2 Messages
AT&T keeps cancelling my account, when I'm only trying to sign up to get my full-price phone unlocked
In January, I was at Target and bought an unlocked iPhone for my mother: full price, $800, etc. It turned out they sold me an AT&T locked phone, but I didn't know that at the time. She took with her back to England to put it on her account, but that never worked, so she sent it back to me.
I eventually figured out it was locked to AT&T, and I'd need to get it on AT&T service for a few months to unlock it. So I put it on Cricket Wireless, owned by AT&T, which worked fine. But when I talked to AT&T after that, they told me that Cricket wouldn't count, so I cancelled the Cricket account. Then I opened an AT&T Postpaid account, which was promptly cancelled five minutes later. Tried again? Same thing. Went into the store to try there? They got to the end... and told me they couldn't open the account and there wasn't anything I could do. Then my wife tried to get an account... which worked for all of eight hours, and was then cancelled by the end of the day.
Now when I look up the IMEI to try and unlock, it says "Unfortunately, the device you're trying to unlock is associated with fraud, so we can't unlock it."
So what can I do? I'm stuck here: I just want to unlock my full-priced phone. But you won't even take my money to open an account. I'm just not sure what on earth my next steps are.
formerlyknownas
ACE - Sage
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117.6K Messages
13 days ago
This is a customer populated forum.
And given the nature of most of the posts on this forum, I am immediately skeptical. And because I am skeptical I have to wonder what you left out...
Also, Target does not sell unlocked iPhones. Phone's sold by authorized resellers like Target Best buy and Walmart are sold under Apple's flex activation policy which means they lock to the first carrier they are activated on.
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jfk22
2 Messages
13 days ago
Well... that was not a helpful response. I don't know what you want me to say, bro?
And I think you might be right on Target -- but that wasn't clear to me at the time. What I asked for was an unlocked phone. What they gave me was that flex activation phone -- and that doesn't work if you try and activate on a non-US carrier. Which nobody seemed to know.
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ATTHelp
Community Support
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232.1K Messages
13 days ago
Hello @jfk22,
We comprehend the situation, and we would like to get you all the help needed.
The Community Forums are a public support option where other users, and AT&T, will try and assist with high level support needs. This means we won’t be able to look into account specific concerns. To get the help you need for your unique issue, please review our Contact Us page, and choose the best option to reach out to us. You can call, chat, or reach out via social media and we can review your specific issue and provide you support. If you feel your issue isn’t account specific, and can be answered generally, please let us know and we’ll be happy to help.
Hope this helps! Feel free to revert for any further questions.
Thanks for visiting AT&T Community Forums,
Gary, Community Forums Specialist.
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dwill05
ACE - Master
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10.6K Messages
13 days ago
No one here knows why they canceled your account or why it’s associated with fraud, or can do anything to change it. You have to contact AT&T.
https://www.att.com/support/contact-us/
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formerlyknownas
ACE - Sage
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117.6K Messages
12 days ago
I think the question might be did you already have an account, but you never paid on it, therefore the fraud block?
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OttoPylot
ACE - Expert
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24.4K Messages
12 days ago
@jfk22 As a side note, the AT&T kiosks in places like Target are independently owned and operated, totally separate from AT&T, and are not staffed with AT&T employees. Some are known to mislead a customer in order to make sale or leave out pertinent information. Once the order is passed on to AT&T, AT&T has no clue as to what was said and/or promised to the customer. And AT&T has no control over how these independents conduct their business practices.
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