iPhone 4S "factory unlocked" by cell phone repair store

**masazo** · 06-03-2012, 03:06 AM

So, A guy comes into the Cell Phone Repair shop and tells us he can "factory unlock" iphone 4's for $40 bucks... So, we give him my Bosses iPhone 4s that he uses a gevey turbo sim on to obtain the unlock feature with T-mobile. Guy comes back 30 minutes later with the iPhone claiming he has "Factory unlocked" it. First thing we do is put a T-mobile simcard in it and of course it works..... So, next we do an update to the latest firmware.... Once completed we put the T-mobile simcard in and still works.... No jailbreak, no gevey sim. We of course are baffled by this.... So we tear the thing apart to check and see if he has done anything to the motherboard..... Nothing, check our IMEI to make sure he hasn't swapped our iPhone(not that it would make sense to swap "Factory unlocked" iPhones for locked ones).

Can not figure out how in the world this guy has pulled this off...... Any ideas?

**daleraver** · 06-03-2012, 06:23 AM

So, you gave a stranger a phone worth $500+ and let him walk out with it? Then you updated it, risking a loss of the unlock or possibly the use of the Gevey?

Sounds VERY unlikely.

Give us his name and contact info.

BTW, it's ENTITLED, not "intitled" in you sig line.

**masazo** · 06-03-2012, 11:36 AM

Didn't feel the need to give a complete back story on how we know the guy... but he has his own cell phone repair store in PDX and from time to time we do trades in repairs.

Last night we did a restore on it to see the "Congratulations, your iPhone is unlocked" message that I guess you should see if you do a restore with a factory unlocked iPhone, but no message.

As for my sig line.... it's been the same for 9 years and I'm well aware of the mis spelling...... it's a play on the quote..... once again don't really think a back story is needed for what I put in my sig line.

**Supa_Fly** · 06-03-2012, 11:54 AM

He probably used the most recent Gevey chip that supports 5.1.1.

Try upgrading the OS tween the update is released and see if it's still unlocked. Oh and fully powercycle it too after update before switching the sim.

**daleraver** · 06-03-2012, 05:23 PM

Originally Posted by masazo

Didn't feel the need to give a complete back story on how we know the guy... but he has his own cell phone repair store in PDX and from time to time we do trades in repairs.

Last night we did a restore on it to see the "Congratulations, your iPhone is unlocked" message that I guess you should see if you do a restore with a factory unlocked iPhone, but no message.

As for my sig line.... it's been the same for 9 years and I'm well aware of the mis spelling...... it's a play on the quote..... once again don't really think a back story is needed for what I put in my sig line.

Well, that's great.

Just so happens that I am in PDX right now.

What's his name and what is his business name? I know a few locals here.

Vancouver is just across the river, but I didn't see a business listed in the Yellow Pages for "Cell Phone Repair Shop", what's the business name?

**eastercat** · 06-04-2012, 11:04 PM

Not a factory unlock. Only apple can perform it by adding the imei to their whitelist. That takes a couple of days.
Companies like at&t can authorize an unlock by sending the information to apple. Otherwise, someone has to have a friend who works at apple and can add to the whitelist.

**masazo** · 06-05-2012, 12:40 AM

Originally Posted by eastercat

Not a factory unlock. Only apple can perform it by adding the imei to their whitelist. That takes a couple of days.
Companies like at&t can authorize an unlock by sending the information to apple. Otherwise, someone has to have a friend who works at apple and can add to the whitelist.

See that's where we are confused..... We do plenty of iPhone unlocks and the repair shop has been IN PDX for 10 plus years so my boss has many connections but none that can whitelist iphones. This Guy tells us that he only needs the imei number to be able to unlock any iPhone in 30 minutes. All I know is he has unlocked my boss's iPhone and we were able to update it to the most current firmware and it accepts a T-mobile sim. Working on getting my boss to do another iPhone through this guy.

Update: Guess my boss did another one today his step by step of what he did," I can confirm he does it by code because he only needs the IMEI. After he gets it and it is ok he tells me to connect to iTunes with a mobile sim... The first connect iTunes gives an error. I then unplug it and plug it back in.... about 20 secs later it's unlocked". I'll be honest I have not gotten to see this part happen.... I'm waiting to get into the shop to watch it happen.... Maybe I will record a video.

****** Look I don't need anyone trolling my thread or being counter productive...... At the moment we don't feel comfortable giving out our shops name or the name of the shop that this guy works at until we have a better understanding of how this is being done. If you don't like that then don't post or reply because I will just ignore your post.

**daleraver** · 06-05-2012, 09:33 AM

So, you think I'm the troll in this thread?

You come here to tell us about this "Secret Squirrel" dude, but give us no concrete info.

If all he needs is the IMEI, why did he take your boss' phone for a half hour in the first place?

I will be here in Portland all summer long, I can't wait until you divulge your sources. My best guess is that you will "Discover" this is a false alarm, so why give the details of who, where and how.

I wonder why this guy is only dealing with your buddies' shop?

Inquiring minds want to know.

It's convenient to ignore those who ask questions if you don't have a good answer. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'...

**masazo** · 06-05-2012, 11:54 AM

Have no concrete info to give because I don't know how it is done other then what I have described.

Only reason I can think he took the phone in the begining was to maybe build vaule in his service, but now we only need to give him the IMEI number, but we are still keeping the phone til we can verify that the "unlock" is complete.

I am sure that this guy is dealing with more then just our shop. I was asked to try and figure out how it is being done which is why I posted here after not finding anything online other then sites saying that the could unlock iPhones through IMEI over the web but for cost of $150 or more.

**bigdaddyaaron** · 06-05-2012, 06:54 PM

Originally Posted by daleraver

So, you think I'm the troll in this thread?

You come here to tell us about this "Secret Squirrel" dude, but give us no concrete info.

If all he needs is the IMEI, why did he take your boss' phone for a half hour in the first place?

I will be here in Portland all summer long, I can't wait until you divulge your sources. My best guess is that you will "Discover" this is a false alarm, so why give the details of who, where and how.

I wonder why this guy is only dealing with your buddies' shop?

Inquiring minds want to know.

It's convenient to ignore those who ask questions if you don't have a good answer. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'...

Why are you giving this guy such a hard time?? Did he bully you in high school or something? You asked for more information and he told you the information he is able to tell and why. Even if he didn't have a full understanding of what happened the least you could do is help and correct, not demean and accuse. At this point you are obviously not contributing anything helpful to this matter. That being said...
I have also seen ads on Craigslist from local businesses that claim the same service and am interested on how they are able to achieve this.

**daleraver** · 06-05-2012, 08:13 PM

Originally Posted by bigdaddyaaron

Why are you giving this guy such a hard time?? Did he bully you in high school or something? You asked for more information and he told you the information he is able to tell and why. Even if he didn't have a full understanding of what happened the least you could do is help and correct, not demean and accuse. At this point you are obviously not contributing anything helpful to this matter. That being said...
I have also seen ads on Craigslist from local businesses that claim the same service and am interested on how they are able to achieve this.

I am interested in information also, however this doesn't seem to make sense if you read it carefully. First the guy takes the phone, then the story changes to he only needs the IMEI number. He is charging $40 but isn't promoting the service except to this store? So, if he can do the unlock this fast and easy, why go through a reseller? It is not a hardware unlock (Gevey) and can survive an update, but an Apple whitelist unlock takes a while to process, so it can't be that either.

I have some additional info, but will wait to see what develops in this thread before posting it.

"At this point you are obviously not contributing anything helpful to this matter. That being said..." Ditto

**theplayground** · 06-05-2012, 09:24 PM

I know Rogers only needs the IMEI to unlock Iphones. The last time I got my Iphone unlocked, they only asked me for the last 4 numbers of the IMEI. So this is possible, but how I wonder................

**bigdaddyaaron** · 06-05-2012, 09:37 PM

Originally Posted by daleraver

I am interested in information also, however this doesn't seem to make sense if you read it carefully. First the guy takes the phone, then the story changes to he only needs the IMEI number. He is charging $40 but isn't promoting the service except to this store? So, if he can do the unlock this fast and easy, why go through a reseller? It is not a hardware unlock (Gevey) and can survive an update, but an Apple whitelist unlock takes a while to process, so it can't be that either.

I have some additional info, but will wait to see what develops in this thread before posting it.

"At this point you are obviously not contributing anything helpful to this matter. That being said..." Ditto

Understood, but untill you know all the facts your judgement is premature. The op stated that the guy SAID all he needed was the imei. Him taking the phone really does not disprove that statement. If you ate lunch at McDonald's, does that automatically mean you ate McDonald's food? I'm not saying I'm in 100% belief with what happened, only that you shouldn't have been so quick to make a judgement. if you have/had other info disproving this, then By all means disprove it.
I was in fact contributing by consigning my interest in the topic.

**daleraver** · 06-06-2012, 05:49 AM

Ok, I might be premature in my "Rush To Judgement".

I will just wait this out and see how it ends. If I was wrong, I will appologize.

I have seen many troll posts on this and other forums, and this seemed to fit the general context of that profile, so I called out what I believed were inconsistencies in the post, asking for details.

**daleraver** · 06-08-2012, 06:53 AM

Well, a few days have passed since the OP has checked in.

I'll ask again for the name and contact info for the dude who did this "Miracle Unlock" up here in Portland. I'd like to contact him for the same service he supposedly gave the OP's boss, that is, a factory unlock in less than 30 minutes.