Verizon is playing a bizarre game of policy whack-a-mole with its phone unlocking rules, and honestly, it’s getting ridiculous. After reports surfaced about a new 35-day waiting period for customers who pay off their phones early, the carrier now says it’s working to eliminate the delay “really soon.” But here’s the thing: they won’t say when, and their own website can’t seem to agree on what the actual policy is.
If you’re trying to follow along at home, good luck. The rules have changed multiple times in just the past few weeks, with different versions appearing on different pages of Verizon’s own website. It’s the kind of mess that makes you wonder if anyone at the company is actually coordinating this rollout.
The 35-Day Wait Nobody Asked For
Here’s what sparked all this drama. Verizon recently updated its device unlocking policy for postpaid customers, adding a 35-day waiting period after you pay off your phone’s remaining balance. This applies whether you pay online, through the Verizon app, over the phone, or at an authorized retailer. Basically, every payment method except walking into an actual Verizon corporate store.
The company says this is all about fraud prevention, which sure, that’s a legitimate concern in the technology industry. But it’s hard not to notice how convenient it is that this “anti-fraud” measure also happens to make it harder for customers to switch carriers. Pay off your phone and want to jump to T-Mobile? Cool, wait 35 days first.
The only ways to get immediate unlocking right now are paying at a Verizon corporate store (because apparently their in-store systems can magically validate transactions that their website can’t) or paying off your installment plan on schedule through autopay. If you’re halfway through one of those lovely 36-month payment plans and decide to pay it off early? Enjoy your waiting period.
“Really Soon” Means Nothing
When Android Authority reached out, Verizon gave them a statement acknowledging the “pain point” and promising immediate unlocking for all payment methods “really soon.” They even said their teams are “diligently working” on it. You know what’s missing from that statement? Literally any timeline whatsoever.
PCMag later reported getting word that the change could happen in “several weeks,” with Verizon planning to add extra authentication layers for credit card payments on their website. That’s slightly more specific, but we’re still talking about weeks of waiting to fix a problem the company created for itself.
What makes this whole situation even more frustrating is that Verizon didn’t bother mentioning any of this when Ars Technica first contacted them last Friday. They confirmed the policy existed, shrugged, and moved on. No “hey, we’re working on fixing this” or anything. Only after other outlets started digging did the “really soon” promises start flowing.
A Policy Page Disaster
The confusion isn’t just about when things will change. It’s about what the rules even are right now. Verizon’s device unlocking policy page has been updated multiple times with different effective dates and contradictory language. The version shown to people ordering phones says the 35-day delay only applies to gift card payments. The main policy page tells a completely different story.
As of today, Verizon updated the policy yet again and changed the effective date to February 18. This new version talks about requiring a “secure payment method” for immediate unlocking but conveniently doesn’t define what that means in the policy itself. You have to dig through a separate FAQ to discover it basically means “pay at a corporate store.”
This is the kind of thing that happens when business decisions get made without proper coordination across teams. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, and customers are stuck in the middle trying to figure out what rules actually apply to them.
How We Got Here
Verizon used to have the best unlocking policy among major carriers. Phones unlocked after just 60 days, no strings attached. This wasn’t out of the goodness of their hearts though. It was because of restrictions tied to their 700 MHz spectrum licenses and merger conditions from buying TracFone.
They even briefly sold phones that were already unlocked. But in 2019, Verizon got an FCC waiver letting them lock phones for 60 days to fight fraud. Then they decided 60 days wasn’t enough and got another waiver last month that removed the unlocking requirement entirely. Now we’re dealing with the fallout of that decision.
The irony is that Verizon’s competitors aren’t even this restrictive. AT&T unlocks postpaid phones after 60 days once they’re paid off. T-Mobile does it after 40 days. Both have their own annoying requirements, sure, but at least their policies are relatively straightforward and consistent.
What This Really Means
Let’s be real about what’s happening here. Verizon got permission to lock phones longer and immediately started making it harder for customers to leave. The “fraud prevention” angle might have some merit, but it’s awfully convenient that the most fraud-prone payment methods somehow include their own website and app.
The constant policy changes and inconsistent information across different pages suggest this rollout wasn’t properly thought through. Either that or someone decided to be deliberately vague about the restrictions while testing how much pushback they’d get. Neither scenario reflects well on Verizon’s technology operations or customer service priorities.
For prepaid customers, things are even worse. Verizon requires a full year of paid service before unlocking, which matches T-Mobile’s prepaid policy but is twice as long as AT&T’s six-month requirement. If you’re on prepaid and need to switch carriers for any reason, you’re basically stuck.
The whole situation raises questions about whether carriers should have this much control over devices customers have fully paid for in the first place.
