Everyone wants the option to unlock your phone. If you live in the US and have an AT&T branded cell phone, here are some ways you can get the code for free straight from the company. Why pay for something that you can get for free?

AT&T currently has 2 main categories of unlock requests. Requests from customers and requests from non-customers. Here is a break down of how you can get AT&T to unlock your AT&T branded equipment.

If you are a customer:
AT&T has several sub-categories for this. They basically break down to if you are under contract or if you are not under contract. If you are under contract, AT&T may still unlock your phone for you. If you tell them that you are going to be roaming internationally, and want to use a prepaid SIM while roaming, you could possibly still get your phone unlocked. You have to qualify for, and have an international roaming feature on the account. The feature can be a pay-per-use feature that has no monthly cost, but they still insist that you have this before they will unlock your phone for this reason. If you do not have international features on your account, customer service has to transfer you to their International Provisioning Center (IPC) to have any international features added. This option is dependant upon eligibility.
If you are not under contract, or you paid full price for the phone, you don’t have to jump through as many hoops. They will process the request for you. You may have to fax in proof of purchase if you paid full price for the phone. If you are a prepaid customer, you have to wait 90 days, and fax in a receipt showing the amount you paid for the phone. If you are a customer and neither of these scenarios sounds good to you, read on...

If you are not a customer:
You would think that it would be easier for AT&T customers to get their phone unlocked than non-customers, but that isn’t the case. If you are not a customer (or if you tell them you aren’t, HINT HINT) the process isn’t the same. They have procedures for processing unlock requests for non-customers who received their phones via 3rd parties (yard sale, eBay, etc.) You have to make sure your IMEI number isn’t currently active on an account. If you are a customer, you can simply call customer service up before you start this process and tell them you got a new phone, and tell them you want to update your IMEI number. Give them the IMEI number to your old phone, one of the 12 phones your aunt has stored in a drawer that she has collected over the past few years, etc. You may want to make sure that you are matching the same type of phone. (PDA, smartphone, etc., otherwise you could have an issue with any data features you have on your account.) When you call into customer service to start the unlock process, do NOT enter your cell phone number into the automated system. If you do this, it will bring your account up for the customer service rep to see. When the customer service rep answers, simply tell them that you won a phone off of eBay (or however you want to tell them that you got it) and give them a landline phone number as your mobile number and they will start the process. They will get your name and contact info so they can get the unlock code to you. Try not to give any duplicate info as far as addresses or phone numbers that may correspond with your AT&T account if you have one. You can use your work address, school address, etc. The contact info doesn’t really matter because you can choose to have the unlock code and unlock instructions emailed to you. Also, try to avoid telling them that you got the phone from a friend, or they may insist you get your friend’s account number to verify that they don’t owe a crap ton of money. Telling them you got the phone from eBay or from a yard sale is your best bet. They will create a new non-customer contact in their interaction screen, get your contact info, IMEI, and create a request for the unlock code. (Code requests, with the exception of Nokias, are emailed to the manufacturer for the unlock code. Nokia provides unlock boxes to the various carriers so they can get the codes for themselves.)

The obvious downsides to these methods are that it can take 5 days to get your unlock codes, and you may have to deal with reps who really don’t know what they are doing. And of course, they will NOT unlock the iPhone. I hope this helps someone. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.