Originally Posted by
msp3
That specific example gave me a chuckle. Every time Best Buy, Target, etc have some sort of crazy sale the Slickdeals reseller scum set all come out of the woodwork and buy as many phones as they can then proceed to cancel the lines next day screwing over the sales reps and Best Buy's numbers, which in the long run kills all the cell phone deals for everyone.
Frankly people who do this deserve exactly what they get (plus the well-deserved SSN bans from Best Buy's cell phone sales system and from the carrier itself). In your specific situation, there have been examples on Apple unlocking after T-Mobile and the carrier the iPhone is supposed to be registered to corroborating your story, but you'll have to find reps who give a .... and speak English for that which is a tall order in itself...
The reseller SIM lock is called US Reseller Flex Policy and applies to all carriers except Verizon which cannot lock post paid phones as a condition of a spectrum purchase for LTE. My iPhone purchased from Best Buy locked to AT&T because of this policy. I submitted an unlock request to AT&T after meeting the unlock requirements. I received an email a few hours later informing me my iPhone was unlocked.
If the phone is purchased at list price from Best Buy, Target, Walmart etc with no carrier subsidy or finance plans, the US Reseller Flex Policy still applies to the first SIM inserted. The phone will lock to the carrier SIM (except Verizon post paid but not Verizon prepaid) inserted including MVNOs. The lock has nothing to do with the canceling lines or trying to stiff the retailers. Best Buy only carries one model of the iphone which are all unlocked until a SIM is inserted.
Inserting a Verizon post paid SIM in the iPhone would prevent the US Reseller Flex Policy from being applied to the iPhone. The store reps know this and will insert the carrier SIM if the iPhone is being financed or subsidized.