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schubige's avatar
schubige
Roaming Rookie
Hace 2 años

The T-Mobile unlock lie

Here is my story as of 8/15/23:

 

I’m a T-Mobile prepaid customer for several years and was happy with the company so far.

I lost my phone on 7/15/23 (ouch) and bought a new Motorola razr+ from T-Mobile on 7/16/23 for $999. Since I knew that I will be abroad for several months, it was important to me that I can also use the phone with a non T-Mobile operator. Thus at the shop the salesperson and me carefully read T-Mobile's "Unlock your mobile device" page (https://www.t-mobile.com/responsibility/consumer-info/policies/sim-unlock-policy).

 

It says:

  • Si el dispositivo se activó hace menos de 365 días, la cuenta de servicio prepagado asociada al dispositivo debe haber tenido más de $100 en recargas durante ese período por cada línea activa en la cuenta.  Además, deben haber pasado más de 14 días desde que se compró el dispositivo.

I refilled my account with two payments ($100 and $20), left the US on 28/7/23 and expected to unlock my device 14 days after purchase.

 

Which didn’t work.

 

After hours with T-Mobile customer care, my understanding is that the “We're committed to providing you with clear information about unlocking your mobile device.” (cited from the aforementioned web page) is not clear enough for the team who implemented the unlocking system. As far as I can tell, unlocking is based on days activo on the network and has nothing to do with the date of comprar of the device whatsoever.

 

Hence the last sentence should read as “In addition, the device must be active for more than 14 days on the T-Mobile network” instead of “Además, more than 14 days must have passed since the device was purchased.”

 

"Purchased" vs. "activated" - why does it matter you may ask? Well, it does in my case. I'm abroad (not on the T-Mobile network) and won't return to the US for several months. I can't unlock my $999 phone and most likely must buy a second phone to use here. Needless to say that I wouldn't have bought the phone in the first place if T-Mobile would have been honest about their unlocking policy.

 

Thank you, T-Mobile for lying to me and all the time, material and money wasted.