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My friend purchased two iPhone 4S's in London. The salesman in London refuses to unlock the devices since you need a UK credit card, which my friend doesn't have.

Is it possible to unlock the devices when he gets back to Denmark, in a Danish phone store? Or should he refund the device before heading home on Sunday?

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authorisediphoneunlock.com seems to indicate they will take money in exchange for convincing the telecom to actually unlock the device. I have no way of knowing if this is legitimate or reliable, but Apple generally lets the carriers handle unlocking on their end and only acts as a middle man for letting iTunes determine if a device being restored should be locked or unlocked. – bmike♦ Oct 21 '11 at 17:59
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How on earth did he manage to buy carrier-locked phones without a carrier-subscription in the first place? Sounds fishy if you ask me? What I mean by that is that if the phones are locked to O2 (as an example), why are someone selling them without O2 subscriptions in the first place, for which you'll need a UK address to begin with. – Lasse V. Karlsen Oct 21 '11 at 18:10
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My friend has refunded the phones. He first tried purchacing in the Apple store, but it was out or something, so he tried another company afterwards which I don't know. There is nothing illegal going on, but I am not a lawyer. It is very common in denmark to purchase iPhones outside denmark. – neoneye Oct 21 '11 at 18:28
@neoneye Are there still no Apple Stores in Denmark ? – Simon Apr 11 at 11:41

2 Answers

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If it's carrier locked, only the carrier it's locked to can unlock it.

If you want an unlock phone, the easiest way to get one is buying directly from Apple. These factory unlocked phones will unlock as soon as you connect them to iTunes (and with iOS 5 possibly the first time you turn it on).

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The easiest thing to do, is to go to an Apple store, and actually purchase an already unlocked IPhone. The only other way to unlock it, is to send it to an Apple factory to have them unlock it for you. It's part of the proprietary rights thing that Apple has. They've restricted all actual cell-phone companies from unlocking the phones, just because they didn't want to give out the information of HOW to unlock them.

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