Thank you everyone for such an incredible journey!
ReleaseMyCode has been providing unlocks since 2012! We were the first to specialize in unlocks directly to the consumer with a focus on the customer experience. One of the ways we did this was to provide 24-hour live chat with our team of support agents. Real people who actually care about each and every customer. This is why the vast majority of our customers came from referrals from carrier sales agents, customer service representatives at major carriers, and of course everyday consumers. We spent $0 on online advertising in over 6 years.
While others focused on wholesalers, we had the unique opportunity to focus on helping individuals who simply needed to use their phone with another carrier, whether they were traveling, or simply had to change plans.
The reasons to change plans are often based on things like moving outside of a service area, passing a phone down to a friend or family member, or simply wanting to sell a phone at a higher value. These are just a few of the many reasons why people need the ability to unlock their device for any reason that they would desire.
Phones are no longer simply subsidized in order to attract buyers as they were before. Phones that are reported lost or stolen can be disabled by the IMEI blacklist honored by the U.S., Canada, and other countries. Carriers have the ability to blacklist phones that are not fully paid off. There’s no reason to lock phones today, other than to force people to dispose of old phones in order to buy new ones. This is great for manufacturers and carriers, but unfortunately, it is terrible for consumers and our environment.
Over the last 3 years, we’ve seen a sharp decline in the ability of consumers to make their own choices. The ability to unlock phones remotely has dwindled into almost nothing. Many of our suppliers simply went out of business without any notice, often keeping large sums of deposits without the possibility of a refund. The remaining suppliers tend to offer manufacturer unlock codes for only legacy phones or make promises that they can only hope to fulfill.
In the last 6 months, we have been unable to find any reliable sources for our most popular unlocks by suppliers that could actually deliver within any sort of reasonable time. For this reason, we are ending this journey.
We encourage consumers to sell their devices on sites like Amazon, eBay, or Swappa, and then purchase new unlocked devices from sources that they can trust. Or simply donate your phones to charities that can use them in some way. You can often sell them on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or even at some value to a mobile phone repair store.
Please don’t let your mobile devices rot in boxes, drawers, or worse yet, landfills. There are many valuable resources even within phones that no longer work. Recycle any way you can. Most mobile device repair stores can accept a phone for recycling, and they’ll ship them off in bulk to people who know how to put them to use in one way or another.
Verizon has led the way in providing iPhones that are already unlocked. They have been doing this for years now, and hopefully, other carriers will feel the pressure and follow their lead. Ultimately, it is the consumer who decides. Insist that your phone is unlocked the moment it is paid in full, regardless of long-term service contracts.
After all, it’s your phone, keep it.
Thank you.