Now that I have a Powerbook, I’ve had bluetooth phone envy as of lately, especially after going to the recently re-organized Mac user’s group meeting and seeing a fellow his one set up for GPRS over bluetooth on Mac OS X. Having alredy spent an exorbitant amount of money already on the laptop, I decided to take the bargain route and pick up a phone on eBay. In fact, I found what seemed to be a pretty good deal: Sony Ericsson T68i (T-Mobile) TRI MODE CELL WORLD CELL, which was only $50 and has bluetooth functionality. So I plunk down the money and the phone finally arrived today. I take the phone out and slap my T-Mobile sim card into it, only to discover that my card is “invalid". “Oh no", I think, “Is the phone broken?", “Did my sim card finally break from changing it out of phones too often?", “Or wait.. is this phone still locked?”
My final thought is soon confirmed as I soon learn that my phone is still locked to AT&T, contrary to what the auction claimed. I’m going to have to get an unlocking kit in order to use it with T-Mobile, so I decided that I’d give the vendor one more chance before filing fraud charges, since the phone isn’t a bad deal for $50. I pointed out to the guy that I’d need an unlock code for the phone (actually, it turns out that I need a cable and some special software to fix the firmware, but that’s another story). Here’s his brief response nested in my reply:
Howdy,
On Feb 15, 2005, at 9:40 PM, tiennguyen@writeme.com wrote:
Unlock that mean you can put Valid Sim card in it working .I don t understand How you understand Unlock mean.(Turn on it display PUK )
Correct. An unlocked phone means that you may put a valid sim card in from any carrier and it will work properly, and that it does not require a password to use it with a valid sim card. However, this is not the case in the phone that you have sent me:
http://www.anatifero.us/t68i-pics/DSC_0003.JPG
If you note the top line:
Network (lock) 1
(This means that the phone is locked to a network still. Unlocked phones have an unlocked symbol in that place.)
This means that the phone is still locked to the AT&T network, which results in the following if you attempt to insert a card from another vendor such as T-Mobile:
http://www.anatifero.us/t68i-pics/DSC_0008.JPG
(The card is not an AT&T sim card and is therefore rejected by the phone)
Your auction (conveniently archived here: http://www.anatifero.us/t68i-pics/DSC_0010.JPG)
specifically states the following:
“This already UNLOCK so just put a valid sim card in ready to USED with T.mobie/ATT ,Cingular…". However, a phone call to AT&T and T-Mobile and my own attempts, as shown in the picture above, along with the phone itself saying that it is still locked proves otherwise.
I do understand that there are other types of locks, such as the SIM card lock and the phone’s pin lock. However, you specifically stated that it is ready to be used with T-Mobile/ATT, so I do not believe there was any ambiguity as to what you were offering.
Now I’m a fairly reasonable person and I don’t want this to be troublesome, so I’ll give you the following options:
1) You may reimburse me for the cost of making it usable on the T-Mobile network, as advertised, by sending me the $25 required to have it unlocked by a technician. I leave you good feedback and everyone is happy.
2) You refuse to make matters right and I file eBay/PayPal fraud charges and have them refund my money and you get negative feedback.
I’ll leave the choice up to you. If I don’t receive a reply within the next 48 hours, I will take the second course of action. I have more than adequate documentation to prove my case.
Regards,
William Reading
Update: Shortly after sending this off, the vendor refunded me $25 to get the phone unlocked. Success!
