ds has forgotten his security pin for phone

[bruffin]

DS has a 3 contract phone. Long story but he was mugged and it was stolen. We bought him a new phone that was orange but we had it unlocked so it works with his sim.

He has set a security lock so you have to put a pin number on when it turns on etc which he has somehow forgotten Yesterday put the number in 3 times wrongly and the phone has now locked itself.

How do we get it unlocked again? Is it best to ring up 3

Where did you get the phone ? I suspect Three may be unable to help as they have no knowledge of this other phone if it was locked to Orange originally.

To be honest, having bought a number of s/h phones on Ebay (some locked, some not), most security locking seems like a bit of a money-maker to me when some networks will charge a fee for an unlock code...

Probably a market stall or mobile phone dealer will charge a tenner to unlock the phone, but may ask for proof of ownership (ie the box for the Orange phone).

However, a PAYG for Three can be had for about 30 quid from Three refurbished ZTE F102 : 2 MP camera, SD card storage, plays music, has Skype and Windows Live Messenger.

There's also the Three ZTE F107 at same price with a slight difference in audio formats (F102 handles Windows Media audio, F107 handles AAC) - both handle MP3s (and have camera, Skype, IM, etc, etc). F102 is silver, F107 is black.

F107 does video calls too, if that's important (?)

Sorry if I sound negative about fancy phones, but they do tend to be targets for theft, either from complete strangers, or just acquaintances linked by membership of same school / sports club / whatever. Hope DS wasn't badly hurt. I guess there's also a lot of peer pressure these days and a cheap phone without some features will give lads a chance to mock

Thanks

We are not spending any more on this phone than we did PAYG and we get a lot more for our money.

The boys who mugged him didn't know what phone he had as he had only just got off the train and these boys were not on it. They opened his blazer and went down his pockets.

The new phone was from ebay still sealed in packaging. I think I will take it to the shop that unlocked it from the network.

You probably need the PUK code.

I've done it plenty of times. I was always forgetting security codes. I just use the same one for everything now.

It's Three you need to contact if that is who the sim is with.

"They opened his blazer and went down his pockets."

Little b'stards. Sorry to hear they picked on him. I guess no-one else was on the platform at the time they stopped him, and of course without his phone he couldn't easily ring the police. Is there CCTV on that platform?

There can be up to three different security PINs as far as I know. I thought you were asked for the PUK number if the SIM was locked out (because it was in some other type of phone) but it sounded as if this was a security code on the phone to me. It might be worth visiting a Three store if at all possible and check whether the SIM is locked out of the Three network or not. If the SIM is OK, then there is no need for a PUK (did they charge you, ShinyAndNew ?) and the phone will still need to be unlocked.

Nope but DH worked for the company my phone was with at the time.

I don't recall Orange charging me though, when I did the same with previous phones but that was years ago.

It's a long story networkguy. He had just walked out the station with a friend, got round the corner when one boy came up behind him grabbed his rucksuck pulling him from behind and opened it, while the other threatened to punch him and went down his pockets.
DS called the police from friends phone and then me. They told him to wait by station. The police arrived about an hour later just as a boy had arrived at the station that looked similar to the one that went down ds's pockets. He was arrested but when the CCTV film showed that it wasn't him but police understand how ds could have mistaken him for mugger , there were a lot of other things going on at the same time which lead us to believe it was him.
They do have a clear picture of the suspects from cctv but it has taken a good month to get that. They know what school they go to so police are pretty sure they can find out who actually did it.

I thought it was the sim card that was locked but we put another sim card in and that wanted a code as well, so not so sure.

What does it say on the front of the phone? when mine was locked it always asked for a PUK code.

There's loads of stuff on the net about unlocking handsets if you know what model phone you have.

when you turn it on it just says

phone lock and shows the key pad to enter the number

also says "sos" at the bottom left hand corner

I have just looked up the manual on line and I am pretty sure this is the phone lock that DS has set his own code for. I need to talk to him tonight and find out what he thinks his code was.

Well I suppose the mugging could have been much worse, and fortunate friend still had his phone but shame police took so long (however, that's perhaps down to paperwork rather than being on beat, and once they do catch someone no longer a verbal warning and a smack!)

The 'sos' is there because phones will always accept 999 (and probably 112) even with no SIM in, or no credit on the SIM, for user to make an emergency call.

I just searched for "is PUK tied to phone or SIM" and every response I saw said PUK is tied to the SIM. Once phone has locked it may still ask for PIN even with another SIM. Perhaps best to locate the box for the phone, so it has all the details (IMEI, serial number, etc) and more to the point, indicates it was his phone, not one that has been found or was stolen ...

(must be lots taken to be unlocked at shops, and know he was the victim, but clearly using a Three SIM in a phone on Orange looks curious - all the phones I have had for Orange had the orange square on them as a logo).

Thanks for your help Networkguy and Shiney I took it into independant phone shop on the way home, they looked at and said it's not locked and just needs the correct password number in it. Just need to see if DS can remember it correctly.
It was originally unlocked from the network at their shop, they were ok when I said what had happened. They said they would sort it out if needed.

Just to say DS gave me his code entered it, it asked for PUK code then we rang 3 who gave us code and phone now working

thank you for your help

Glad things worked out for you both!

Hope he has written it down and won't forget it again!

Did 3 charge anything for the PUK ? (just nosey, no urgency)

No they didn't, I don't think DH even spoke to a human being it was a recorded message.

Been trying to get the whole story from him, but I don't think he actually forgot his number but was trying to put a password on his emails or somethng like that