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Rant re: a not-unlocked unlocked cell phone

jtgibson
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I wrote up this question for the CCTS after being rather miffed by Rogers flatly refusing to unlock a phone I had purchased from a third party, and I like it enough that I thought I'd share.  There's no question here, or at least, not one for any non-regulatory body... just me venting spleen at Rogers for being, well, Rogers. 😉  (My previous lowest-cost-prepaid-plan provider was Virgin Mobile/Bell, which I jumped ship from when they unilaterally started charging monthly activation fees, inflated my per-minute fee by a third, and increased the annual prepaid cost to a minimum of $150.  I don't get cheaper than that here, but at least I feel more confident that I'm getting exactly what I'm paying for. =))

 

"Is it possible to require a service provider to unlock a phone that is locked to their network, non-blacklisted, and never activated by anyone else, if I am not a customer of that service provider?

 

I currently have a cell phone I purchased on the Best Buy Marketplace from (what I noticed far too late) a numbered company, 9723501 Canada Limited (dba ATDMKT).  The product was described as an "LG K4 2017 M151 8GB Black Unlocked Android Smartphone", and was shipped and delivered without direct fraud, but is in fact network-locked to the Rogers Network, and will not activate on my own network (which is based on the Telus network).

 

* My service provider (Public Mobile) claims they are unable to unlock anything except the SIM card itself.

* The phone manufacturer (LG) has asserted that this is not caused by the phone itself -- they were helpful enough to identify that the phone's IMEI is currently registered to the Rogers network.
* Rogers technical support has refused to unlock this cell phone as I am not (and never was) a Rogers Wireless customer.

 

As I understand it, the seller is the one who is required by law to unlock the device or provide unlocking instructions.  I am attempting to contact the seller.

 

However, I am curious as to why national service providers are not required to unlock phones upon request from a current lawful owner of a device, rather than "the customer".  It seems that they are fulfilling the letter but not the spirit of the law if they refuse to unlock devices with one degree of separation from the original purchaser.  If the seller refuses contact or forces me to take legal action on principle, it seems even more suspect that I may have to rely on a third-party unlocking service and pay for a service that is mandated free."

 

I do want to thank both Public Mobile's Moderator_Team and LG Canada for making this frustrating time a little less frustrating. 😉

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