Verizon S5 no longer Unlocked after sending phone to Samsung for repair, how can I get it working again?

[AzAssassin]

Verizon S5 no longer Unlocked after sending phone to Samsung for repair

Tl;dr: I recently sent my Verizon Galaxy S5 (SM-G900V) to Samsung to get repaired/looked at and after I got the phone back, it seems to no longer be an unlocked device, as it will not recognize my T-Mobile SIM card anymore (it did before I sent it to Samsung).

After calling Samsung and waiting on hold for over an hour, I was told by a supervisor in Technical Support that Samsung does some sort of software flashing whenever they receive a phone to be worked on, and that this "software flash" must have caused the phone to lose its unlocked status. She also said that she has no idea how Verizon unlocks their phones, as Samsung phones are shipped out to Verizon as devices locked to only work with Verizon (or whichever carrier they are being sold to).

Also, I believe that everything on this phone is stock and it's currently running Android 5.0.

Does anyone know of a way for me to get this Galaxy S5 SIM card carrier unlocked again?

Particularly, is there a way for me to download/install something and accomplish this myself?

As always, helpful replies will be sincerely appreciated!

 

[karlovac]

Re: Verizon S5 no longer Unlocked after sending phone to Samsung for repair

Did you ever solve this issue? I have exactly the same problem, although my main carrier is T-Mobile:

• T-Mobile sent me unlock code for my Galaxy S5 in June 2015.
• Samsung repaired my phone in November 2015.
• This (June 2016) is the first time I've tried to use a non-T-Mobile SIM, and the phone is now locked.

I've spoken to T-Mobile several times in the last week, and they have been extremely helpful. (Seriously, they have amazing support staff). But they keep sending me the same unlock code as they did in 2015, because the phone's IMEI number is the same as it was before.

I called Samsung, waited for ages too, and they said that they would put in a request to get it unlocked, but it would take 3 days. Samsung kept telling me to call T-Mobile, so I'm not really optimistic. (They had the phone last, after all).

 

[karlovac]

Re: Verizon S5 no longer Unlocked after sending phone to Samsung for repair

Just an update in case people in the same situation stumble on this thread:

I was able to get my phone unlocked eventually by using a USB-based unlocking service, from fast gsm. This involved installing a couple of Windows-only tools, and plugging my phone in while it unlocked it. I had to contact their support, who were responsive, because the tool at first wouldn't accept my Android version (6.0), but they gave me some other steps and another package to download, and it worked.