Mobile locked to wrong provider - can I sort by Christmas?

[notasausage]

I have an unused upgrade from Vodafone that I want to give to my daughter for Christmas. Only I didn’t consider whether it would be locked to Vodafone and when I got a good deal on a sky mobile sim only I took it! Phone isn’t connecting to a network with the new sim in so I assume it’s locked. How do I sort this out so she has a phone number for Christmas Day?

I don’t know much about this but you see high street shops all over saying ‘phone unlocking’ which is what you’re after I think.

www.vodafone.co.uk/vodafone-uk/forms/unlock-code-request/

Takes 10 days though.

You could nip and get a payg vodaphone sim so she can recieve calls and use wifi, then port the number over to sky once it’s unlocked...

You can do it in a day by going to one of those shops/stalls. Shouldn't cost too much.

If all else fails they will be able to use it on WiFi anyway. Which IME is the functionality teens care about. They don't tend to do SMS and normal calls, it's all via WhatsApp.

If you have another phone in the house which is unlocked (any phone) you can stick the sim into that to activate it and receive the SMS code to activate WhatsApp on the Vodafone locked phone.

Sky runs off O2, if that helps.

It was about 3 years ago now, but I bought on unlock code from someone on ebay which arrived within a few hours. That sounds really dodgy but it worked fine and I've never had any issues as a result.

A phone repair shop might be able to do it for by Christmas but will charge you.

Vodafone will do it for free but can take up to 10 days. I requested codes for my own and DHs iPhones at the same time a week ago as we are changing from Vodafone to sim only deals with another provider.

Mine came through in 2 days, DH is still waiting for his.

You can buy the codes online through eBay. I’ve unlocked a few phones that way and normally receive the code within an hour.

Got a £10 sim from Vodafone to get me started - thanks for the suggestions