I puchased an iPhone 6 from Apple Regents Street London with an O2 pay monthly contract, about 6 months ago.
I asked the salesperson if the unit was unlocked or if locked could it be unlocked on request. I travel abroad often and like to swap my SIM card for a local one. I was assured, unlocking, if needed, would not be a problem. I have previously purchased iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 units and unlocking from O2 was routine, I obviously assumed it would be the same for the iPhone 6.
On arriving in Tel Aviv 10 days ago, it became apparent that my Israeli SIM would not work as the unit was locked to O2. I called O2 and was told they currently will only unlock iPhone 6 units if they are on a 'Refresh' contract. The website also suggest this with an ambigiuos comment:
http://www.o2.co.uk/help/phones-and-devices/unlocking-your-iphone-and-using-it-on-another-network
'We won't be unlocking iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus for a while.' A very informative phrase !
I called Apple support and they said they could not help, it was an O2 issue.
Two things I should point out:
1. There is no financial loss to O2 if they can unlock the unit for me, as a special request, as I am travelling and need that flexibility. I use the O2 Tugo app for calls to and from the UK, so the company is not making any additional revenue from roaming charges.
2. By being so inflexiable and unhelpful there would be absolutely no chance of me sticking with O2 when my contract expires in about 15 months.
Does anyone have any idea how I can deal with this, hopefully directly with O2 or Apple.
On two occasions the O2 rep on the phone said a supervisor or manager would call back and of course they did not. Considering it is a competitive market the O2 Customer Service is extremely bad.
I have been an O2 client for about 6 years, I could easily have purchased an unlocked unit from Apple and continued on my previous SIM only O2 contract, had I known this issue would surface.
