Samsung S3 won't unlock - help needed

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I have the following problem:

I got a new phone over christmas and wanted to get rid of my old Samsung S3 so I sold it on ebay. My friends said unlocking is easy-peasy and I should leave it to whoever buys it. So I did, selling it (clearly labeled and in mint condition) as not unlocked.

Now the person who bought it says they went and have someone unlock it, but they said "it could not be unlocked".

I talked with o2 support and they asked for the imei. She provided two, one from the display (which was wrong) and one from the actual device. The second one produced a viable code, but now the buyer says the code prompt does not even come up, despite putting in both an o2 and a different network sim as advised.

Could any of you more tech-savvy people here tell me

a) why the display IMEI and physical IMEI would be different

b) why the code prompt does not come up and how to make it come up?

c) whether any of these problems exist because of the unlocking person that the buyer might have used?

Thanks a lot in advance,

-F

[MI5]

If it's been buggered about with by some Market Stall butcher anything could have happened.
If they had followed the correct procedure they wouldn't have this problem but as it's not your problem I wouldn't worry about.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

As long as you decscribed the phone as locked to o2 in your product description then your fine on that part.

The person could get a o2 payg sim card and top up £20. Make a few chargeable calls and then o2 woud take £15 fee to unlock it if they fiiiled out the unlock form.

The imei should match. If its not then the phone could have been cloned.

[Anonymous]

You sold it as locked that's what it is nothing wrong with that

[Anonymous]

Hi guys,

thanks for the replies, but currently I'm set to try and fix this for the buyer, rather than just going: "not my problem". I wouldn't want that to happen to me, after all.

What would it mean if the phone had been cloned, exactly? I wiped it, are they any further implications I would need to worry about?

Also any answers to fixing the problem with the code input would be great, as I still want to help them. They tried a pay as you go o2 card, but they can't get past the lock screen, so that won't help.

Cheers,

F

[Anonymous]

The buyer does have an amount of time to return the item to you even if it was described correctly on e bay.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html

O2 would supply the unlocking solution after the owner filled out the unlock form.

On p=inputting the non o2 sim card it would prompt for the code.

[MI5]

If it was a straight request for an unlock, that would be easy. Your problem is that you don't know what has been done to it since you let it go. The fact that there is an IMEI issue rings alarm bells as it may not even be the same phone you posted out. The buyer could be trying to con you with a dodgy phone they obtained elsewhere - I'd be walking away from it before you get stuffed up.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt for now. If the unlock prompt does not appear, is there any way to make it appear so she can at least try the o2  code before I think about other approaches?

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Have you filled in the unlock form using the correct IMEI?

[Anonymous]

Yep, and got back a code. But the buyer cannot enter the code as it does not come up for a prompt even with putting in other sim cards.