Getting Your Phone Unlocked

A lot of people are recognizing the many benefits of purchasing a factory unlocked smartphone directly from the manufacturer. However, there are still customers that enjoy purchasing their expensive smartphones on contract in order to take advantage of significant cost savings in the form of subsidies.

Because of this, many of those customers are likely wondering how to effectively unlock their phone after fulfilling their contracts obligations. If your two years with your respective cell phone carrier is up and you are looking to potentially switch carriers, you are likely considering moving your phone along with you.

Below, we will be going over some of the ways that you can go about unlocking your phone…

Ways To Unlock Your Phone:

1. Call Your Carrier.

The best and easiest way to get your cell phone unlocked is by calling your carrier and letting them know that you want to unlock it. A majority of the carriers that you will be signed up for nowadays are going to be willing and able to unlock your phone.That is if you have completed the plan you signed up for. So for example, if you signed up for a year contract and were paying for your cell phone in installments and you have completed the contract, after that the phone is “legally” yours and they should unlock it for you.

And while they are typically willing, expect the process to be tedious and take up a lot of your time. Carriers tend to make this process long and drawn out because they know it typically signals the move to another carrier.

By calling in, you should be able to request a SIM unlock which will effectively unlock your phone to be used on other carriers. With that being said, if you are going to be unlocking it directly with your carrier, you will need to either fulfill the contract obligations that you signed when you bought the phone or you will need to meet the requirements of their specific unlocking policy.

Some carriers will unlock your phone prior to your contract ending and some might do so in as little as 40-60 days of ‘good standing.’

2. Third-Party Services.

This is another option that you have available to you if you are unable to get it unlocked with the carrier itself. Typically, you are going to need to pay upfront for the unlocking service. Because of this upfront payment, you are going to want to research the unlocking service beforehand and try to pay in a way that is going to offer you buyer protection.

Because of the nature of this type of service, you are going to want to try to utilize eBay and/or PayPal when getting it because it is going to allow you to have some sort of recourse if things don’t go as planned.

So for example, if you want to unlock your Galaxy smart phone, you can Google it and find a few different services that will give you the codes you need to unlock your phone. For example I could use unlock sprint galaxy s8 by Samphoneunlock.com. I simply make the payment and they will send the codes and instructions to do it myself.

Not every service is going to be effective at unlocking every type of phone with every carrier. Because of the variables at play, you want to be sure that you are paying in a way that offers you significant buyer protection in the event you don’t get your phone unlocked successfully.

3. Buy Unlocked.

The best way to ensure that you are able to get your phone unlocked properly is by purchasing unlocked, to begin with. If you are able to swing the cost difference, it might be worth it in the long run. While you can typically save a lot of money by getting your phone with a significant subsidy from a respective carrier, a lot of the times you are simply getting upfront savings only to pay more in the long run.

By having an unlocked phone at your disposal at all times, you will be able to pivot to different carriers with ease depending on whether or not they can offer you significant plan savings. Those that have unlocked phones from the start typically save every single month by getting cheaper rates.

Overall, there are different ways you can go about getting your carrier locked phone unlocked. By following the tips above, you should be able to have success at doing just that.