Buying Galaxy S9 direct from Samsung-Unlocked or Locked to AT&T?

@lizdance40 why does sticking a prepaid sim card revoke your unlock eligibility? I never knew this was a “rule” an intentional practice. According to ATT this is a “mistake”. But me and you both know its a scam to keep phones which have been resold locked for longer. Infuriating customers and further destroying ATTs name. Im not sure if ATT really has a future anymore, so many companies are getting their act together because they see competition headed their way.

You fail to see the common problem here...  Apple...  It's a.problem between apple and att.   Att needs to do better....  But then again apple does to since they are allowing relocking of devices on their activation servers.  Apple has record of every phone ever unlocked.  Wether TMO Sprint or att.

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@JoeJohn wrote:

@lizdance40 why does sticking a prepaid sim card revoke your unlock eligibility? I never knew this was a “rule” an intentional practice. According to ATT this is a “mistake”. But me and you both know its a scam to keep phones which have been resold locked for longer. Infuriating customers and further destroying ATTs name. Im not sure if ATT really has a future anymore, so many companies are getting their act together because they see competition headed their way.

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@JoeJohn

It doesnt and no one said it does.  This is all computer driven.   The prepaid computer doesn’t know anything other than the phone is a locked device per the activation server (apple’s activation server).  

    If you don’t unlock an eligible phone before using on prepaid, you have to jump through hoops, proving you paid off the phone and previous postpaid Account, then you can get an exception.  

     If you bought a used phone, you take the risk there is potential obligations left on it.  It’s like buying a house with a lien on it.   ATT has the right to be paid off by the original owner.  If they didn’t pay off the phone or final bill, the financial obligations on the phone are not complete and ATT has EVERY RIGHT to refuse unlock.  If you buy a used phone that has not been paid off, ATT has every right to NEVER unlock it.  

@lizdance40 thats in accurate. ATT holds the rights to make an api call to apples servers to unlock any att factory locked iphone they please. Once the phone becomes unlocked, there is no api call that can be places to apples servers that can relock the phone. Lets say you get a phone thats tottally paid off and unlock eligible. You can set this phone up with your apple id if the previos owner has turned off find my iphone, this removes icloud activation lock. Now the user places a request to get it unlocked, they might get a response like “you have tried to unlock this device to many times try again in 30 days.” Now you stick a prepaid simcard thats on an account that has not been active for six months. Now you place another request to unlock and the response becomes “you cannot unlock this prepaid device till you have completed 6 months of service” this is an error which is purposely generated. If the user knows better (which most do if they read) they will remove the prepaid sim card call att to get this prepaid association that the att servers had made with the imei the prepaid card has associated with and been provisioned to. This is 100% easily replicated. Most ACE experts know this. It over writes the old eligibility in the ATT imei database with this 6 month prepaid crap. ATT unlock portal then refuses to make the unlock api call to apple carrier unlock servers.

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@JoeJohn wrote:

@lizdance40 thats in accurate. ATT holds the rights to make an api call to apples servers to unlock any att factory locked iphone they please. Once the phone becomes unlocked, there is no api call that can be places to apples servers that can relock the phone.

Correct

Lets say you get a phone thats tottally paid off and unlock eligible. You can set this phone up with your apple id if the previos owner has turned off find my iphone, this removes icloud activation lock. Now the user places a request to get it unlocked, they might get a response like “you have tried to unlock this device to many times try again in 30 days.”

They should not get that reply if it’s eligible. 

Now you stick a prepaid simcard thats on an account that has not been active for six months. Now you place another request to unlock and the response becomes “you cannot unlock this prepaid device till you have completed 6 months of service” this is an error which is purposely generated.

1.  The lock is on the phone, not Account.   If you have a previously eligible full priced phone, you can unlock it before 6 months.  But it’s a pain in the rear. 

No, it’s not an error.  This is a computer generated lock.  While the phone is eligible to be unlocked, it does not stop the prepaid auto lock.  

If the user knows better (which most do if they read) they will remove the prepaid sim card call att to get this prepaid association that the att servers had made with the imei the prepaid card has associated with and been provisioned to.

Wait....any phone sold as prepaid is not full price and will not be unlocked until they served out 6 months.  2 years ago unlocking first was possible, not anymore.  

This is 100% easily replicated. Most ACE experts know this. It over writes the old eligibility in the ATT imei database with this 6 month prepaid crap. ATT unlock portal then refuses to make the unlock api call to apple carrier unlock servers.

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That’s right.  A manual request has to be made, often with proof of purchase or previous eligibility.   

The problem is iphones are getting relocked that were sold unlocked.  To me this is something apple and att have to work out.  There is no reason a iPhone that was on Verizon should be locked to att prepaid.  Apples servers should know better.

Got the unlocked verson on AT&T.  After my experience getting an LG G4 via NEXT plan from AT&T I vowed I'd never buy a phone from them again.  The phone got significantly worse battery life than the unlocked versions, there was stupid stuff like SMS sync running I couldn't disable, stupid deathstar boot up and jingle, so much pre-installed crap like AT&T navigator that's absolutely worthless that you can't delete, an annoying NFC indicator (which is stupid because NFC doesn't use enough battery life to warrant an indicator), AT&T's stupid name taking up space in the status bar, they messed up my dialer app (killing off caller id in favor of their $5/month ripoff city id service and putting stupid extra buttons on there like AT&T visual voicemail and AT&T video calling) and they disabled features too!  The multi-user switcher was disabled and so was a quick glance clock feature!  Never again.  My S9 plus has none of that crap and costs less too.  Always buy unlocked if you can!  I even got mine on 24 month financing from best buy!

What makes no sense is all this crap was supposed to help carrier's recoup the losses as the subsidy from contracts wasn't enough, but now they are charging you the full price of the phone (which is significantly more than unlocked versions) and still putting all that crap on it.  EXTREME PROFIT!  

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@cormaster wrote:

Got the unlocked verson on AT&T.  After my experience getting an LG G4 via NEXT plan from AT&T I vowed I'd never buy a phone from them again.  The phone got significantly worse battery life than the unlocked versions, there was stupid stuff like SMS sync running I couldn't disable, stupid deathstar boot up and jingle, so much pre-installed crap like AT&T navigator that's absolutely worthless that you can't delete, an annoying NFC indicator (which is stupid because NFC doesn't use enough battery life to warrant an indicator), AT&T's stupid name taking up space in the status bar, they messed up my dialer app (killing off caller id in favor of their $5/month ripoff city id service and putting stupid extra buttons on there like AT&T visual voicemail and AT&T video calling) and they disabled features too!  The multi-user switcher was disabled and so was a quick glance clock feature!  Never again.  My S9 plus has none of that crap and costs less too.  Always buy unlocked if you can!  I even got mine on 24 month financing from best buy!

 

What makes no sense is all this crap was supposed to help carrier's recoup the losses as the subsidy from contracts wasn't enough, but now they are charging you the full price of the phone (which is significantly more than unlocked versions) and still putting all that crap on it.  EXTREME PROFIT!  

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@cormaster

actually the att version was cheaper from samsung for almost a month..  Now its the same price as the unlocked version on samsung.com.  The things you are missing like wifi calling are important to some folks.  Plus all the bloat that was on older phones does not exist today...  And any stuff that was added can be disabled.

Pre-ordered an unlocked 128 Gig 9+ and received on May 17. Transfered sim from AT&T S7 and ran Samsung's Smart Switch.  Got everything except WIFI Calling and Visual Voice mail initially.  Last couple of days have lost mms send and receive.  Did work sending on May 19 but not now.  Tried setting up 'Program data settings for non-AT&T Android device' APN with no improvement.  Probably should have ordered the AT&T phone.

Lol all ylur buying is a upgraded camera the s9 is really s8 with a new camera just wait for the s10 it should be here anyday