Vodafone blacklisted my IMEI... but I'm an o2 customer

[Anonymous]

To cut a long story short... Vodafone have blacklisted my IMEI, even though I am not a customer of theirs. I have been with o2 since 2002 and have never had anything to do with Vodafone.

My phone is a Galaxy S5 which I have since December 2014 when I took the current contract out through Carphone Warehouse.

Both o2 and Samsung have confirmed that Vodafone blocked the IMEI, and Samsung showed me confirmation on their system. Vodafone say they couldn't have blocked my phone as I don't have an account with them. o2 say they can't unlock it as it wasn't them that blacklisted it. Vodafone say they can't unlock it as I don't have an account with them. I am stuck in the middle and neither company will help me.

I still have 6 months left on my contract and am trapped paying for a phone I can't use. It appears to me that Vodafone have tried to block one of their customer's phones which was stolen, however they have got the IMEI wrong and blocked mine instead.

Does anyone have any ideas? Both companies are supposed to be looking into, but neither seem very confident of resolving the matter, since apparently this happens incredibly rarely.

[Anonymous]

This has just got even stranger. So O2 are telling me Vodafone put an IMEI block on it, yet Vodafone say they haven't. Vodafone even showed me on their system that it is not blocked. But it turns out the device IS now locked to Vodafone. They put a Vodafone SIM in in-store and it worked, which wouldn't be the case if the IMEI was barred. So my next question is, is it possible for Vodafone to remotely lock a phone to their network, even if I don't have a Vodafone SIM in? Both O2 and Vodafone seem totally puzzled by this. The kicker is that the exact day my phone started playing up, there was an O2 mast repair in my area, which seemed to occur at the same time as this phantom lock going on. It's all very twilight zone.

[MI5]

How very strange but surely voda can unlock it for you now?

[jonsie]

I doubt the mast has anything to do with the lock, just coincidence I think. But yes, surely the simplest solution is to ask Vodafone to unlock it...

[Anonymous]

I could, but Vodafone would charge £20 for the privilege of unlocking my own phone, and apparently it also voids the warranty. So the phone is going back, as I have only had it a week. But somebody somewhere is telling lies. Not sure if it's O2 or Vodafone.

[MI5]

No it doesn’t void the warranty at all and it should be done free if their error.

[Anonymous]

OK. Well that's not what Vodafone told me  The issue is, nobody seems to know why or how the device got into this state, so the advice from Vodafone was to just send the device back to where I'd purchased it, as it's well within 30 days of purchase, and doesn't appear to be SIM free after all.

[MI5]

In your case you will probably be ok but what would happen if you were outside of the 30 days?

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure? It is all a bit confusing / worrying