a year ago was a promo but did you take said promo then or are you just bringing it up for content?
The answer is in the original post. I have never had it in service and never intended to.
It was a provisional backup phone in case any primary phone of a family member on my T-Mobile plan failed. And if any had failed, it would only have been in service for a few days until the primary was fixed/replaced. It would have worked fine for that.
I have 7 family members on my account, but I also have relatives who are not on T-Mobile. So, for example, if my Nephew (not on T-Mobile) breaks his phone, He should be able to use my fully paid for A32.
I could understand a 40 day period that let T-Mobile prevent some weird scam. But 2 years after the sale even that doesn't make sense.
My complaint is not waiting for 40 days. The complaint is that T-Mobile is saying I have to take my flagship daily driver and put it in a drawer for 40 days while I use a bare bones phone for 40 days. They are saying the phone can NEVER be unlocked until I do that.
Even with a prepaid plan you can get an unlock code after $100 in refills but the phone needs to show usage for 17 days after the refill.
There's always usage requirements for every carrier.
