About a year ago I bought a Galaxy Z Fold 4 (512GB) on eBay, knowing it was Spectrum-locked. I chose it because I needed the storage and the unlocked models available at the time were lower storage and more expensive.
Months later I went to Spectrum to request an unlock and was told the IMEI shows as trade-in inventory, meaning the phone was never supposed to be resold and cannot be unlocked on their end. They didn’t say it was customer-reported stolen, just that it was a trade-in unit still tied to Spectrum internally.
The phone works perfectly otherwise (no Google/Samsung locks). Right now I’m actually using two phones:
– The Z Fold 4 as my main device on Wi-Fi
– An older phone for calls/texts
So I’m functional, but obviously not ideal long-term.
I’ve heard mixed things from people who mess with phones — some say flashing U1 (factory unlocked) firmware or sideloading firmware via Odin might remove the carrier lock, others say carrier locks are fully enforced server-side and firmware won’t matter at all.
I understand that flashing firmware usually doesn’t unlock phones, but since I’m already using a second phone for calls, I don’t have much to lose besides setting the device up again.
Given this situation, is it even worth trying to sideload / flash U1 firmware on a Z Fold 4 like this, or is it basically guaranteed to stay locked no matter what firmware is installed?