Unlocking secondhand Iphone 5s

[Anonymous]

Hi, I have bought an Iphone 5s from my son who lives in the UK, he purchased it from a guy on E-Bay and was told that it was unlocked, he used Giff Gaff in the UK and the phone worked perfectly. I live in France, and have bought a french SIM to use the phone, only to be faced with the message "SIM not Valid". I tried all sorts of things to unlock the phone, such as restoring it to factory settings but nothing works. I have found out by searching with the IMEI number that the phone was purchased from the Car Phone Warehouse in October 2013 and was registered on the O2 network.

I have tried to fill out the forms on O2 website to get the phone unlocked, but they all require the original O2 phone number and the type of account, information that I do not have. I cant find anyway to contact O2 on-line to resolve this problem, can anyone offer any suggestions. I don't mind paying to unlock the phone, I just need to know how to go about it

Thanks in advance

Brian

[MI5]

You need to follow the PAYG route as listed here http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Other-Products-Services/Unlocking-an-O2-phone-to-use-a-different-SIM-ca...
However that may be difficult as you are in France.
Can you send it back to your Son in the UK to use it on PAYG or if he has an O2 contract you can do it on his account?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for that, I have tried to complete that form but without the O2 phone number I'm stuck. I could send it back to my son, but he would have the same problem.

Brian

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

No, as I said, you need to follow the PAYG route, ie you need to get an O2 PAYG sim and top it up, use it on the network and leave £15 for the unlock fee.
That's why I suggested sending it back to the UK for it to be done.

[jonsie]

It does need to be used on O2 with an O2 sim to register the IMEI. It would be expensive to do that overseas. Sending it back to the UK is your best option.