I got a phone through my ex who worked at spectrum and got me a discount. The service barely functioned so I wanted to switch services and only pay them for the cost of the device.
Well, she flew off the handle and locked me out of the account (I had previously had access, but guess I wasn’t the primary holder). I called my bank and blocked them from charging my card anymore so I’m not paying for a useless device, but in the meantime, I can’t get new service on the device because it’s sim is carrier locked to Spectrum, something illegal in canada and mostly banned in the EU but Americans just can’t get enough enshittification so here I am with this problem spectrum has conjured out of thin air. I called spectrum to see if I could pay off the phone and have it unlocked, but as I was removed from the account, they wouldn’t tell me anything, despite my card being on file. Now she’s gonna be stuck with the remaining debt (I paid off about half of it as well as the service) but she seems willing to be in debt to spite me, it was messy.
I was looking into r-sim, but the sources I found seemed like scams. Any advice here beyond “treat it like a fancy ipod you spend hundred on, and spend hundreds on a new phone”? It’s a US based iphone 16 so there is not tray for a physical sim. I’ve thought about going to a sketchy phone shop to see if they’ll install a sim tray, but being tied to the imei, I doubt that would even work.